Me, Reader

I, the reader, and reading habits: are we on time or have we missed the train?

Although this is a website and a blog about my books and my writing process, we should never forget that a Writer always begins their journey as a Reader.

To remember my first years as a reader, I have to go back in my memory to the age of twelve. Until then, I was someone who read infrequently. Although I was surrounded by books, I think I had an inferiority complex in relation to words, which was very evident in the difficulties I experienced with reading and writing. The transition to feeling comfortable with letters was not an easy process. And although I acquired reading habits after childhood, the truth is that this didn’t stop me from “catching the train on time”.

In fact, we’re all very concerned about “not missing the train” in any area of life. This constant preoccupation doesn’t allow us to realise that with will, almost anything is possible and that childhood, despite being a crucial stage in our evolution, is not our living will.

My journey through reading and learning

It was a hot summer and I remember sitting on my bunk when I started thinking about all the Jules Verne books my father had bought for us many years ago. I still don’t know what made me decide to start reading one of those volumes, and I confess that after the first few pages I wanted to give up.

I resisted reading the book until the very end, and I’m glad I did, because it was the sense of achievement and confidence I gained from that moment that made me open my heart to books. From then on, I never stopped. I began to demand more and more of myself, and within a few years I was an assiduous and compulsive reader who had already read some classics, such as John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”.

My vocabulary expanded to a degree I never thought possible. I realised that, with these new reading habits, I had become more adept at writing and that I knew how to express my feelings better. This was a difficulty I had, both written and oral. From a cognitive point of view, I also felt more able to interpret texts and give them new meanings.

Reading is good

In fact, reading does a lot of good, and I speak from personal experience. That’s why it’s so important to talk to children about books, because even if their passion for words isn’t born immediately, it’s very likely that they’ll pick up a book later on and create their own reading habits.

A book is an instrument of power. It’s something with which we can develop our creativity, intelligence, culture and understanding, both of ourselves and of others and the world. Through books we broaden our horizons, our critical spirit, and we become freer and more capable of independently discerning what we should or should not accept and value. This power that books give us is invaluable.

Me, a reader – my preferences

Like any reader, my literary preferences have changed over the years, which is natural. It’s also natural, and I’ve read and heard about this phenomenon, that after a long period of intensive reading, we feel the need to stop, to break the routine, at least for a while. All this is normal and healthy. It’s part of our evolution as readers.

Like most people, I started out reading a lot of novels. Fictional stories, Isabel Allende’s books and some classics were part of my literary choices. I learnt a lot from books when I didn’t have anyone else by my side to accompany me, and for that I am eternally grateful. I particularly liked books where the heroines were women and, little by little, I absorbed the fantastic texts of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Mists of Avalon” collection.

I read a lot of books until I went to university, but then I slowed down. In one way or another, they all contributed to me becoming the person I am today.

Some time later, I returned to reading through a small book of chronicles by a Portuguese journalist. Now, at a different stage in my life, I was particularly interested in learning about the history of those who came before us. I wanted to get to know the facts and characters that make up the cultural references of our society and the contemporary world. For example, I really enjoyed reading “The Knights Templar” by Dan Jones. This was followed by other biographical readings such as “Eça de Queirós” by Filomena Mónica, “Amélia de Orleães: a Rainha Mal-Amada” by Margarida Durães and “O Mundo de Ontem” by Stefan Zweig.

I read everything!

I’m not elitist or partisan in my reading.

I read everything from detective fiction to history, entertainment and, of course, spiritual and collective reflection (I’m thinking of the book “The Civilisation of the Spectacle” by Mário Vargas Llosa).

Anyone who enters the world of reading quickly realises how many books there are at their disposal. If in the past there were those who tried to gather together all written production, as was the case with the famous Library of Alexandria, today this is an absolutely unfeasible task, even more so to try to read or even get to know all the works in a single genre or branch of literature.

If it’s impossible to read them all, we can, for example, build a reading list for a certain period of time or according to a theme that motivates me.

It’s a suggestion I make to all those who sometimes feel lost with the profusion of books at our fingertips. The “classics” should be part of our education, but I’m of the opinion that reading them should be deferred to a more mature stage of life, in order to better understand and interpret the references and cultural context that these works generally convey.

I’m coming to the end of my article, but much remains to be said.

Don’t forget to give your children books, not just on birthdays and book holidays, but whenever the circumstances allow. One day, that reading will help them far more than we could ever imagine.