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Original poster

I really fucking love books

162 replies

MrsMakka · 29/04/2017 19:31

I do. They are the one constant in my life, they've never let me down. It doesn't matter what happens during the day, 7.30pm, DC in bed,out comes the pile (or the Kindle).

I don't have money for holidays - doesn't matter because after 7.30 I can travel to any country I like, and some that don't even exist. When there's no happy endings in real life, open a book and you're swimming in them.

I love them. They're the best things ever. My life would be a barren, lonely wasteland without them. Books have given me so much. Wonderful, clever people out there have written them just to enrich my life, to give me pleasure, or knowledge, to help me relax, mostly for free as their book costs me nothing from the library (or £2.81 from Amazon at the most)

Fabulous bloody things.

OP posts:
SplitInfinitive · 29/04/2017 20:35

I really wish DD was a reader but she has Aspergers and seems to have difficulties in processing stories. She doesn't seem able to follow plotlines. I do still try by reading to her but she is resistant.

However DS lives being read to and we have a huge pile of books (and kindle books) waiting to be devoured. I love reading aloud to him :)

DH is a big reader too. The shelves are groaning under the weight!

Original poster
MrsMakka · 29/04/2017 20:33

I dream of a library. DH says if we can get an extension next year we can have a library where there'd usually be a utility room.

I'll go for recommendations! Some new, some old, all read and enjoyed recently

The Phantom Tree
Sunset Song
Uprooted
Longbourn
In the Heart of the Sea
Mary Barton
Ragnorak
Star of the Sea
Sparta

OP posts:
RabidHarpy · 29/04/2017 20:33

Recently I went on a flaming horrible date. Happily it was only for coffee as he said "I haven't ever finished a book" and smiled as if he had said something charming. Shock

Can't remember a time before reading. When you are in to a book very little compares in real life.

pissflaps45 · 29/04/2017 20:31

I work in a huge city library as my second job. Its fab. Get paid to choose books, talk to customers about books and best of all sniff the new ones!. Love the smell of a new book.

BarbaraofSeville · 29/04/2017 20:31

Reading on a kindle is nothing like reading on a screen. It looks exactly like a book. I also like that I can read in bed in the dark on my paperwhite.

I only ever pay a pound or two for all my kindle books because I have my wishlist saved to ereaderiq, which tells me when the price drops. My kindle has more than paid for itself because I've had so many books very cheaply, even new and popular ones, not just self published rubbish.

I like reading, not books - they are just dusty clutter. I like that I can have hundreds of books that take up no space at all.

girlandboy · 29/04/2017 20:30

KindergartenKop is it The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis? If so, I've read that one! In fact I've read absolutely loads of time travel or time slip books! Brilliant stuff Smile

FluttershyStare · 29/04/2017 20:30

I am very jealous Carrie, I'd love a library room!

I have a new book due out next week, and I'm slightly ashamed to admit..... it's entirely an equal amount of excitement to get it as it is to have my 12 week scan (also next week)

I've been waiting a year for that book

MiddlingMum · 29/04/2017 20:30

Some of our friends describe our house as a lived-in library Smile Books have been a constant all through my life. When I moved to a new city and didn't know anyone or anything, the first thing I did was explore the bookshops. I always read before going to sleep, and find excuses to read a few more pages during the day.

Fairly near us there's a massive building project going on. I went past the other day and one of the workmen was sitting on an upturned bucket, leaning back against some hoardings, completely engrossed in a paperback. I'm guessing it was his break and that's how he preferred to spend it. He had noise and traffic all around him but seemed totally oblivious.

Destinysdaughter · 29/04/2017 20:29

Does anyone want to recommend books they've enjoyed recently? One of mine is Americanah, such a warm and insightful novel

Original poster
MrsMakka · 29/04/2017 20:29

Does it have to be any particular era? Would The Woman in White be any good? He might find it a bit stodgy and Victorian....I loved it but I'm a boring fucker. They're doing a film of it at the minute!

