Books

I love books. I always have done. I am not cool enough to love lots of obscure bands and have them on vinyl - for this I blame my classical violinist father - but the sheer ecstasy of shelf full of brandspankingnew books, oldleatherbound books, mediumbatteredpaperback books - now that's something I can get worked up over (and for that, I suppose I should blame my writer mother.) So I have always done lots of reading. When I was younger I could start a book after a Saturday afternoon trip to Dymocks and have it finished in time to talk about it at school on Monday (not that anyone wanted to hear.) But - and I'm sure I'm not alone here - I found this a harder feat to accomplish as I got older. For one thing, the books I wanted to read stopped being The Babysitter's Club (don't ever let anyone say I am a literary snob) and started being more along the lines of Dickens or Tom Wolfe - hardly a quick read over Sunday lunch. Also - and this is the more annoying part - life just kind of took over. Jobs and assessments and rehearsals suddenly meant I could no longer lie in bed all day on Sunday to get lost in my little printed world - especially if it wasn't on a reading list for a course. I think it was around the middle of year 12 that I woke up one day and realised I hadn't read a book of my choosing in about two years. That was tragic. I have to say one of the best things about taking the gap year was choosing my own reading material. Then I started uni and was forced to consume Australian literature in quantities I would never do of my own volition...and it's back to wracking my brains for the last book I read that was actually a matter of choice.
But now holidays loom - actually need better word than loom; loom implies, by onomatapaeic association, doom - and I am determined not to waste them staring idly into space for the entire time. Somewhere between rehearsals and theatre outings and shopping, oh god, so much shopping - I'd like to read lots of books. So I'm making a list. I won't get through the list this holidays, or next, but I'm going to carry this list with me forever and every time for the rest of my life I get bored I will look at the list and think, now there's a book I still haven't read, boredom be gone!
So if you know a book I haven't read and you think I should, leave me a comment and let me know. As I always say, suggestions welcome, if not necessarily taken.