I’ve got a terrible confession to make

I don’t read many books. There, I’ve said it.

But how can this be? You’re always talking about the books you’re reading, have read or are going to read.

Ah yes, I read. They just aren’t usually Papery Print type things people think of as Books. The ones with the pretty covers, the pages you physically turn, use your favourite bookmark, and have that booky smell.

Because, unbelievable as seems, not everyone loves that booky smell. I hate it! It makes me feel ill. And even weirder is that I’m 100% anosmic. I can’t actually smell anything.

I’m sorry, that makes even less sense.

I know, right? It’s not so much the smell, as some sense of outgassing of fumes that comes from the ink and the pages. Especially older books, but once a book is more than a year or so old I can’t pick it up to read it. Books lent by friends, sorry no go. Library books, sayonara. So I read E-books on my Kindle, lots of E-books. I’ve also always got an audio book on the go to listen to in the car.

Yeah OK, that’s weird but I’m really losing interest, do you have a point?

I do, I do. Bear with me.

After finishing Pip Williams wonderful novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, I went with my writer buddy, to a launch of Pip’s new book, The Book Binder of Jericho.

She spoke about the books, the process of writing, characters and all the delicious things that a new writer laps up. Then we lined up and had her sign our books. So of course I had to buy a Papery Print version.

I popped the book in my little pile of signed books on my writing desk, and then started listening to the audio book version.

But, somewhere along the way, the lure of the signed new copy started calling me. I began taking the book with me to read in quiet moments at a cafe, or in the car waiting for a child to finish an appointment.

Then it happened! One rainy Saturday, when the clouds couldn’t decide if they were above us, or amongst us, I lit the fire, and sat with my book and read. Later I made dinner then when everyone was in bed, I read again, in front of the fire, from my Papery Print Book. And I kept reading until I’d finished the last page.

And then I sat bereft that my book had finished. Those characters who felt like my friends were silenced. Never to speak to me again. Never to tell me of their most secret thoughts, never to share the description of their surroundings so that I felt like I was travelling through time and space.

So, that’s what you’re saying? You like print books again?

I don’t just like them though. I love them! I’ve fallen back in love with my first big crush and want to sing it from the mountain tops!

Ok, this is getting weird.

Yeah. Some will get it. Some won’t but they’ve stopped reading by now.