I read books once. Now I have small children.

It wasn’t so long ago that I hated the very notion of Twitter. It was short and pithy and fast, so very fast, that I had no idea how to keep up. A few weeks down the line, I still have no idea how people keep up, but to be honest, Twitter is about all I read at the moment. Between school runs and crying children, errands and cooking suppers there is barely time to go to the loo, so to deal with no more than 140 characters in one hit is all I can manage.

I did read though, once. It started way back on the grey between memories of having flashcards made from cereal packets, and words written carefully in the Mothership’s neat handwriting and taped to objects around the house. The first memory I have of being utterly absorbed in a book is when I brought Charlie and the Chocolate Factory home from school. Walking in through the veranda door, I dropped my bag by the sofa, plonked myself down and didn’t move until I had finished the whole book. By the time I went away to Boarding School, I had given up reading children’s books and moved on to Danielle Steele and the Harold Robbins that populated my Gran’s shelves. I seem to recall they were quickly confiscated by Matron, despite my explanations that I didn’t read them out of a teenage curiosity about sex, but because I had exhausted all the other books. Back in those days, you see, there weren’t the Jacqueline Wilsons and Philip Pullmans and Harry Potters: there were only Children’s books and Adult’s books. As what I now know to be a ‘tweenager’ I didn’t fit either category. As I write, I have a recollection of a copy of Forever, the rite-of-passage-reading-recommendation for any teenage girl, being passed silently from girl to girl around the dorm, evading Matron’s capture. But it was nothing to write home about.

Somewhere around GCSE time, I started staying up into the night to finish books that I couldn’t put down. I’d spend summers by the Embassy pool in Cairo, sometimes getting through a book a day. This time it was Wilbur Smith, Jeffrey Archer and Gerald Seymour- my dad’s collection- that was ransacked. My Christmas stockings always had books in, I got them as gifts for Easter and Birthdays. And I enjoyed reading the set texts at school, found I was inetersted in characterisation, argued points with teachers over Classic texts like To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. So it seemed like a natural progression, when considering Universities, to think about studying English. What could be better for someone who so enjoys reading?

My love of books, and of reading, committed suicide before the first term at St. Andrews was out. I loathed the texts, the way we were asked to analyse them. I had a dreadful roommate, very few friends and slowly died inside. By the end of the first semester, I retreated home to lick my wounds. I stopped reading. For a while, I stopped living. I opted for a change of life and a change of pace, and moved to Frankfurt to begin what turned out to be a career in childcare, and discovered Hello! magazine. I was fortunate to work in a house that was filled with books of every kind. Almost without realising it, I graduated from flicking through the glossy pages of the magazine to flicking through recipe books, from reading the children their bedtime stories to picking up a random book from the shelf. And then came a Prayer for Owen Meany.

It’s sad to say that the primary reason the book appealed was the drawing of the armadillo on the cover. How was that relevant to prayer? And how was prayer relevant to Owen Meany? Who is Owen Meany? Thus I was sucked in past the green cover, sucked into the compelling writing of John Irving, the friendship between the narrator and Owen. I found myself going to bed early to read just a little more about the quirky character with stunted growth and an odd voice who is convinced that he is an Instrument of God. I read and thought about the themes of faith and friendship and war and without even realising it, I was back to reading again.

When we went on our (three week) honeymoon, DH and I took 8 books each, and we both read all 16 plus a few extra along the way. Four years later, when we travelled to America for a family wedding, I didn’t pack a single book. Neither did I read one in the entire fortnight. I read the childrens’ books repeatedly, for them obviously. DH, who followed a week later, packed seven. Seven books for seven days. He read two on his flight over to us. The seven books had a nice trip round America and went home unread. Thus is the life of parents to two young children. But we live surrounded by books. The children, even Dimples, love reading and being read to. Threeva is starting to recognise letters, pointing hers out whenever she sees it. I have a stack of books by my bedside, just waiting for the moment when I don’t spy the mattress an immediately think of sleep. I can see a time in future when we all go on holiday together and one suitcase will just be filled with books. It’s such an exciting thought. One of them will be A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is still my favourite book. The book that gave me back the joy of losing yourself in a book.

What’s your favourite book?

This post was written as part of Notes From Home’s Friday Carnival on Favourite Books. Here are the other entries in this Book Carnival:

Jax from Making It Up reviews ten favourite books she loves to read with her children in My favourite books. Jenny from GingerBread House reviews her favourite book: Orla Kiely – Pattern. Nova from Cherished By Me posts about the books that fuelled her passion for reading in My favourite book. Not So Single Mum from Diary of a (not so) Single Mum reviews The Lady in the Tower. Becky from Book Reviews for Mums reviews the book that opened her up to her responsibilities and the choices she makes in life in My Favourite Book. Helen from Cheeky Wipes reviews her favourite books in From Riders to The God Delusion – my favourite books. Cass from The Diary of a Frugal Family reviews her first and favourite cookbook in Where It All Began. Cara from Freckles Family reviews a favourite from the past few years in A Favourite Book. Maggy from Red Ted Art reviews a recent gift, a Pop-up, Pull-out, Picture Atlas. Ella from Notes From Home reviews Sad Book.