Be a Blissful Bibliophile

(Inside the Library of Congress, Washington DC)

I love books and always have. Nothing comes close to the magic of reading a book tucked away in a corner, oblivious to the world. I used to read voraciously, and continued to do so during school and college. As the burden of  medical training  and the tribulations of motherhood encroached upon me, I was unable to spend as much time reading as I wanted to. (I mean I read about one book a week.)

In the last two years, I have made a conscious effort to read more, with the result that I read about 120 books last year alone, and plan to read over 150 books this year.

If you want to try to read more, here are some suggestions from a self-proclaimed bibliophile-

1. Read what catches your fancy. It does not have to be classical literature. It does not have to be a treatise on economics. It could be “Fifty Shades of Grey” (though I did not like the book). It could be the Nancy Drew series (I would love to read them today!) You have to read for yourself, not for others.  
2. Try not to buy books (unless you are dying to read one and you cannot get it by any other means). I am a firm believer that books should be borrowed from and returned to a library. To tell you the truth, I rarely finish books that I buy. 
3. There is no need to go by the bestseller lists. Someone told me that the local library was useless because the bestsellers of the year were never available and there was no point reading something “old”. Again, if your idea is to read contemporary works so that you have something to talk about at gatherings, it is different. Otherwise you can always browse through the “old” sections and find something you like.
4. Do not force yourself to finish a book. There is nothing more miserable than trying to follow the pace of a book that does not resonate with you. Reading is a very personal activity involving an interaction between the writer and the reader. Like all interactions, it may be positive, neutral or negative.
5. Set aside some time everyday- 10 to 15 minutes are enough.
6. Try something new every once in a while- a new genre, an author from a different part of the world, a different form of writing (short stories, poems, plays etc.) to keep things interesting. 

Hope you had some fun scrolling through this article.

May you never run out of books to read!

(All cartoons were sourced from the Internet.)