Somebody wrote that abandoning a book is tantamount to
heresy. I am among those who share this belief, and last weekend I dared to go
even further: What if abandoning a book is not tantamount to heresy but not
finishing it in one sitting is?
Last weekend I decided to reward myself, a reward that
involved spending all of my waking hours with my nose in a book. It was like
returning to those blissful days of childhood, when I never stopped
reading--not even for food or sleep--until I reached the final page; when
nothing really mattered beyond the pages of cherished books. While before I
read just for the sheer pleasure of it, now it has become a means of avoiding
life itself. How true these words of W. Somerset Maugham are:
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for
yourself a refuge for almost all the miseries of life.”