Who would have thought that, as I sit drowning among the seemingly hundreds of articles required to read for my classes, I would actually be resisting this undeniable burning urge. I look longingly, I dream constantly, I desire sinfully to find fulfillment in that thing I know will sweep me away from the mundanity of the every day. I am counting down the days until comprehensive exams are through so that I can finally – finally – be happy again. I am counting down the days until I will at last be free to grace my hands across its smooth cover, cracked spine and worn pages. I am itching to pick up a book, find a cozy corner somewhere and read.
What? A book? Reading? How lame and boring. To answer your questions, yes, yes and yes. Oh, and yes, also pretty lame and boring. But with every passed semester of college, my desire to simply pick up a book, whether it be a classic or a new New York Times bestseller, and get lost in the world so perfectly created through an author’s meticulous and precisely placed words has only mounted.
Summer is the time that I’ve realized my yearning to read again. What’s more ideal than sitting along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country, soaking up the warm summer sun while reading? Or more perfect than sitting alone in the backyard on an August morning, temperatures nearly unbearable and UV index probably deadly, book in one hand and coffee in the other? It’s just too simple and picture-perfect. Or at least to me (I’m sure many people would consider reading in these conditions more in line with penance rather than enjoyment). This past summer I soaked up as much reading as I did sun. At camp I read in any spare time I could find. And as soon as I returned home I made my way over to my neighborhood library to check out more books. By the end of the summer, I had read five books (1984, Kisses from Katie, Murder on the Orient Express, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Jane Eyre). Sure, I only read five books. I’m not a fast reader, and I didn’t spend every waking second with my nose in the pages of a book. But the number of books read isn’t the point; the point is that spending time simply reading what I wanted to read was so fulfilling and freeing.
During the school year, though, I have to sacrifice the fulfillment and freedom I enjoyed during those summer months – we all do. Instead, I now read articles and books written by academics and intellectuals on complex philosophies and cultural theories. I write papers on these theories and philosophies, and I contemplate “the human condition” as my professors call it. While these articles, books and reflections are certainly important and have shaped my understanding of our past and present worlds, and have helped me see the possibilities for our future world, they cannot satisfy in the same way reading a novel can.
So as the pile of required readings grows, so too does the list of books I want to read ASAP. I can’t help myself. I’ll keep finishing my homework and doing these readings (don’t worry Mom and Dad), but as soon as I get the chance, I’m headed straight to the library to find something I want to read. P.S. Now taking recommendations on must-reads!