Books have been an integral part of me from a very young age. I remember when I was in Primary School I was in total awe of my elder sister , Didi’s books. She was always immersed in some book or the other. If I asked her anything, she would answer after about 5 minutes. That’s the amount of time it took for her to divert her mind from what she is reading process that I am talking!
Enid Blyton books
Anyway, ever since those days, I was in awe of all the books that she used to read! There was one author, whose books used to make me stare at the book cover for prolonged periods! That is because I could not pronounce the author’s name because of the font it was written in. That book was the Sea of Adventures by Enid Blyton. In the book cover, E of Enid was written in cursive and I would read it as G! So how do you pronounce Gnid?? I would stare at the book and wonder and wonder!
However things changed pretty fast after that. I could read much better. I confirmed from Didi that it is Enid rather than Gnid, and then there was no holding me back. It would be less to say that I inhaled all the Enid Blyton books in our home library shelves. But that was not enough. I wanted more. My neighborhood friends and me, we set up a mini lending library system together with detailed book exchange schemes. What fun days those were.
The perfect summer holiday afternoon for me after Maa went to office was me spending quality time with unlimited number of books to read.
Ohh the pleasure of reading in those days! The wonder of getting to know new things in the yellowed pages of the books was unparalleled. Those were the pre- Internet days. Knowledge gathering for us was primarily from books and friends.
The feeling that I have a new book to read, that was the best feeling in the world in those days. Till date that feeling is still there, though the pleasure is a bit dampened due to the vagaries of life. Time is at a premium in our busy and hectic lives. I make it a priority to take out time to read. However hurried life is.
In the beginning of 2024 and the following 5 to 6 months our lives were extremely tumultuous. It felt like we survived through.a super cyclone. We were both hospitalised for different medical issues in our new place that of posting i.e Shillong.
Now Shillong and Meghalaya as a whole is a very beautiful place with the apt name of Scotland of the East. But health facilities and getting anywhere is a huge challenge here.
When I was nearly bedridden for a couple of months, my books and Kindle were my savior. I devoured or you may say I inhaled the books. Kindle unlimited subscription felt like a boon. Reading helped me forget the pain and also rebuild myself bit by bit.
I will share below a pictorial account of all the books that I have read in the year 2024.
This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon 2024
Thank you. I always hoped you would read books .