Every book lover knows the thrill of choosing a new book, carrying it home and waiting for a quiet moment to dive in. But being one isn’t always easy.
Here are six struggles only book lovers will understand:
1. You want to finish your book – but you don’t want to finish the book
As you reach the final chapters of your book, you can’t wait to find out what happens. You can hardly bear to put it down. You read it in stolen moments while waiting for the kettle to boil, the bath to run or your kids to finish school.
But as the unread pages get fewer and fewer, you being to worry. How will you bear it when the story finally ends? You will be lonely without your new friends. The moment you close the book you feel a sense of satisfaction, but also a loss for the story that immersed you and the people you met.
There really is only one remedy for a book lover. Start reading a new story as soon as possible.
2. You have agreed to go out – but you are on the last chapter of your book
When someone asked you on Monday if you wanted to go out on Friday night, you said yes. It was something to look forward to at the end of the week. A meal out with family members or a night out with your best group of friends is always fun. But now it’s almost time to go.
You have to stop reading and get ready, but you are finding it so hard to put the book down. You are on the last chapter and you just have to find out what happened.
The trouble is, compared with the passion and emotion of the story, the real world seems just a little dull.
3. You missed your train stop – because you were engrossed in your book
This is one that most of us book lovers have done. We look up from our book to take a breath and savor the emotion of the story and realize we should have gotten off the bus or train five stops ago!
Missing stops is not the only problem. We also miss out on sleep. We plan to read for just half an hour before bed and before we know it, it’s 3 in the morning! But dragging our eyes from the page and forcing the book closed is just so hard!
4. You are drawn to something in the bookshop – but you already have ten unread books at home
It’s dangerous for a book lover to go into a bookshop or a library. We are drawn to the books like others are drawn to shoes or chocolate. But we can’t resist stepping inside. The shelves hold so much promise for book lovers.
Each book is filled with so many people, exotic locations, and wonderful stories. Inside their pages are so many wonderful words of wisdom and advice. There are so many things to learn beneath those covers.
The trouble is, once we are inside, it’s difficult to choose just one book. This is made even harder if there are special offers on multiple books.
At the back of our minds, we remember we already have a pile of ten books just waiting for us to read on our nightstands and a few more on our desks. But the desire is too strong to resist and we end up going home with another carrier bag of wonderful books.
5. Forgetting to take a book
While all the other struggles of being a book lover combine pleasure with pain, this one is just pure agony. You’ve just stepped on the coach or plane, or sat down in the dentist waiting room and you realize you have forgotten to bring a book! Oh, the torment of all that time to fill with nothing to read.
What’s worse is all that reading time you’ve missed out on. You end up having to flick through an out-dated magazine or browse the internet instead. But it’s just not like a good book.
6. Being interrupted during a crucial part of your book
Okay, you love your family and friends, you really do. But sometimes, just sometimes, they are so annoying. If there were a crisis it would be fine. Of course, you would drop your book and go help.
But being interrupted by someone making idle chit-chat or asking where the spare toilet paper is can really ruin your mood.
Okay, so there are struggles with being a book lover. But really, we wouldn’t change it for the world. Nothing quite relaxes us the way sinking into a good book at the end of a hard day does.
No matter what is going on in our lives, we can always rely on our books to give us the romance, excitement, intellectual stimulation, and adventure that we crave.
We just need to remember to go out in the real world sometimes, too.
There’s another one that really annoys me but I guess that would qualify as a slight variation on Number 6, being interrupted during a crucial part of your book. I’m talking about people who read over your shoulder. Whether it’s the person sitting behind you on public transport who lets out an angry sigh when you turn the page because he/she hasn’t finished reading, or the loud one who goes to stand over your shoulder, lean closer and flip the page back to the part that caught their interest and then starts a discussion about the book you’re reading, the desire to hit them over the head with your book (if it’s a hard cover) is equally strong.