To my shame, I hadn’t read a physical book for the longest time because doing so simply wasn’t at the top of my priority list. I just didn’t make the time for it, and this sad truth was a starkly vast difference from my childhood, where I would read books as though it was going out of style.

I liked to say that it was because I was too busy with school, studying for exams; then too busy with university, doing theory readings; then too busy with work, and being endlessly tired. But it was really a lack of care. Picking up a book cost me too much energy, patience, and too much time. I’d come home from my retail job and be so tired of the general public and from the mundane nature of the job, that all I wanted was something easy. I’d put on a film, or watch a television series, or even just scroll YouTube for some passive entertainment that didn’t require too much work from me to enjoy.

But after a few years of this, I abruptly realised that I missed the homely and nostalgic smell of the paper pages and the adventure. I sorely missed the escape into a new and incredible world, where I would meet new characters, all with their own stories to tell.

Funnily enough, this realisation came only when I began having adventures of my own…

So I tried reading again.

At the start, I was frustrated at my slow progress and at how reading was so much more of a struggle for me now as an adult, compared to when I was a child. Reading felt like work when in the past it had felt like joy. I worried that I’d lost my ability to focus for any length of time because of my easy consumption of social media and technology. I was terrified that the instant gratification and dopamine that I got from endlessly scrolling had meant I’d lost my concentration.

So I can honestly say, now that I am reading actual books again and committing time to their completion, that I feel absolutely ecstatic. The genuine delight I felt at finishing my first book after years was incredibly and I couldn’t keep the stupidly proud grin off of my face for quite some time.

I decided that I would do my best to keep a book review page updated as a way to ensure a continued habit of reading because I don’t ever want to forget how it feels to escape into the pages of a book again.