Happy World Book Day

It is World Book Day, not in Denmark, in Britain. But I am more than happy to celebrate books every day of the year if I could no matter in what country.

So books huh? Pages of words that opens up worlds that are scary or delightful, fantastic or dreary. They are all an escape from reality even when they resemble it quite well.

It has never mattered to me in what format a book is in. Hardback – Paperback – E-book. I don’t care. I would read books if they were printed on toilet paper. It is the words that make up the story that counts (*), and not the package that contain them.  But at the same time, as self-contradictory it might seem, I love owning them. Especially when when I was younger I loved owning those packages, lining them up on my shelves and fiddling with how they were ordered. Author vs Title? Hardback vs Paperback. Tallest books first or last? Of all my stuff I had as a teenager I was most proud of my books.

Most of the time I borrowed my books at the library, only filling my stacks temporarily (**). It wasn’t very satisfactory handing them back, I wanted them on my shelf forever, to pull back down to re-read if they were good enough. But books are expensive in Denmark. A new book, Danish or translated, in hardback will easily cost around 300 kroner (equals to $40-50). There’s no way I can feed my addiction at that price. Not when I was a student and not now, when I work my butt off to pay the mortgage and loans and what have you. When I was younger I resorted to mail order book deals, where I would get 1-2-3 books for free against having to buy at least one or two over the span of a year, at full price. I got some great books that way, but I always forgot to cancel the monthly book and thus ended up with books I either couldn’t pay or didn’t want. So that wasn’t a very viable way to gather books.

Then I moved to Greece for a year and discovered english language paperbacks. There was this small shop filled with books priced so I could afford to buy one every week and still have money enough left over to go to the movies once or twice a week. The shop was in a small back alley close to the marina in Piraeus, and whenever I had the time I would walk to the shop, buy a book and then go sit on the low white wall that edged the marina reading for an hour or two.(***).

Once home I started scouring our local bookshops for imported paperbacks which were more affordable at 100-120 kroner (which is $20 at the current rates). But that was not enough either, the selection was limited to say the least, booksellers didn’t want to import books they weren’t sure would sell and I could never really fully satisfy my need to browse for new authors or new books by beloved authors.

Thankfully the internet happened, Amazon happened. Books priced at £5+, a little bit of p&p on top and new books were in my possession.

The Kindle appeared. Oh how I wanted one. Imagine having your entire library with you at all times. Imagine buying a book and within seconds it was virtually in your hands. No hellish two week wait. Instant gratification! HEAVEN!

5 years ago when I finally had the money to buy an e-reader I couldn’t get the Kindle. But I got a Sony Reader instead, which served me well for close to three years before the world of E-books started go a little weird! I usually bought my books on Waterstones.co.uk or whsmith.co.uk. Until they decided they didn’t want to  to sell to me because I was a few hundred miles across the wrong sea.

Buying books before e-books were troublesome because of price, lack of choice or time of delivery, now it was difficult because of reasons still not really clear to me. The internet was depriving me of my english language books. but for the love of god, why? Nobody has really explained this to me in a way that I can accept as reasonable. A book is a book (in my opinion) whether it is made of paper or small pixels.

For awhile I actually considered downloading and reading pirated books, threatening to undermine everything I hold true as a reader and a wanna-be writer. If I don’t pay for the book, the authors I love won’t get paid. Its another discussion, but at desperate times I seriously considered it. If the booksellers didn’t want to sell to me why should I care if I stole from them. I never got around to it because I am too conscientious. and I am glad because…

…then my beloved Kindle finally made it to Europe. For what equals 3-4 new danish hardbacks I bought a Kindle and now have the whole Amazon to choose from. I have never bought as many books as I do now. I am almost back to the one book a week deal. And I love it.I love reading on the e-reader (****), I love that my hands/wrists don’t get tired holding a heavy book upright while lying in the sofa. I love that I can use the app on my phone to read in the dark of the bedroom, or in the car when we are driving home at night. I love my virtual library almost as much as I love my physical one, dusty and disorganized as it is.

