Woke up this morning and, as usual, sat down to read the Books section of The New York Times while drinking my coffee. This has become sort of a 'tradition' for me and because of it I have been able to learn about many interesting books, some of which I would not have found out on my own. I also 'blame' this activity to turning my nightstand into a mini-library on its own.
Currently I have the following books waiting for me:
- The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories
- The New Yorker Stories
- The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
- Doctor Zhivago
- Redshirts
- Dubliners
- The House of Seven Gables
- Lolita
Anyhow, while drinking my coffee this morning I realized just how much I enjoy reading and (what I like to call) catching up with all the books I either read when I was younger but took for granted or finally getting to those books that have been so patiently waiting for me to get to them. And now, whenever I'm not working or with my kids, you can bet your bottom dollar that you'll find me somewhere outside (when the mosquitos are not buzzing about the yard) or cozily nestled with a book (or two) somewhere quiet around the house.
But to the point of this story, today I realized that, if I could go back in time (which reminds me, I should probably add "The Time Machine" to my list) to the days when I was looking to buy a house, I would have done two things differently:
- wire the entire house so that every room would have a couple of ethernet ports;
- chosen a house with a large-ish room and add wall-to-wall bookcases, like you see in those movies where a well-off person takes their guests into their private libraries for tea and biscuits;
I realize that I can't change the past, and I also realize that perhaps it is a good thing that I took my book reading for granted during my high school and university years... I don't think I would have enjoyed reading "Dandelion Wine" or "Mrs. Dalloway" as much back then as I when I finally did. I guess reading books is very much like the process of making good wines... with age and experience, the reader, not the book, develops the maturity and ability to properly savor a good story.