My name is Becca and I'm addicted to books

Books. I love books. I love holding them. I love the smell of them (well unless they have been touched by substances disgusting - I had a note from one parent whilst I was teaching last year saying: 'Miss Thwaites, Winnie did not read this book last night as the smell of it was offensive. Please dispose of it') I can remember the first book I read independantly - 'The tiger who came to tea'. I can remember dad reading all of the Narnia books to Spud and I before we went to bed. I can remember the first book that I read to my first class - it was 'George's Marvellous Medicine' and I think that I enjoyed it more than the kids. Especially doing Grandma's voice.

Today I was reading a girly, historical romance and I realised how much my reading tastes have changed - have widened. Some may say however that reading historical romance novels shows that I have no taste.....At eleven, I read as many of the classics as I could lay my mitts upon. I lived in the world of Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy but at that age didn't understand much of the humour. I loved books about different times and my writing reflected this. All of my stories were set around the 18th and 19th centuries and involved little girls playing the pianoforte and sipping tea with the vicar of the parish. And I hated with a passion all things sci fi and non fiction. At 18 I moved on to more academic material. When we went on holiday, I would only take books that I felt proud of. Deep, reflective books. After university; after text book upon journal upon pontificating essay, my tastes moved on to mystery books - to Agatha Christie and Colin Dexter. Some nights when I was on my own in the house, I would get so scared, I would wait until I really, truly needed the toilet and then run there and run back - worried that I would find a murderer outside my door. I would check under my bed, in my cupboards, behind the curtains. And now? Now I love them all. I love the cheesy historical romances, the classics, mysteries, children's books and non fiction especially at the moment. I even pick up the occasional heavy, dusty uni book and read it for FUN. Right... back to Sir Richard Wyndham who has just rescued a small boy who, it turns out, is not a boy at all but an attractive heiress escaping an arranged marriage.