BFF Books
Some people would say that books make the best friends because they accept you as you are and how you interpret them - and they don't answer back.
Depends on your interpretation of 'friend' I guess. Books have been there for me in some pretty bleak times and that's one criteria of a good friend. I have gained knowledge (not sure about wisdom), comfort, joy, laughter, escape, insight into emotions, other cultures and other perceptions of the world from books, but could I just live with books and not people?
Maybe short term, but I need other people to discuss the books with and the things I find in the books, to really bring them into reality. A good book can make you look at the people and environment around you differently as well. You enter the book and come out a different person.
Jasper Fforde's 'Lost in a Good Book' delighted me with the plot of just that - getting lost in a good book. I gave it eight out ten and eagerly sought out his other titles. I didn't get as 'lost' in the next ones, but the first one was a hard act to follow.
When my kids were young, I used books as pure escape. They have told me since that if they saw me reading a book, often while multi-tasking, they knew I was unreachable. Writing poetry at that time was the only way I could write. I would grab what was in my head as I changed nappies, washed, cleaned, supervised, cooked, and scribble it on whatever was at hand before it disappeared into the daily chaos.
Needless to say however, they loved books and being read to. Years after the kids were grown and we were running a cafe on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, the publisher of my son's favourite book gave me that book and several others for us to have in the cafe to occupy children of the customers.
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| The cycle spirals around again |
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