About reading.

I used to read a lot. Actually, I used to read,write and draw, a lot, all the time.

I remember when I was in elementary school our school was adjacent to this small shopping mall which has a couple of grocery stores, a couple of pubs, a kiosk, a pharmacy, hairdresser and the most awesome thing for me, the library.
I used to go there at least once a day with my sister. We'd go straight from school, get like a meter high stack of books (mostly horse-related but spiced with some good old classic like the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, or something like ten Nancy Drews at a time :D) then we'd walk back home (we lived less than a kilometer away and in Finland kids usually don't go to school by bus if it's like.... more than 10 kilometers away XD and also we we're so small that our school had a rule that kids under the age of 10 couldn't come to school by bike either since it came with a greater risk than walking I guess...) with these huge backbags stuffed with books and school supplies, mostly books though! We would walk side by side with our noses in the books, we were pretty good at walking and reading at the same time too!! I guess it would've been a sight to see, twins walking back from school with the over-sized backbags pushing our shoulders down and we'd just keep reading and walking XD

Our library had THE BEST librarians ever! Before we got our own cards we had to use our dads and I still remember when he one day told us that it was time that we'd get our own cards and how excited I was. We live in a two-storied house (well, our parents live, still in the same house) and I remember me and my sister sitting at the bottom of the stairs filling out the forms for the library cards with our dad. I was so proud at the time, I felt like a big girl XD So after that we pretty much spent most of our time either at the library, coming or going that way, or reading books we got from there. The best librarian was this blond, kind of intimidating-looking woman named Lea, she had this peroxide blond bob-cut hair and at least inch long, devil-red nails! I used to marvel how she could type with them so effortlessly, I couldn't understand how they could be so long, of course now I know they weren't her own nail, but as a little girl it was amazing! I loved how they all knew our names and greeted us when we went to return some books and get at least the same amount with us when leaving, I felt special.

When we got older we wandered to the other side of the library (it was not big, Kokkola is a small town and we lived in the suburb called Koivuhaka which is even smaller, it's actually a wonder they still have that library in there...) which had the sections for books for young adults, adults, travel and art section, art stuff and, one of my favorites, the fantasy section and then there were all the cool and creepy stuff about aliens and things like the Bermuda Triangle, World Wars, all things related to the supernatural and of course, serial killers, they were my favorites.

I've always been a little fidgety with the dark. I used to demand that we'd have a nightlight on at nights, I still haven't watched 'Children of the Corn' or 'Blair Witch Project' again! I was deadly afraid of the Groke from The Moomins at one point, but nevertheless I HAD to read all the "based on true happenings" ghost stories (Amityville Horror, the lady in the stairs, The Hitchhiker, things like that), I wouldn't really dare to sleep the next night but at least I can honestly say I've read almost every book on those sections!! I was so interested in the paranormal that I swear my mom thought I was a bit crazy at some point XD
I've also read my VERY fair share of 90's fantasy novels. I was actually contemplating of buying the whole Death Gate-series from eBay a couple  of weeks ago. It was my ultimate favorite with The Wheel of Time and The Farseer Trilogy. I had this phase for about... 4 years maybe, that I only read fantasy. Everything and anything I got in my hands was as good as read in my books, sorry for the pun ;) One thing that is funny though is that I only read 'The Lord of The Rings' after I saw the first part of the movie...  I don't know how I managed to avoid it until then. It's still not even nearly the best fantasy book I've read though.

Of course I read everything horror and thriller as well, I've read almost everything Stephen King has ever written and one of the most memorable books I've read a s a child was one he wrote under his alias Richard Bachman, I can't remember the name of the book, but it was about a man who ran over a gypsy girl with his friends and the girls' grandma cursed them and karma gave them what they deserved. I was so into that book that I must've read it like three times in a row, no kidding!

Nowadays I don't even actually have a library card for the libraries around here. I sometimes just want to go and get one and just DIVE in to the books that I haven't even heard off! I buy some books (mostly online and in English since they're way cheaper than the ones translated to Finnish and I really enjoy reading them at the language they're written, well mostly...) but I really miss engorging myself in reading. Maybe I should make a New Years promise to go and get myself a library card?! Or as I'm partaking in the December challenge here my award could be that I get to have the card or if I fail  which I wont!) my punishment would be that I have to go get one... how's that?