Because I do. Read books over and over, I mean. But only if they're good. Harry Potter, for instance. I've read the entire series at least four times since its completion with the publication of The Deathly Hallows. But I re-read the entire series at least every time a new book came out since I was introduced to them after the publication of The Goblet of Fire. That means that if I totaled all the times I've read a book with Harry Potter in the title, the sum would be over 50. I don't know if I should be concerned or not, considering that they are my "happy" books—I read them when I feel overwhelmed and need an escape.
I have probably written before that it irks me a little that people claim reading fiction is only for escape. Sometimes it is, obviously. But more often than not, for me at least, it's for some other reason. Sometimes I read to be cool for somebody (yes, I will admit this ... more on that later). I read because reading a book is just as good as having a conversation with someone, with the added bonus of zero awkwardness because you don't have to go through any small talk or idle chit chat before you get to what they're really all about inside. Rather pathetic, really.
The problem with escapism is that it inevitably ends. As long as the Harry Potter series is, it is always over sooner or later, and then you're left bursting with emptiness because for so many days/weeks you were immersed in another world and have to come crashing back to your own. Always alone.
Sometimes I don't want to read anymore because of that. But I have to keep my mind occupied. Giving up reading is unthinkable, no matter how torturous it is to finish a book and wander around a small apartment with no one to talk to about all the emotions just experienced by being a temporary observer of another universe. I might be able to get along without books if I had hundreds of intellectually stimulating acquaintances who interacted with me on a daily basis.
No, on second thought, I couldn't. Books don't demand anything from you. You can pick one up and read just a sentence before discarding it, and it never knows the difference. And how often have you started a conversation with someone that you wanted to last for one sentence that ended up lasting an hour or more? Yes. People are great, but the very fact that they are people and must be treated with common courtesy makes them too energy inefficient.
This post begins to make me sound cold, so I think I will end it here. The next book I'm reading for my book group is called Pope Joan, which originally I was not thrilled about, then warmed a little to, then finally got less excited again after finding out it's merely a novel. I imagine it will be something like Ophelia, by Lisa Klein, which I read several years ago and which was, as indicated by the title, a back story for Hamlet's tragic love. I gave up on historical fiction years ago, but I'm going to be a good sport and read Pope Joan anyway. I will probably hate it, as I have hated or been indifferent to almost everything we've read in this book group so far. But I think one point of a book club is to read stuff you hate so that you don't get a skewed perspective of how great the literature market actually is. Well, that and you have people who are going to talk about it with you. Liking is always a possibility, and when you don't choose it yourself, there is always the surprise factor. Besides, there are few things more difficult than reading a book you absolutely love only to find out that no one you know has read it and you will spend the rest of your life convincing others that they need to read this book and wishing, wishing you had someone to discuss it with. Until you finish another book, that is.
