I have a friend who used to love to read. He’s read Tolstoy and Hemmingway and talks about “The Sun Also Rises” with a smile on his face that matches my own.

My first reading of “The Sun Also Rises” was in the city of Pamploma, at the Festival of San Fermín, where the novel is set. I, like the protagonist, was trying to get away from myself. I did not just read Hemmingway’s debut, I lived it. To this day, I cannot think of it without a smug (and slightly embarrassed) smile. In between chapters, I hung out of windows and watched the running of the bulls – I would have joined in the running if it wasn’t for my sensible travel companion talking me out of the adventure – but we met a bunch of boys who ran after us pretending to be bulls so we got in on the fun of it after all. 

“…you can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Back to my friend – the one who used to love to read. He’s in his fifties now, and he chooses to watch (excellent) shows on Netflix rather than cracking open a book. He says his attention span is shot. Finished. I get it. I love a good night in and Netflix is just so – easy. Endless, and free. Escapism on tap in any flavour you like. But he used to love to read. He has a beautiful mind. He’s just distracted.

I still love to read, but I miss the days when I had the time to devour books. I used to read for hours and days and through the night. I would take a good book along to the loo… that’s how you knew, you see, that it was good. What happened to reading like that? On the loo, on the train, on a bus, on a plane?

You love reading. You just don’t have the time.

I still see people reading in all those places. Except, perhaps, the loo. But I’m not convinced that means they don’t still read in there. What I am absolutely convinced of is that reading has become a luxury. Something we do when we have space and time… which, for most of us, is not very often. I get it. I’m a busy mum of teens. I work because I need to pay the bills. I write because I love to write. I read in the moments in between, like a convict snatching a glimpse of blue sky from the corner of her cell, because reading is freedom.

There’s one little issue… most of us are not convicts. The only thing trapping us is what we choose to do with our time. I love Netflix as much as the next person, but I believe the time has come to take back our freedom. To rediscover the gift and the joy of an unhurried mind. A sanctuary where we can empathise with others and rediscover ourselves again.

Come with me. Rediscover yourself. It’s time to fall in love with books again.

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