OP posts:
CoolCarrie · 29/04/2017 20:27

I am lucky enough to have a library room in our house, DH had the shelves put in when I was visiting friends for the weekend and came back to a house, that was now a home.

birdsdestiny · 29/04/2017 20:27

I love reading, I felt really sad that ds 1 wasnt a reader but I have recently bought him 'A monster calls' and the other day he said I don't want to go out today I want to read that book. He spent hours on the sofa reading, and afterwards he wanted to talk about it with me. It was one of my best parenting moments!

Badders123 · 29/04/2017 20:25

Evelyn Waugh would be a good choice

OCSockOrphanage · 29/04/2017 20:24

That said, DS is loving his English A level (it's the aspects of crime version). However, he needs a novelist to read, who has to be English or British, first language, for A2. He was thinking H P Lovecraft and the American Gothic tradition but it doesn't fit because it's American. Any ideas? I am thinking/suggesting Evelyn Waugh or Pat Barker. Any other serious but very readable suggestions?

squishysquirmy · 29/04/2017 20:24

Me too!
Its the perfect escapism. I've always loved fiction, but within the last year or so I've got into poetry (just whatever I pick up in the library) and that's opened up a whole new world.
Sometimes I worry that I find it too easy to escape into a book, iyswim? I worry that if I'm not disciplined I will neglect the real world.

ShamefulDodger · 29/04/2017 20:24

I love reading books 😁

So much so I've written quite a few of my own (not published, I just like doing it...and then reading them)

Poor DH despairs, I've got books, notes and files spilling out of every room of the house except where the children roam, they are destroyers of books, I give them the cardboard ones Grin

Destinysdaughter · 29/04/2017 20:24

Agree about kindle, it's convenient, especially for travelling but v expensive for books now. There's also so much shite on them!

ScarlettDarling · 29/04/2017 20:23

MrsMakka I'm in complete agreement about the cracking YA stuff around now. When I think of the dross I read as a teen (Sweet Valley High anyone?) I am thrilled that my own dc have such a load of great stuff around to keep them reading.

Whatthefoxgoingon · 29/04/2017 20:21

Totally agree with you OP. Another bookworm here. I am lucky to have a library at home, full to the brim. I refused to buy a house without a room I could dedicate to floor to ceiling shelves. Can't stand reading on a screen though!

I like time travel. Any recommendations?

allthatnonsense · 29/04/2017 20:21

I just dream about books, about having more time to read books.
I find myself eyeing up new places for cosy book reading nooks.

Original poster
MrsMakka · 29/04/2017 20:20

I would believe that Mitzy. I do love my kindle, but if I really love a book I want to buy it in hardcopy as well. This is shallow, but I've noticed a lot of books recently have really beautiful covers - The Essex Serpent for example. I first got it on Kindle, but I bought it in hardcopy as well because as well as being a book I love /will reread, it's a beautiful object in itself.

Also a lot of kindle books are just too expensive considering you're not getting something you can touch. I will happily pay £ 7 for something I can hold in my hand, but not for a digital copy. Kindle used to be cheaper than new paperbacks and now it isn't - so you might as well get the paper back

OP posts:
Destinysdaughter · 29/04/2017 20:19

I really enjoy modern literature, I find it helps me make sense of the world. There's also so many v good female authors around these days.

OCSockOrphanage · 29/04/2017 20:17

destinysdaughter, agreed. A level English is a pleasure drain, so I didn't grit my teeth through the pain to an english lit degree. But it's mostly about fiction, and I like non-fiction just as much so I read other stuff.

Original poster
MrsMakka · 29/04/2017 20:15

I'm increasingly finding that YA hits the spot when "adult" books don't. The quality of some YA literature is fantastic, yet you get the sense the author isn't having to look over their shoulder at critics/reviews all the time. So they can cut loose and really go to town, without having to worry about their voice, or what they're saying about modern society and relationships blah blah.

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OCSockOrphanage · 29/04/2017 20:14

Solace is between the pages. If it's new, it's exciting. If you've read it before, it's soothing (and you can put it down to go back to sleep) or it takes you into a world, real or imagined, that's history, or fact, or a story. And information... if anyone knows something important, it's written down for you, you to follow the journey.