I have cosied up all weekend due to the relentlessly grey and cold weather. A good excuse to finish some books in my to be read pile and sort some other books out to take to a charity shop (and make more room on my shelves for more books!).
I have joined my work’s book club, and the book selected for January was Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. I was still reading books I had got for Christmas and the books I’d promised myself I would read before starting any more books, plus, I told myself, fantasy isn’t really my thing. But every person in the book club kept sharing that they couldn’t put it down and really really wanted me to read it too. So. I bought it on Wednesday and I finished it today. They were absolutely right and it taught me a great lesson in not telling myself what I do and don’t like when I haven’t actually really tried the thing I told myself I don’t like. I can’t remember when I last read a fantasy novel but yet I was certain it wasn’t for me. I can’t recall if it is maybe from not keeping up with a book of that type at school when I maybe hadn’t read at the weekend so when it came to class I was in a different place and the whole plot got lost on me the more we read.
What could go wrong?
Don’t get me wrong, I loved reading as a child, but I enjoyed it more on my own terms, when I got to pick the book and how much and when I would read. Prescribed amounts of pages felt like an endurance test. Counting pages instead of absorbing words and stories. And I have definitely still got a bit of that fear as part of a book club. Will it take the fun out of it for me. Will I end up giving up time reading something I am not that into just for the sake of keeping up ? Will I feel left out if I don’t keep up with everyone else? Will I ostracise myself by saying something different about the book than everyone else in the group? Am I somehow going to let myself and everyone else down if I don’t finish the book? Or maybe I am overthinking it?
What might go right?
The reality is, it is lovely to be able to bond with people at work over something regardless of ‘liking it’. It is lovely to be able to bond with people full stop. That’s what makes life richer. Other people. Reading is so often a solo sport and being able to chat about books whilst making a brew in the work kitchen is so much better than a bland how was your weekend/evening, and heaven forfend… work chat!
Fantasy is not for me
A mantra I truly believed has been smashed. And I am glad of it. I was taken into a world of dragons and warriors. Of lands with funny names. Of archaic rules and family feuds. Of escape from reality.
When I read I often read things that are set in a form of reality. Not real but in a modern setting with concepts and places that already exist. I may not have been to the places they describe or experienced the situations described and I still escape, but I may also find someone or something or somewhere in the words I connect to.
In fantasy we can only really connect to the human relationship/emotional aspects and the rest of it is pure escapism that I, for some reason, had decided to shut out of my reading landscape for my whole adult life. But because I wanted to be part of the club, and wanted to see what they all meant I read it. Expecting to give up, but slowly getting hooked in and leaving the gales blowing outside my window and into another world entirely.
New chapters ahead?
I now feel like I have opened up a new world to myself, where I can escape and push my imagination further and I have a whole new section of books to consider and explore in the library and bookshops and I am excited to see where that leads!