Let me tell you my story of my reading habits. It’s a journey which started in my school days and continues till today. I wrote about my love for books and how it all started in a blog post “B for Books” in the 2017 edition of A to Z Challenge. As I recollect it now, my reading habits have changed over the years. The way I read now is completely different than the way it started. As you might have read, it all started with that one big chunky book, bound in a yellow leather jacket. It was a novel by Ranjeet Desai titled ‘श्रीमान योगी’. Even today, it remains the book closest to my heart. From this book, journey started to become paperback loyalist

A treasure trove called सा. वा. ना.

My hometown is Nashik where I lived with my family till my graduation. Back in those days, I don’t think I had more than 10 books which were mine. At first, I was dependent on the books owned by my grandma. And later, I used to get my supply of books from our local public library, “सार्वजनिक वाचनालय, नाशिक (सा. वा. ना.)” which housed thousands of books from all genres of Marathi Literature. The first ever English book which I read was ‘Wise and Otherwise’ by Sudha Murthy. One of my cousins gifted it to me. And before I knew it, I was sucked into the world of English literature. Back then I had no clue that all those “English classics” do exist. For me, Sudha Murthy, Shashi Tharoor, Chetan Bhagat, Durjoy Dutta were the English writers. 

How I became paperback loyalist

As I shifted to Pune, my connection with the library got severed. I started collecting my own copies of books. Crossword stores became my hangout place where I picked all the English books. Akshardhara’s annual exhibition turned out to be my annual pilgrimage to gather gems of Marathi literature. Emergence of e-commerce sites like Flikart and Amazon has been a boon for bibliophiles like me. I am a proud member of Amazon Prime from the times when they only used to sell a few products other than books. 

Hardbound books attracted me for some time. I even bought some copies of those fancy hardbounds. Awww, they look so pretty on the shelf. But, I read anywhere and in any posture which you can imagine. That’s when you understand how bulky and heavy these hardbound books are. I soon got over my fascination with hardbounds and embraced lovely colourful paperbacks. In this journey of my love for books today, I have my personal collection of around 300 books with almost three-fourth of them being paperbacks. Does this mean, Am I eligible for the title of “Paperback Loyalist”? Or have I changed into something else now? I will talk about my latest habits in the next one. Until then, happy reading…

This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon