Skip to main content

What has Your Reading Journey Been Like? #amreading

By 07/08/2012July 3rd, 2017reading, writing
The reading journey

The reading journey

When I think of my reading journey, I can only say that it began at a time I do not remember.

I read my first book at two (or three, but not older, according to my mother): a picture book of course, but one that was meant for much older kids, able to read. My parents did not have access to the sort of books for toddlers that are readily available these days, so they bought me what they could—a comic book with a storyline and characters far beyond the reach of a two-year old.

 I remember sitting on my grandmother’s lap in the afternoons when she would read out loud the dialogues in the book, and explain what was going on. With the sort of whim that can be expected of a toddler, I decided that was the only book I liked, and there soon came a time when I could narrate the entire story by myself when the book was put before me, pointing at each scene in its individual square and babbling the dialogues, much to the amusement of my family and our visitors.
I grew up devouring books: those suitable for my age, and not. I read Flaubert’s Madame Bovary at 12, and rapidly followed it up with the collected works of Bernard Shaw, all the Russian masters, Shakespeare—in short, anything I could steal from my father’s collection. When I turned 18, I went for an Honors in English literature, where I mostly read books outside the syllabus in my spare time, because I now had access to the British Council and the American Center libraries, in a bigger city.
But in studying for the exams I lost some of my love for books. I was expected to dissect poems instead of merely enjoying them, analyze novels instead of getting carried away by the stories and characters—it turned me off reading for a good five years before I turned to my old love, and second-hand bookshops became my second home again. From then onwards, I’ve taken to reading with a renewed vigor…I read as a break from life, as an exercise in thought, as a supplement to my writing—because sometimes I also have to read like a writer. It is nearly as big a part of my life as my writing, and sometimes I struggle between the two—because there is not enough time for me to read, write and do everything else we call ‘living life’.
I live the most when I’m reading, especially certain books that have made me fall in love with them.
How about you? What has your reading journey been like? What books would you recommend?
Please join Daily (w)rite on its Facebook Page in case you’d like to be heard by this community. If you liked this post, you can have biweekly posts delivered to your inbox: click the SUBSCRIBE VIA EMAIL button. (Feel free to share this post if you like it. You’ll find icons to re-blog it via WordPress and Blogger to the left of this post.)

Save

Save

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

7 Comments

  • I hardly ever read any fiction that’s from ‘now’ – I much prefer G. K. Chesterton, P. G. Wodehouse and Jane Austen. But I’ve found that now I have a Kindle I read a lot more! Terry Pratchett is brilliant however, he is one of the very few recent authors I give a damn about.

    (http://bethanyrdean.blogspot.com)

  • “sometimes I struggle between the two” – I’m so with you on that, I wish I had the luxury of reading more! I’d even do a literature PhD just for that, despite that like you, I also have a little bit of an opposition towards academic interpretations of stories and poems. Maybe when I retire 🙂

  • rick mobbs says:

    Ack! How long have I been gone? What’s this about a wheelchair?

  • It was reading that got me into writing 🙂

    And, like you, i now tend to neglect my reading, preferring to write instead.

    I don’t read as much as I’d like anymore, which is a shame 🙁

    Xx

  • I read whatever attracts and holds my attention and not always the books that get all the hype and are supposed to be the big hits. I like Kathy Page, Amar Lakhous …

  • I’ve always been a voracious reader and discovered adult fantasy and science fiction when I was in grade school. Too many school years of dissecting ‘the classics’ turned me off of literary fiction, but fortunately not reading.