Kindle Update

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river. -Virginia Woolf

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2020 Reading Challenge: 21 books out of 60 (35%)

Currently four books ahead of schedule

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Over the last few weeks I've had a lot of time on my hands, thanks, in part to my lack of a job (more on that in another post) and the rest is due to the lockdown. It's like I've rediscovered my Kindle, which is where my main form of reading is done. I've spent more time reading on there than I have done in a long time. April has seen me read more books during the month than I have done in a very long time. I've spent several days doing nothing but read. It's given me the chance to catch up on my reading challenge for 2020. I put 60 books down as my goal for the year, which left me with a weekly average of 1.15 books to read a week (odd, I know). Thanks to the number of book reading days I've had this month, I've caught up with and then overtaken my reading schedule for the year. I'm hoping that I'm able to keep the momentum going. Over the last few months, in the run up to my first book reading day, my depression really caused me to struggle finding the interest in books that I once had. As a teenager, I used to read so many books (probably close to around a 100 books a year), but I've lost interest in reading and I honestly don't know how I managed to read as many books as I did last year. It gave me hope for 2020 and the years to come. Maybe the healing of my mind will come from the reading of books for pleasure.

Books are special to me. In years gone by my parents were forced to take rather drastic action to try and reduce my spending on books. Before I got my Kindle, when I was growing up in Uganda, I didn't have the same access to books that we have in England today. Uganda only has one big book chain, Aristoc Booklex, which sold books at European prices (which meant they were expensive), not to add, Ugandan wages are very different to European wages. So whenever we'd come to Europe on holiday I'd end up going nuts in the books section of any charity shops we went past. My suitcases were usually full of books instead of much needed clothes. Since I got my Kindle I've been able to save quite a lot of money as Kindle editions are usually quite a bit cheaper than printed copies. It's also helped me save on space as my Kindle can hold hundreds of books and its barely thicker than a standard A4 notebook. The same amount of printed, hardcopy books would take up many more bookcases than the one that I have in the flat. I do have quite a number of books still in Uganda (as well quite a few other things that I had to leave there when I left for the Netherlands in 2012. I've only been back to Uganda once in the last eight years). I've wondered what would have happened if I'd owned a Kindle back when I was in my teens. It is likely I would have run up a massive bill for my parents in regards to all the new books I had bought and downloaded on my Kindle.

You may have wondered about the photos I'm using in this post. I went up to London a few months ago and went on a couple of tours. One of which went through some pretty incredible parts of the city that I hadn't been to when I lived in London back in 2014 and 2015. London is such a rich city, with a history that I won't ever stop being fascinated in. The first two photos of this blog are from Cecil Court, London. Cecil Court is home to many bookshops that deal in first editions and antique books, both of which can rake in millions of pounds at auction. I wasn't able to go into any of the shops, but did enjoy having a good look into the windows as we went past. One day I'll go back to Cecil Court to have a good look at the books they have for sale (even if I can't afford to buy anything). Old books have a smell that I truly love. Old books always leave me thinking of times gone by. These books leave a link to the lives of those people who owned them and read them. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford to stock my own library with books; not just old copies, but also hard copies of the Kindle editions that I already own. A girl can dream...