Books

I don't remember how old I was when I started reading, but I do have a photograph of me, aged 4.5, holding a children's book I'd borrowed from a neighbour. I don't remember having a lot of books that were my own at that time, although I must have done, I just don't remember them.

On the beautiful and memorable day that was to be my eighth birthday, my wonderful, most special and bestest auntie in the world gave me a present that ‘will last a lifetime and will grow in value, but in the meantime would be treasured and enjoyed' and that my parents argued I was far to young for - an entire collection of books by the most famous children's author of the day and the place.

It was a day very long ago in a place far far away although arguably not as far away as the kingdom of Far Far Away where Princess Fiona and Shrek live, though I digress.

It was true, I was far too young for any of the books in collection, save perhaps one, which I'd read and re-read about 200 times by the time I was mature enough to move onto its siblings. It was also true that the gift was far too extravagant, as were all the gifts my wonderful auntie gave me before and since.

The books were bound in red leather. On the front cover, the title, the author's name and the name of the publisher were embossed in gold. On the spines, the red leather was hardly visible from the layer upon layer of thin gold lines. And inside, each book had it's own, silk threaded bookmark, woven into the spine, never to be lost.

Had I been capable of thinking of heaven and death, I am sure I would have thought that I had died and gone to heaven.

Instead, I spent hours rapturously caressing these treasures, at first, with my eyes only, for fear that I will somehow break and spoil their loveliness like I did with so many toys. Then, later, when I gained in confidence and worldly wisdom, I'd run my fingers lightly over their spines or just hold them, feeling the cool leather on my palms, eyes closed, my brain melted, as if from a spoonful of Nutella.

Years passed and I read all the books in my collection and then some. I read my mother’s antique copy of Little Women so many times that all the pages fell out and it took me three days to put them all back in order. And then I read it again. I read my parents books; Camus, Kafka, Sartre, Ibsen, Hardy, Kerouac, Melville and even, once Freud (I wouldn’t recommend it at 12, it’s a bit startling and, as it turns out, misleading plus mother did tell me to start with Jung as he was ‘easier’).

As I grew, I devoured entire libraries, like some child tsunami; always an apple in one hand, book in the other. Sometimes, days would pass with me blissfully lost in a book, just like my heroine, Jo March. Sometimes, I’d sneak the books into school and read surreptitiously under the desk and at recess when everyone else was chasing each other up and down the corridors.

I never grew out of it. I don’t think it’s possible. I’ve spoken to others, crazy, like me. They too recall many a time when they had to call in sick at work because the previous night had been given over to a good book.

I love books. Old or new, paperback or hardback, trashy or classy. I love them all.

And I will never forget the awe of that first, devilishly red and all mine, bounty of books.