A Few Words - On Words

Yesterday night, my phone rang while I was reading a book. Usually, when this kind of thing happens, I just turn off the ringer and read on in peace. But this time, unfortunately, I was reading an ebook. On my phone.
At first, I just cut off the call and continued reading.
This person, though, was insistant. So when, for the second time, the screen switched from ebook page to 'as****e calling' (or that might be just what I read, instead of my friend's name), I answered the call and utilised a series of words and phrases that I probably shouldn't write here. After having given him an earful, I asked him what the hell he was calling me about at 1 am. The poor thing, assuming I had been asleep, hung up after hurriedly saying, 'Sorry yaar, aise he call kiya tha, I thought you'd be awake!'
In my defence, I HAD been reading, okay? That's what you get for disturbing me while I read (and I don't care if you had no idea what I'd been doing). Unless you bother me in person, in which case you might also get stuff hurled at your face.
Yep, I'm crazy when it comes to books. Corny as it might sound, books complete me. They just do. Not just books, I like reading anything and everything - except newspapers, perhaps - poetry, magazines, Reader's Digest (because it's too cool to be called a magazine), blogs, books, you name it.
I rarely read poetry, but find it enjoyable when I do. I read it only when I stumble across it unintentionally in a novel, a blog, or when I'm editing the school magazine (which, incidently, will get published god-knows-when). It is an amazing form of literature, but somewhat less appealing to me than prose.
I mostly read magazines to pass the time while my derrier rests on a plush sofa of some waiting room - the dentist's, the hairstylist's, or any other -ist's. And I am not particularly choosy when it comes to magazines. I can read anything from fashion and celebrity news to sports and automobile reviews, and even business and marketing mags.
Reader's Digest, as I said, is like a classy relative to magazines. As a kid, I used to just flip through to the jokes section, but found them too complex to be funny. Then, I started doing the Word Power quiz - and here you have to excuse my boastfulness - going from scoring a zero to acing the quiz in a couple of years. Today, I can read RD cover to cover (skipping commercials, duh!) without getting even slightly bored.
Blogs. I have always loved getting to know different kinds of people from different parts of the world, and blogs provide an easily accessible path to do just that. I like all kinds of blogs - conceptual or random, serious or frivolous, non-fiction or fiction, conforming or non-conforming. A blog gives you an insight into the personality of the person writing it, and you never know when you might bump (virtually) into an interesting personality!
Books. Oh, what can I say!
Books are man's best friends, I've heard. I don't know about the general 'man', but they aren't my friends, for sure. Soulmates, more like. They are a lot of wonderful things - temples for the mind, hospitals for the soul, theme parks for the imagination; always giving, never demanding. There's only so much you can do in one life. Books allow you to live as many lives as you want to, in just one lifetime. Each book is a door - like Alice putting her gold key in the lock, like the secret wardrobe passage to Narnia, like Harry using Parseltongue to open the Chamber of Secrets. Honestly, half the time in my mind, I'm a Wizard/ Shadowhunter/ Dragon Rider/ crazy scientist/ gangbanger, doing some cool shit, when I'm really just a nerd, sitting in bed - reading.
Books are a refuge. The moment you open a book, all your issues and worries get pushed to a tiny corner in your brain, forgotten, as you jump into someone else's life. They're an amazing distraction when you are sad, angry, depressed, lonely, or simply bored. And when you think you are ready to face reality, you can jump back out, into your own life.
In fact, I read even when I am happy or excited. Reading, then, is like a celebration.

Words have the power to change us. With each book you read, you learn a new lesson. In fact, for some books, each repeated reading teaches you something new - a little immaterial something that you can carry with yourself forever. And, if you are lucky, someday you'll be able pass it on - a priceless legacy.

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I began this post because of my annoying friend. In hind sight, it's just a monotonous allocution about MY likes, MY dislikes, and MY thoughts on reading. I'm too self obsessed, aren't I? Just to balance things out a bit, let's hear about YOUR likes, YOUR dislikes, and YOUR thoughts. Do give me some interesting stuff to read! :)