The power of written words…

I’ve always been an avid reader. I don’t remember a time in my life, where I didn’t read. Starting with all the Enid Blyton stories from our public library I never stopped reading anything I could get my hands on. Non-fiction and fiction, almost every genre, in German or English. It didn’t matter, as long as the book captivated me. Either because of the plot or the characters or the writer’s way with words. If I’m really lucky it’s because of all the three reasons combined, but it usually only needs one or two of them to not let me put a book down.

During the last couple of months I read much less than I used to. Probably because I had too many other stuff on my mind. Usually reading should put your mind at ease and let you escape all the crappy stuff in your life for a while, but somehow it just didn’t do the trick for me. I couldn’t even concentrate on any novel. I did read though and it was even fictional stuff, but it was limited to Grey’s fanfictions on the internet. Some of them have novel qualities, but it’s not the same, because I’d have to wait for another update and I couldn’t just get completly lost in a story for hours or days. Lost in that way, that you don’t realize that it’s already way after midnight, because you “only” wanted to find out how this or that turned out. Lost in that way, that you’re grateful that you have to go to end of the line and you can ignore where the train stops before that.
A couple of days ago I finally started to read the second part of a historical novel trilogy about a aristrocratic family during the Late Middle Ages in England. “Der Hüter der Rose” written in German by Rebecca Gablé. I read the first part a couple of years ago and loved it, just like almost every other of her novels. They might not be the most sophisticated piece of literature, but they’re still a very compelling piece of fiction and that’s all that matters. Easy to read, but not written in a too simple way. The right amount of romance and suspence and tearfulness, interwoven with real life historical persons, in this case Henry IV and his successors and the whole house of Lancaster. I just love these kind of historical novels. And Gablé makes the historical person come alive with all their good and bad sides . And the same goes for the leading fictional characters. Of course they’re likeable and heroic, but they’ve also got their dark moments, when they do rather terrible things. They’re just human. Well, as human as a fictional character can be…

So, besides work and politics and hockey there is another – probably crucial – reason that I found so little time for studying at the moment. I just couldn’t put the book down. And what’s even worse. after I finished part two on Thursday I immediately bought part three. Although my shelf of unread books looks like this and although so far part three is only availabe as hardcover and I usually prefer paperback. I’m reading a lot on my way to work and carrying a paperback is so much easier. But I couldn’t wait for the paperback of part three.
I spend quite some time reading on my free Friday and the weekend and I was determined to not take it with me on the daily commute, because the book is so heavy and because I should use the time for reading study material. I failed miserably today. And I so will tomorrow. I already know it. So little self-discipline, it’s pathetic. But it’s so exciting and at the same time relaxing to just escape into a capturing tale of the medieval times.

And now I’m a little mad at myself, because instead of writing about it I could have spend the last hour reading. But I wanted to write about this regained desire to read for a while now and reading always kept me from it, so it was about time. I’m just so happy, that I finally got back into the old routine to just grab a book and forget about everything else around me. It’s such a simple way to escape reality. When my Mom was at the hospital last year my mind was way too busy with worry to let me escape from reality although I desperatly wanted to. And although right now I don’t feel the dire need to escape my reality for a while, I’m happy that I’m able to do it again. And I’m enjoying it as long as it lasts because I know this journey will end in about 850 pages. I just hope that some of the other books on my shelf will captivate me just as much, because being able to get so lost just feels so good…

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