I can't remember when I started giving up on books I wasn't enjoying, even after getting to page 40 or 50. Before that, I would read cover to cover anything that fell into my hands. Now I even skip the acknowledgements. What a change.

A lot of my friends are bookworms. They respect books so much that they never —I mean never— write in them, let alone dog-ear pages. I'm the opposite. A book that has no trace of me doesn't feel like mine. Not that I mistreat them. I just turn them into personal objects. So I highlight bits, write notes in the margins, and leave sticky notes here and there. Every once in a while, I spill coffee on them.

I’ve always wondered how my friends remember which paragraph in which book said what. Or maybe they don't, and they just have the illusion of having read a lot. I know they see me as a kind of vandal, someone who would tear out a few pages and set things on fire if necessary. I probably would. Who wants to freeze to death when you can survive? And then there’s Amazon.

I'm also a slow reader by choice. I could probably read faster, I guess. Never tried. I don't do extensive reading in English either. I need to squeeze every drop of juice out of a book. Otherwise I feel like I'm missing out on something worth my time.

When I was a teenager, I got the biggest English dictionary I'd ever seen in my life as a birthday gift. I still keep it. It's so big you could sit on it. I know from experience. Back then I didn't value it, and I'm not sure I fully do now. But it's still there, reminding me that someone believed I could learn English before I believed it myself.

📖