It’s been quite a week. I’ve been to Paris, Austria, Yorkshire, and the English canals in wartime. Only one in person, but all were vivid, visceral experiences. I’ve been absorbed in the lives of a male serial killer and his victims; an actress mother as a commercial boatwoman; a female global adventurer with a delicate constitution and an indomitable generous woman determinedly recovering from surgery. Fact and fiction, reality and fantasy intertwined.
The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go
Dr Seuss
I’ve played chess with ‘Harry Potter’, enjoyed a library treasure hunt, marvelled, laughed, and learned. Fiction and fact, reality, and fantasy have interwoven as delightfully as ever through my days. Books are a vital part of my life, and I recognise many of my life’s highlights and delights have come through the marvels of the written word.
A marvel of the boating network is the plethora of book exchanges scattered across it – in telephone boxes, toilet blocks, bus shelters, cafes, little covered shelves outside private houses and in pubs too. As a result, the range of books we find to read surpasses anything we could discover via a book club or an Amazon suggestion! It also means that reading is the cheapest and most diverse entertainment we experience.
Books change lives, societies, and perceptions.
Pens and books are the weapons that defeat terrorism
Mallard Yousafzai
This past month on my own I’ve been indulging in sailing round the world, tracking down murderers in mainland Europe and exploring the lives of children in Cumbria post World War Two. I’ve heard the voices of boatmen from the turn of the century, explored the often alarming history of building Britain’s longest canal tunnel, the Standedge, built in 1811 at a time when picks, shovels and gunpowder were the excavation tools of the day.
It never ceases to amaze me that we have a single alphabet with just 26 letters from which authors conjure words that transport us to far off places, back in time, ahead to the future and everywhere in between. Their crafted words make us laugh, learn, and weep. They make us escape and think.
This week saw lots of Harry Potters, many Matilda’s and numerous greedy caterpillars, bananas in pyjamas, Paddington Bears and lots of Mr Men and Misses to name just a few characters I spotted wandering the streets near schools, and posted on social media. Launched by UNESCO in 1995, World Book Day celebrates books and reading, as well as promoting reading for pleasure.
And that’s the importance for us all whatever our ages, we should make sure that whatever we have to read for work, or school, university or college, that we also read for pleasure. That every single day we should, we must, allow ourselves an escape, a pause, a moment to enjoy ourselves, a little relaxation, a real treat with a book. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as we are enjoying it, there’s no snobbery, it’s a private and personal thing but the more we read, even reading things we don’t think we will like, the more we discover, and discovery is something wonderful.
The most wonderful opportunity we can give any child is the gift of being able to read, a love of reading, and access to books that will excite, enthral, and encourage them.
WBD encourages “Changing lives through a love of books and reading.” That’s just what a book can do, it can change how we see our world, how we think, how we interact with others, give us inspiration to dream, to imagine, to learn and explore. There are unlimited supplies of books we’ve never read just waiting for us, there are old favourites longing for us to return.
Reading should be for us all like breathing – a vital habit which we can be conscious of at times, and unconsciously do all the time.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials or knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours
John Locke
So whatever you’re planning to do this coming week, schedule in some you-time with a book…on a device, in paperback or hardback, new crisp pristine pages, or well thumbed ones. Fiction, fact, reality, fantasy, let your chosen book or books transport you – where I wonder will we all find ourselves next week? Where do you fancy?
Pickingupducks 