A reader's story

May 7 2010 by The Journal

Jonathan Blackie

I'VE had various enthusiastic phases for reading, which made my book collection a bit dated.

When I hit 50 I turned over a new leaf and found that books were a very healthy way of winding up the day. Since then I have worked my way through a lot of Scandinavian crime fiction, rediscovered libraries, particularly online catalogues, and made regular trips to the Post Office to pick up Amazon packages that were too big to fit through the letterbox.

I used to find I fell asleep once I started to read. But now it keeps me awake as I want to read one more page. It's quite addictive.

Paperbacks are much easier to handle, and cheaper. I finish most books that I start.

I give up on probably only one in 20. I'm mostly partial to contemporary fiction, such as Olga Grushin, Philip Kerr, Arnaldur Indridason and Philippe Claudel. Or I’ll just pick up a quick choice from the library.

Emma Chesworth

READING has been a huge part of my life since primary school when you had to choose books via a coloured-coded chart. As soon as I was allowed, I would cycle to the library every Saturday morning and get the eight books permitted on my ticket.

Ever since, books have played a major part in my life. As an 18-year-old I went with friends to Ibiza and my abiding memory is sitting on our apartment balcony waiting while they got ready, reading The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj (a truly chilling read).

Now, as a 38-year-old press officer, I still read avidly and last year set myself a ‘52 books in 12 months’ challenge (completed). Books really can transport you to another world and I cannot imagine life without the written word.

Eileen Elgey

WHEN I open my eyes in the morning I reach for a book.

I read in the bath and I read in the loo. I read in trains and I read in buses. I take my own books to the dentist’s surgery and the doctor’s waiting room since swine flu forbade their piles of dog-eared magazines. And I always have a book on the back seat of the car for those precious minutes when I wait for my grandson at the school gate.

On the rare summer days when the sun tempts me into the garden there’ll be two or three paperbacks on the table beside me, anything from AS Byatt to an anthology of poems, from Jodi Picoult to Michael Morpurgo.

For more than 60 years my library ticket has been my most prized possession and I have watched the Bishop Auckland library develop from its gloomy upstairs room in the Lightfoot Institute to the spacious and well-lit ground floor of the town hall.

On Wednesday evenings when the library has closed for the day I return to the town hall as a member of Wear Valley Writers and we sit among all those published books and feel encouraged to persevere with our own.

Recently I discovered regional authors, Pat Barker, Jonathan Tulloch and David Almond, and for many years I’ve enjoyed Bishop Auckland’s own Wendy Robertson.

So today I must visit the library again and ask for the latest Jodi Picoult novel that was published yesterday – pristine and shiny. I’ll be the first to borrow it and smell its newness.

Connie Hall

I FIRST learned to love reading from my mom when I was seven, during my parents’ divorce in 1981.

Mom read to my sister and I every night to help us sleep. From my mom, I learned that a great story can be both a place of solace, and give you an experience that is yours alone that no one can take away from you.

Originally from Ontario, Canada, my great love of reading flourished, and I moved to the UK in1998 to study for my MA in 20th Century English and film at Newcastle University. I am currently working on my PhD in film at Northumbria University.

Along the way I’ve been lucky enough to meet and marry a local lad from Northumberland who shares a love of reading, and when we start our family, the books that I grew up with are here.

My favourite place to read is on my old rug – another gift from my mother – in our kitchen with my pet rabbit, Woodward Bernstein. He’s a great companion and sits quietly beside me – I just have to remember to keep whatever I am reading away from his mouth – or he’ll take a nibble off the corner!