Happy reading.

Is it wrong that I like to read for fun? Sitting here at my desk, I'm looking as stacks of books I love; From J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (Yes I love them. Who could say no to a series that did so much for youth literacy?), to Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, to Nora Roberts' Bridal Quartet (Gotta love the chick-lit). I could read an entire series in a week's time. Reading fiction is one of my favourite hobbies.

So why is that when I'm told to read a book for a class, for example The Englishman's Boy for Canadian Literature, I can't bring myself to even pick it up? Is is the child-like response of not wanting to do what your told? Maybe it's the subject matter I'm not really interested in. Or perhaps it's simply too boring for me to want to invest the time into it when it's cutting into one of my favourite things to do on my own time?

Well, it can't really be about the subject matter. I mean, one of my favourite books, The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson, is about a porn star turned porn movie producer who gets into an accident that causes him to have third degree burns on most of his body. The main character is burnt so badly that even his penis has been burnt off. The man goes through hell in the healing process, Davidson details quite graphically what doctors must do to get rid of the burnt flesh, which is to literally carve it off. I must say that this subject matter is not the most appealing to me, yet it's one of my favourites all the same.

I would argue that I don't want to read The Englishman's Boy because it's too boring, but the fact of the matter is that I haven't even started reading it, so how would I really know? This brings me to my last reason: that lovely, child-like response, which I'd like to say I've grown out of but here it is.

Does anyone else suffer from this? Maybe we are meant to hate the books assigned to us in school. Another life lesson learned: sometimes you must do things you don't want to do. I remember in university whenever we were assigned a new reading we'd all roll our eyes, and automatically hate the selection without even cracking the cover. I think we may be socially inclined to dismiss these books on principal.

Alright, now that I've been able to express this rather ridiculous rant, I feel much better prepared to pick up that crisp, untouched book and give it a chance. Happy reading!