Bookworm

I’m a bookworm. Always have been. A friend of mine reminded us of the silly competitions we had growing up, from having the niftiest multi-buttoned pencil cases to checking out the most books from the library. I remember those times. And I remember that particular library. He said the contest was to get the most books checked out. No one bothered reading the books. But I don’t remember checking out books just for the sake of checking them out. I actually read them.

My dad encouraged all of his five kids to read. Of the five, I was the most voracious reader. I read everything I could get my hands on, from Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys to Choose Your Own Adventure. I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull when I was 8. By the time I was ten, I knew who Chet Morton and I wanted my very own Ned Nickerson. I also wanted to be friends with the Wakefield twins and attend the junior prom with them.

I never outgrew reading. All through high school and college I would always have a book handy. i didn’t see anything wrong with skipping lunch to save money just so I could buy a new novel. And I went through books fast. I would read on average three a week. I cried, I laughed, I got angry with the characters. I lived and breathed fiction. And I was never picky. I read everything from Erica Jong to Michael Crichton to one hit wonders on the bestsellers lists. I wanted them all. Of course I had favorites that I would reread and reread but I always have this half smile when I pick up a previously unexplored author, anticipating his or her words to fill my head with imagery.

My taste in fiction also tended to mirror my moods. When I was a pimply, angsty teenager, I favored dark, gothic, brooding novels. Anne Rice was a staple all throughout high school. In college, I experimented with other pulp authors. I loved Robin Cook. Michael Crichton was another favorite. As was John Grisham.

It was also in college that I started reading the “cool authors”, writers who were critically acclaimed to have singlehandedly changed the way a generation thought. I thought I had to, after all, I went to the University of the Philippines and we scoff at those who could not go beyond what was easy. I even picked up Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being, only to discover his Lightness only led to an unusual heaviness in my eyelids. It was then that I realized my taste in fiction was unapologetically pop. Accepting that I liked bubblegum fiction best was liberating.

Through the years I have lost count of the number of books I have read. I used to suffer from severe rhinitis because of the dust collecting on my books. I’ve thrown and given away more books to make room for other things in my bedroom only to buy more books in the end. With the handy ebook readers available these days, I have solved those health and space issues.

All my life, I have been a lot of things. I have been a lawyer, a dreamer, a runner, a slut, a fighter. But throughout all those reinventions and reincarnations, I will always be that little geeky girl with her nose in a book, images and words flowing through her head.