On reading

I was a naughty girl yesterday night, or rather, this morning. I stayed up to read "The Time Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger.

I took up the book at 1+ am fully intending to "just read a bit" as a bedtime lullaby, but ended up finishing it at 6 am. Then I still didn't feel like sleeping - I attribute this to the little nap I snuck in between studying and lectures - so I took out my textbook and started reading again. At almost 7, when the first glimpses of daylight were peeking their heads out the welcome the world, I slept. And woke at 8.30 am like clockwork, even though I had put my alarm to 9.30 am. *sigh* I never can sleep in. But let's not discuss my once-in-a-very-very-blue-moon sleeping habits...
For some reason, when I was reading that very very good book (I recommend it to anyone who reads for leisure), I was acutely aware of my reading habits. I even calculated my reading rate: about 2 pages a minute if you want to know. :>
1st of all, I think I'm addicted to reading fiction. I can just go on and on reading almost any kind of fiction, as compared to textbooks (remember may nap?). I guess that's common with everyone. Well, it's not only that. It's an opening of whole different worlds and ways in which I can explore that can get so engrossing, like I'm sucked up into their world. I connect with the characters, guessing their actions and analysing them, taking as long as I need. Later I'll always get my answers as the story unfolds, and there'll be no consequences for guessing or analysing wrongly. In a sense I become the time (and world) traveller, always a 3rd person, not being able to change anything that would happen, just understanding the way the people and their niches work. And the stories - how varied they can be! The plots never fail to appeal to either the intellect or the heart, and the good books to both. I think reading books have somewhat of an endorphin-like effect on me.
I think I like reading at night best. There are minimal distractions, letting you sink comfortably into the book's other world how you wish, and letting you extricate yourself anytime you want. It's also the time where there's the most possibility of me finishing a book in one sitting, which I try and aim to do so that I don't forget any of the subtler nuances of the plot. Then, you can nod off to sleep anytime you want, because that's what you were supposed to be doing anyway. Besides, the only difference between fiction and Dreamland would be that one is made up by other people, and the other is made up by your own mind. Personally, I remember others' dreams better than mine. What's best about the night? No blazing sun staring into your eyes, and it's a comfortable temperature even without air-conditioning if you burrow into your blankets, all snug and comfy.
Also, they don't limit me as much as movies do. Movies show you what the director has in his mind's eye; writers of books describe what they see in their minds and leave the rest to you. It's more of an active process, this imagining of the environs and people, and it's more personal too. My Frodo (from Lord of the Rings) would have been different from your Frodo even though we read the same book, but now after the movie, our Frodo is a stereotypical Elijah Wood.
I may seem like quite an escapist here, escaping from the "real world" into books, but I don't think I am. It's a way of unwinding, doing something other than the ordinary. Some people choose movies, some people do computer games, some people do sports. I do books. I have this probably unfulfillable daydream to be able to walk into a bookstore and buy any amount of books, whether good or bad or just mediocre, and go home and read them one by one, keeping the gems and passing the others on. But I don't think I could ever do that - the sensible part of my brain takes over and I end up buying just one book. Even choosing that one book is an agonising process, that sometimes I abandon it and walk out with no book. Well, I think that'll will always be a daydream, nothing else. I can't really imagine paying hundreds, or even thousands, for books.
Well, that's some of what reading is to me, the self-confessed bookworm. I'd write more, but I'm going off soon. :)
One more thing - go read The Time Traveller's Wife. It's good. I read it courtesy of YP. Thanks YP. :)