How it all started

People do a lot of stuff in their free time. Watching TV seems to be the #1 thing people seem to be doing when they have some time to spare. I think it is closely followed by browsing the internet. Books seem to be very low in the priority for many people.

When I was little, for some reason books were never part of my life. I started reading when I was about 15. A friend of mine (Meena) used to go to a library in my hometown (Ellor in Trivandrum) and I tagged along with her and read my first book. I am pretty sure it was Fever by Robin Cook. It took me a month to read it. I was that slow. 

The next step was when my mom saw that I was probably interested in reading, she got me a library membership and I read a few books. 

But that was not the time when I actually started reading. Fast forward a couple of years.... I was in college by this time. I was talking to a friend of mine (Dilip) and he mentioned some popular books. I had no clue what he was talking about. He could not believe I did not know what he was talking about. He laughed and laughed till he had tears in his eyes. More so cause he saw tears in mine :-( 

That was the day I knew I had a challenge in front of me. I knew I had to read just so that I could prove I can. See those where the days I really would achieve anything cause I wanted to prove that I can. 

Anyways, I started reading a lot around that time. My college work did not give me much time to do as much. But I kept on. Soon I forgot all about the challenge. I was really enjoying what I was doing. 

Then I moved to Chennai for work. There I found a reading partner in my friend Narthana. I got membership in a little library in Adayar (Chennai) I started reading atleast 2-3 books a month. 

The best phase was when I moved to US. I could not believe that libraries had so many books and all of them was free. I read with more vigour. I read at a rate of 2-3 books a week. I really miss those days.

Then came the slow days. Marriage and a kid later, I was almost giving up hope that I will ever read again. But my husband was encouraging. The move to UK also helped. Books are so cheap here. I always order something or other from Amazon. I started slowly. I read a book or 2 a month. Not bad. 

I teamed up with a few of my friends in Facebook and we do a group called Bookworms. We all read and post comments every month. That was interesting... 

I was so naive and never realized that there could be blogs about books. I started blogging a couple of months ago. I started a cooking blog. I am not a great cook. But the blog inspired me to do more. Though I read a lot, I am not too good at writing about what I read. May be, this blog will be the one to inspire me to read more and also to write about it. 

I saw a few challenges in different blogs that I might sign up for. This is going to be interesting. I am not going to write a lot (atleast initially). So hang on there with me. 

And last, but not the least - I am looking for all the encouragement, comments and feedback from all of you out there. Lets begin this new journey today!