Exit
By Erin Deborah Waks
Last weekend, my mum bought me two books. I picked up Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and a collection of short stories by Grace Paley when we browsed Walden Books in Camden (if you don’t know it, you really ought to; it’s a safe haven for those of the literary persuasion neatly tucked away from the crowds, a little hard to find but packed with the sort of eclectic variety of novels any good second-hand bookshop offers, and filled with girls carrying tote bags and boys wearing Doc Martens).
It’s not surprising that I love to read, once you know me. I always carry a handbag large enough to contain a book. I’ve been known to sit down in a coffee shop, open a novel, and remain seated until said novel has been read cover to cover. I own so many books that when I moved house this year, I left most of my collection behind at my parents’ house as I worried I wouldn’t have the space for them all. And sometimes, even when I’m on a tight budget, I can’t help but browse the Waterstones opposite my office for hours on end.
There’s something so comforting to me about books. But it occurred to me that, while I frequently exhibit the signs of being a book lover, I’ve never actually articulated why I like reading so much.
I, like many of my friends, suffer from a condition known as ‘over-thinking.’ Don’t get me wrong, it serves me well - most of my good writing comes from a problem inside my mind that needs to be solved, unraveled. But the downside is evident: I often struggle to quiet the whirrings of my mind.
For so many, reading isn’t relaxing because it’s active, it engages the mind in a way that, say, mindless TV doesn’t. But it’s precisely that - that focus required - that enables me to zone in on thoughts other than my own, and exit that (exhausting) mindset that makes me who I am. It’s not relaxing per se, but it’s that concentration on another world that allows me to exit the excessive noise of my own. When I watch a movie, my mind does wander. But when I’m engrossed in a book, I can’t look away even for a moment. You can’t read if you aren’t attached to the words.
C S Lewis, who wrote the childhood classic I loved, The Chronicles Of Narnia, once wrote, ‘You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.’ Swap the tea for a coffee and you’ve got me pretty much summed up.
