Skip to main content

'What reading means to me?' Samantha Vickery's 2nd Prize winning competition entry..


What reading means to me?

“My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together”(Tahereh Mafi, Shatter me)

Reading means everything to me, if it wasn’t for reading, I certainly would not be the person I am today. I’ve been to places I could never go myself. I’ve gone forward in time; I’ve gone backwards. I’ve met people I would have never met in reality; the good, the bad, the famous, the monotonous and the ordinary. I’ve travelled the world and the universe and all this has happened to create the person I am today.

As a child, my first memories of reading include Topsy and Tim and Cinderella but, it was Matilda that cemented my love of reading. Matilda was a little girl who defied and defeated the bad in her world by being good and with her knowledge that all reading she had done, had given her a ‘view of life they had never seen’.

The illustration on the front of Matilda uncannily belongs in my world. Matilda is there, propped up on her cabinet, a little girl made something more, not just because of the propping action but because of the book she has in her hands and the piles of them she is surrounded by.

Books are not only entertaining and a good way to distract yourself from your own reality, they are inspirational and stimulation. Happy endings offer hope that everything will end happily ever after, after all. Even the sad endings are only so because of some beauty portrayed which has now been lost. Metaphorical and physical beauty is like a light and always offers hope.

As Trigiani notes in the Big Stone Gap, “The terrible things that happen to us in this life never make any sense when we’re in the middle of them, floundering, no end in sight, there is no rope to hang onto.” When I read stories, I can at least find a rope. My breadth of understanding is expanded. When I’m lonely, I can find friends in the characters or facts to make more familiar in my surroundings. For example, when I was alone in Japan, it was so difficult to get hold of English written books so over three weeks, I read Memoirs of a Geisha four times over. Not only did Sayuri keep me company, the knowledge and understanding of Japanese culture that this beautiful novel gave me made me feel more at home in the foreign land. Without this novel, three weeks in Japan could have felt a lot longer and daunting. In fact, without it, I may never have seen the stay through and terminated my round world trip there and then before it had even barely started.

Books can be life changing. I completed the marathon after reading Murakami, What I talk about when I talk about running. Murakami also reminded me why I run, to lose myself in a void. That is why I read too, I lose my reality when I’m immersed in my book. Instead I’m busy rewriting the very story I’m reading as I interpret each new word I read.

My mum and I are both members of the Yeovil College Reading Club and it is amazing how we can read the same books each month and interpret the story so differently. Mum guessed early on in The Cuckoo’s Calling who the killer was but not with the same words on the page, I was stumped until the final revelations. Yet I believed Tony to be a good man, from the moment he was introduced yet Mum judged him much more harshly. It is fascinating how a mother and daughter could interpret the same words so differently yet so similarly. It is amazing how we all process and tweak exactly the same words in our heads and for me, reading just illustrates the exceptional uniqueness and mystery of the human mind. Books help us to unlock further secrets of our very own mind.

Books also give me hope. I hate that one day due to money or life; I might not be able to get hold of that one book which may turn my whole life around. Books are my protection, and distraction. Reading stops my mind from wandering carelessly and stumbling into a black hole.

Reading also allows me to grow, they teach me harsh lessons about life but let me forego the experiences that I might not have been able to find or handle in my own reality. Katie Piper’s memoir, ‘Beautiful’ was a massive inspiration to me, she shows such courage and shows you that you have to just go on. An important conclusion to draw but one where I certainly didn’t want the experience she had to gain such wisdom. Books like this also remind me how lucky I am.

I could write so much about my love of reading but by now, you’ll probably understand why I tell you how annoying it is when I’m told to put a book down and experience the world and there will be time to read when I’m older.

Sadly, there is no guarantee I will have the same ability to read even tomorrow. I’m scared of one day being unable to pick up the ‘heavy’ book lying around or to decipher the black marks on the page. If that happens then I hope I’ve trained my mind through reading enough to look at that Matilda print and let my imagination write its own stories carrying me away ‘past the stars on silver wings’

“And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who Is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours” (Alan Bennett, ‘The History Boys’.)

Samantha Vickery

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Norwegian Wood Book Club Member Review

Why I Chose… “Norwegian Wood ” (Haruki Murakami)   The question every reader both loves and dreads to answer is this one – what’s your favourite? There are never any short answers – and very often, the result is a  long list.   There are books which you read every summer, or every winter. The ones that remind you of being five, or fifteen, or your college years or your first love. The books we remember fondly are the ones whose lines we memorise and drop into conversation; whose characters we wish we could be like; the ones whose worlds are those we could almost step into, which strike a chord so deep we feel we’ve always known them and afterwards change our perception slightly of our own world.   Norwegian Wood is one of those books.   It is a bittersweet tale of looking back, of an acutely felt nostalgia for past youth and past loves. From hearing the Beatles song, “Norwegian Wood”, Toru Watanabe is reminded of his first love, Naok...

The Bridport Prize Poems, Short Stories and Flash Fiction Competition

Fancy your chances at writing a poem, short story or flash fiction? Enter in to the Bridport Prize competition for your chance to win a cash prize! Rules : Poems : Max 42 Lines Entry Fee: £8 £5000 1st Prize Short Stories : Max 5000 words Entry Fee: £9 £5000 1st Prize Flash Fiction : Max 250 words Entry Fee: £7 £1000 1st Prize Entrants must be 16 years and over. Posthumous entries are not eligible. Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant. Work must never have been published previously. Entrants can send as many entries as they wish. Entry fees must be in sterling by credit/debit card, cheque or postal order. Entries must be in English. Entries must be typed on A4, Single-sided and securely fastened. Stories to be double spaced, every page numbered and the total word count noted at the top of the first page. Poems to be single spaced. No personal information on the entries (name, address etc), only on the entrant form. Entries...

1st Place Prize..

Congratulations Nick on winning 1st prize in our Book Club competition! Here is your fantastic prize! What a haul!