A Book a Day Keeps Reality Away- Day 3 Of Write Tribe Festival of Words

 Today's Theme- Books

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

Ok, so today is the 3^rd day of Write Tribe Festival of Words and I am happy that I’m still going strong. Personally I had thought that I would give up after two days. But today’s theme is something that I will always hold close to my heart, my books. How can I not write about this topic?

I cannot remember the exact day when I started reading books or got attached to them. 

But I know that it was somewhere in my 7^th grade, when encouraged by my friend, I picked a book from my class library. The “class library” was just a book shelf at the back of the classroom with a couple of books arranged in a row. But after reading the book I felt awesome, as if I had been transported into a different world, to a much better place. And this feeling continued after I read another book and the next one. Every good book that I read, does the same to me. I become so absorbed in the book that I forget my real life. A book for me is like a vortex that pulls me along with it, makes me cry, make me laugh, makes me sad, makes me angry, and makes me feel every emotion that the characters in the book experience. 

A good book is like that!

An old photo of my book collection. At least 10 books have been added now :)

I started with comics and my favorites were Tinkle, Adventures of Tintin, Asterix, Calvin and Hobbes and Archie. I was so addicted to Archie comics that I wished a million times that my life was as cool and happening as the characters of this popular teen comic (my favorite character was Betty Cooper).

Then I gradually moved on to young-adult fiction like Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, The Famous Five and St. Clare’s series by Enid Blyton. When most girls were being introduced to normal things of their age like, make-up, boys and dating I had my nose buried deep in a book. Around that time I started borrowing books from a Central Government library in Mangalore, but I hated these Government run libraries because there was no sufficient lighting in the dark corridors and many of the books were bound in cardboard, so I had to remove each book from the shelf to see the cover. Also, the conditions of the books were not great and I often found the pages missing.

That’s when I discovered this library, hidden behind a small bend, in the ground floor of a building. Readers’ Delight Library has been a paradise for me for 25 years till the time I moved away from Mangalore. It was here that I got introduced to several of my favorite authors like James Patterson, Sidney Sheldon, David Baldacci, John Grisham and a few others like Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins and Chetan Bhagat. (I read a few titles before I got bored with them). 

The only online image I could find of Readers' delight Library. The man in the pic and the woman sitting at the counter are the owners of this wonderful library. Source:

http://churumuri.wordpress.com

It’s also here that I found my love for Chick Lit books. Yes, I love them. Mind you, it’s not Mills and Boons type but stories of real women, with faults, grappling with problems as common as ours, stories about friendships and unrequited love. I fell in love with Helen Fielding, Sophie Kinsella, Emily Giffin, Catherine Alliot, Sarah Mlynowski. There were so many authors, so many wonderful stories and so many books. I miss going to the library, going through the blurb on the back of the book, spending hours on just picking the right book to read. Sigh! Now I just order books from Flipkart or other online shopping sites.

I thank my stars for the day when I first picked a book because, I wouldn’t have been what I am today, if it were not for the wonderful stories, for the marvelous books that have crossed my path. 

And I will end the post with links to book reviews of few books that I have absolutely enjoyed reading.

http://prasannaprao.blogspot.in/2013/11/book-review-and-mountains-echoed-by.html

http://prasannaprao.blogspot.in/2013/10/book-review-of-cuckoos-calling-by.html

http://prasannaprao.blogspot.in/2013/06/book-review-ive-got-your-number-by.html

http://prasannaprao.blogspot.in/2013/05/book-review-life-is-what-you-make-it-by.html

I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 8th – 14th December 2013.