Living and Not Reading?! Pity..

Sometimes I wonder how it would be if there was a school where you didn't have to study for tests,internals,externals,vivas,to impress professors,tutors,your crushes..(phew!).Well that would be like a dream come true for me.I hate exams!Iam sure nobody likes them,leaving a few hard core nerds.But as a contrary,I can't imagine my life without books and reading.Iam not talking exclusively about subject books,but other kind of books.Books which contain fiction,non-fiction,drama,comedy,tragedy,biographies,autobiographies,fantasy,philosophy,and so on.

I love to read.And I can read a LOT!I have been fascinated by story books and fairy tales ever since I was a toddler, I was told.As a school kid,I used to badger my parents to buy me all sorts of books.Everywhere I went,I would only search for interesting books that I could read.I would read in the car,in the school bus,in the classroom,and every other corner where I could possibly find a comfortable place to sit and an just read.Library period in school used to be my favourite back then.When I was around ten years old,I started getting bored of Enid Blyton and other fairy tales.I started reading R.L.Stine's Goosebumps.Everybody in my class would fret his books,saying that his stories were scary.I found them amusing an fun to read.A few years later,in my early teens, I started reading R.L.Stine's Fear Street,then Franscine Pascal's Sweet Valley Junior,High and University.How much I enjoyed them!Sometimes I would ignore homework and continue reading these books.Not that my teachers wouldn't shout at me..they used to give me impositions!

I remember how much everybody was crazy about Harry Potter when I was in my 7th grade.I had always wanted to read them,but never got a chance to then.Later,in my 8th grade,my mother's friend lent me the first four books of Harry Potter.I read all of them in ten days.I was literally glued to them.I loved the books so much that I would wake up early in the mornings sometimes and read.This was when I started developing short sight.My mom had to shut the book in my hand and turn of the lights to tell me to bed.I would imagine myself as Harry Potter,or some other character from the book.I would sit and wish that Hogwarts existed,and that someone like Hagrid come and take me there.Post Harry Potter,I started reading Sydney Sheldon,and then James Hadley Chase,John Grisham,Robin Cook,Jeffrey Archer,and these days I am reading Paulo Coelho,Khaled Hosseini,Erich Segal and other such authors and many autobiographies,and how-to-live-life kind of inspiring books.

Yesterday,my friend asked me to send her an e-book of my choice(she doesn't read much).I did,and when I asked her today if she had started reading it,she told me that she had read just one page since yesterday!One page only.I wasn't really surprised because not many of my friends read.Some don't even bother to know what books are all about.I know different people have different interests,opinions and tastes and I don't have anythin against the non-readers.I agree with them too.But I pity people who don't read.I feel they are missing somethimg very deviceful and prolific in their lives.I mean how can people not read something beyond the first page.I don't know how they wouldn't want to know what the second page contains.Some don't even try to read.It remains a mystery to me,me being a total book worm which I presume you must have already concluded reading so much of my blog(if you have come this far into reading it;))Books can change you,atleast they have changed me.Made me a better person,given me a lot of knowledge about things I was absolutely unaware of.They brought a complete change in the way I percieved things,civilized my english speaking skills to a large extent,and have kept me entertained to date.I might be sounding very pre-determined and judgemental,but no I don't intend to sound like that.Maybe its just my love for reading and pity for thse who don't;)