So Happy World Book Day out there. I hope you enjoy them in whatever shape or format they have.

* And the worst thing in my world was when I turned the first few pages and read the legal mumbo jumbo written there, seeing the most hated word. Abridged. That word would wreck the whole reading experience. How could they? How could they take a book and then cut things out of it? Words were missing meaning beautiful parts of the story were missing. For years I always scanned the first pages before buying a book, dreading the eventual find of that word.

,** or sometimes for a long time, I could have bought many a book with the money I have over the years paid to the library in late delivery fees.

*** Needless to say I had to pay extra to get all my luggage home with me when I flew back.

**** I also love the added value of the dictionary in the Kindle. So much so I the other day when reading a physical book actually tapped a word to get the definition. Thank god reading is not a team sport or I would have been disqualified.

Books

and how I love to read them.  Is there anything better than snuggling into a deep sofa, wrapping your legs into a plaid and then opening a book? Or well flick your ebook on?

In my world no. Reading is still my favorite way of passing the time, but I seem to do it less and less, the drat internet turns out to be quite an attraction as well.

When I remember my teenage years it seems like all I ever did was read. I never left the house without a book on me. I went to birthday parties for class mates with a book handy because more often than not it was easier to disappear into the pages of a book than it was to engage in conversations with those around me. Why should I care who wanted to play with who, who schemed to kiss this boy or that? All I had to do was to open a book and the world was already bigger, better and more inclusive than that. Books always held more truth in them that the world around me. I didn’t join in when the other girls talked about the boys they liked, I was always too embarrassed and afraid to be laughed at, so it was just easier to stick my nose in a book and pretend that I didn’t hear them. I really wasn’t very good at being a girl.

But since I met my husband and especially since we’ve had our daughter, the time left over to snuggle into a book has been precious little, and when she was smaller than she is now there was none, I had to steal time whenever I could. But the days of reading in bed until 4 am in the morning and then still be fit for fight at 7 am, left around the time I had a screaming baby nestled onto my chest. Back when Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I basically locked myself in a room because I absolutely craved the loneliness and silence it took to disappear completely into the book. When The Deathly Hallows came out I stayed two days at a friend who was out of town. Just to read one single book. It was a bit insane you know, but absolutely necessary at the time.

Now my daughter is 10, and her life is slowly separating from mine. She hangs with her friends, she plays a lot of computer and she generally doesn’t need me to be there all the time. My free time is returning. I enjoy it immensely. Though I’ve got a new problem, I tend to fill my new free time with twitter, Facebook and other stuff that has taken over the internet. Sometimes I think I should throw my smartphone to hell because it sucks up so much of my time. Though of course my Kindle is synced to it and I use it to read on all the time.  Rock and a Hard Place conundrum right there. Ditch the technology that takes up your reading time and loose the technology that allows you to read whenever you feel like it, even in pitch darkness?

 

The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks (Part 1)

I’ve been reading The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks for the past days. Like the first book in the series The Black Prism, it is simply amazing. I have a very hard time putting it down, and I have spent the whole weekend slipping away from the family to read, meaning that I have gotten absolutely nothing done around the house, on my writing project nor did I manage to get my lazy body out of the sofa long enough to go back to the lake and take another stab at finding a dump site.

Since I am not done reading this is no review, I merely write this blog post to say that the world building in these books is PHENOMENAL. My mind boggles at the level of details Brent Weeks manages to impart so easily and seamlessly in the course of the storytelling. It is inspiring to say the least. I just want to know how the hell he keeps all the details straight before he writes the book. Teach me please because whenever I try I end up obsessing about details and my worlds feel one dimensional and monochromatic.

Oh well off to read, I think Kip is in trouble…

(Part 2 will appear once I finish reading. I expect I have more praise to heap upon Mr Weeks)