Narrative
Reading is my never ending story; it is, in fact, a story that started I can't remember how many years ago, and that it is still with me, by my side. And, as all the real stories, with its ups and downs.
After getting a glimpse of the images, what came into my mind was "love of reading". The people in the library, with their posture and attitude in such a great place, everyone in silence, ignoring anything else around them... The grandma with her grandchild, trying to transmit all her love for books to him. And what about the old lady with her tablet? Is it not a symbol of how an eager reader is able to adapt to new times so as not to abandon what she really loves? In fact, this image has brought my own 85-year-old-mother to my memory, sitting on her sofa every afternoon with her open e-book reader in her hands. In the same way, the students reading in the classroom, maybe, some of them may get a bit bored, maybe it is not their dream situation, but, hopefully, reading is quite a better activity than solving a quite complicate problem and will allow them to travel to an imaginary and wonderful place. Such an inconceivable and incredible place like a stool in the middle of any street that is where we find the man in the fifth photograph, with a book in his hands, of course.
As I see it, the people in these photos are reading what they have probably decided. Perhaps, the students in the classroom have not had the opportunity to choose, but, I am sure the teacher has made up his mind taking into account the kind of stories their pupils enjoy the most. Or, in an ideal but perfectly possible situation, they have been able to vote for his favourite book among a given list. In the case of the second image, both, the grandma and the little boy have decided together the story they are reading and it has become their favourite indeed.
I can see myself in some of the photos; When I started to read English books at university, we were in class and we used to analyse the classic plays in groups, and this helped me to understand the lives and reactions of those characters who became close friends of mine. Otherwise, my literature lessons during my second year at the high school are still a vivid memory for me -I wanted my parents to buy me the last book my teacher had talked about.
As you can imagine, that was the consequence of what I had lived so far at home. I have to name my father as the person who instilled in me the reading habit, he was responsible of my love for reading, I was an eager reader, yes, but he never refused to provide me with everything that he considered worth reading or to buy me any book that I requested. I read all Agatha Christie's novels at a ver early age and I was able to answer all the questions my mother's friends (some of them teachers themselves) asked me about the plot, setting, murderers...
Now, things have changed, I keep on reading as much as I can, but, I have to admit that, since I have started to use the tablet or the ebook reader, I am not so demanding as a reader, I do not discriminate any more, and some works that I read may have a dubious quality. This is due to the fact that you have access to a great amount of books easily and fast.
My reading taste is the same in English or Spanish. I read novels, basically those who some people (my sister, my mother or some friends) recommend or those written by my favourite authors or those whose review I have read or heard about in the radio.
My reading taste is the same in English or Spanish. I read novels, basically those who some people (my sister, my mother or some friends) recommend or those written by my favourite authors or those whose review I have read or heard about in the radio.
Maybe our lives, our habits and times have evolved; however, be it as it may, reading goes along with us.
