Apr
8
I didn’t really enjoy reading until I was about seventeen. Don’t ask me why, I just didn’t. Deep down I suspect that it had more to do with the mutual dislike I and my English teacher shared for each other. He made me think that books were something to be avoided, and so I did just that for years, which represents a desert of lost time that I now horribly regret. Since then I have done my best to catch up with what I missed out on during my childhood. While there is no way I can now read the books I should have read as a child and experience it in the same way, I have managed to cover a lot of ground. My point? It’s never too late to start reading.
The reason I talk about this is simple: some time ago at work, in the Bespoke Packaging warehouse, I had a very interesting and slightly disturbing discussion with a colleague. This was someone who was intelligent, witty and I had considered must read voraciously. So when he sprang his little surprise on me, you could say I was shocked.
“I’ve never really read a book,” he said, dead seriously.
“Right!” I replied. “Of course not!”
When I had stopped laughing I realized that he had never started. He was staring at me with fixed eyes and going very, very red.
I apologized of course, and we joked about it weeks later. I am now proud to say that he has started reading; something he had never thought he would ever really do.