About Books and Reading, there is no other love quite like that - Wednesday Facts

Today is Wednesday. It's no Friday but it's not Monday, either.

To honor the fact that we are in the middle of week, I will tell you five facts of life, about me or someone else, faith, world and existence in general.

And what I want from you, my readers?

I want to know about you! 

Leave me your facts, so I can enjoy reading them!

They can also be about you, your life or anything you find fascinating in this world or in the world beyond.

I love reading and I love books.

When I was little my parents would read me and my sister at night when it was bedtime.

They read us many books and the same book many times.

My mother told me that there was a time that they would read me the same story about a little elephant six or seven times the same night.

I would not want to listen to any other story than that.

I still remember the book and the pictures, and that it was about a little elephant who lost his mother and tried to find her.

My little brother had also his favorite book.

It was about two little bear brothers who were very naughty and got into trouble with their parents.

I finally learnt it by heart and would just recite it to him whenever he wanted to hear the story.

And I would describe the pictures if I didn't have the book with me.

That is how much the stories can mean to us and how strongly they stay with us.

There are other stories that have stayed with me.

It was such an amazing moment when I was able to start reading for myself.

Nothing quite compares to reading and books.

There is the moment when you start reading a new book and find yourself in a new world with new exciting people.

The moment when you realize that they will be your lifelong friends.

Or the moment when you open a book that you have read so many times before that you practically have it memorized.

The moment when you greet all those dear old friends that you know so well.

There is also the moments when you are so immersed that you live the story, together with the characters.

The moments when you dream about the book you are reading.

Or when you are fighting with the characters and shouting at them (yes, out loud) because they are acting so stupid.

The moments when you laugh and don’t care who is listening.

Or the moments when you cry, no matter who can see you.

The conversations you have with the characters, the advice you give them and the advice you receive.

The realizations about yourself and what you have been doing with your life.

I love seeing the books, I love touching them, I love smelling them and I love hearing them.

Books are for all the senses.

Books are for the whole life.

Here are some of my favorite quotes about books.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Cicero

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

 “Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“We read to know that we are not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

 “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

Just like my favorite author C. S. Lewis says “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

(Although I can do without the tea!)