Driving along to work, you don’t expect the princess from Brave walking to her school.

That was how World Book day 2015 started for. As early as it was, I was most definitely not hallucinating.

I have been fortunate enough to have access to books and libraries from being a school kid. Not exactly something that was encouraged at home, but not frowned upon neither. My earliest memories of reading at school involved Captain Pugwash. I remember quite distinctly, having borrowed five famous five books by Enid Blyton. These were read, generally, when I was feeling a bit under the weather. Even now. that is the association that I have.  There was proper book consciousness if you like, at the time I went from primary to secondary school.

‘Kidnapped’ by R.L.Stevensonson will forever be associated with the Scottish headteacher at Primary school. Her idiolect and vernacular, actually, were spot on for the text and it’s almost gothic imagery.  ‘Goosbumps’ by R.L.Stein also featured heavily. Being a fan of history, Horrible Histories would have to feature as well. If it had not  been for the local libraries, I do think I would have been a bit stuck. Especially, as I one year I wanted to read the full version, and not the abridged version of Victoria Holt’s ‘India Fan’ and hunted it down.  I went through a phase of reading books from Reader’s Digest, for some reason.

Roald Dahl was always going to feature heavily. Matilda, I read at school. The BFG, as well. Probably most of what is in the treasury. There was the movie explosion of Babe, Dick King Smith became popular with ‘The Sheep Pig’. There was something special, about our English Lessons!  The BFG appeared again at A-level, and I had to compare it with ‘Alice in wonderland.’ Two texts, with a lot in common. A lot, which at years 7-11, you don’t necessarily see or then understand. Lord of the flies at GSCE, was something of an eye opener. As was reading ‘The handmaiden’s tale,’ which i read in conjuction with ‘ a girl with a pearl earring’, one summer.

Shakespeare does count, with it’s little penguin classics that appeared throughout the school years. From Julius Caeser, the scottish play-you know the one-Richard the second was the A-level text that I still enjoy til now. Part of the A level course was to compare and contrast two books. I did at first try ‘Grapes of Wrath’. Only the dustbowl, and constant ‘Rose of Sharon’ made it difficult to read. So I tried ‘Brave new world’, by Aldous Huxley. This was a good book, and would have been compared with Eutopia, which I think is by Thomas More. I didn’t get as far as More, he wasn’t calling to me. On the back of Brave new world, I also read ‘The Clockwork Orange’. I primarily wanted to see what the fuss was all about. It is graphic, there are horrible sections. But as a book, a piece of narrative. I thought it was a job well done. I even felt something for Alex, by the end of it. Talking of an Alex, I failed with ‘The Beach’.  Also read ‘1984’, thought that was another good classic. Not a fan of Bronte novel though. For my 16th birthday, I was brought the entire ‘Chronicles of Narnina’  and this lead me to read ‘the screw tape letters’ whilst doing A-Level RS. The latter was also serialised, I think, on Radio 4 about then.

I must have collected hundreds of books, clogging up rooms. Time came that these were sent off to new homes. Such as the clutch of Terry Prachett discworld novels that I found weren’t my cup of tea. Things that have stayed, are the Shakespeare, the entire range of Harry Potter, most of Sansom, that I have in Hard back. Kept still, are all of the Tudor Court Novels by Phillipa Gregory. I can’t not mention ‘The time traveler’s wide’, and ‘We need to talk about Kevin.’

Again, i appeared to have collected lots and lots. Plus, I decided to look at an e-reader. The positive being that i wouldn’t have to clog up spaces. Last summer, I spent time reading  the Bond novels , i still have two remaining. Eighteen months into Sue Grafton, I haven’t got over half way with that either. The cousin’s war series by Phillipa Gregory, no longer holds sway with me. I am still stuck, painfully, in the middle of ‘wolf hall’ and ‘Bring up the bodies’. The use of pronouns and punctuation does my fruit in. Must have deleted once already, and just want to finish how it goes. I know the story, i know it well. But the fuss does seem a bit over egged to me.

There are even gardening books, that I have, believe it or not. I bought one, so I could have a good start. Don’t worry, this are kept safe. Have even collected preserving book as well.

Reading books is nice enough, a wonderful way of exercising your imagination. The time you spend reading, changes as you get older. It becomes increasingly more difficult to shoe horn time in. The one thing that is strikingly clear though.

Never underestimate the power of a good book.