The little family of bookworms

These are the reasons why I haven't been regular with my posts.

Books. Borrowed from the library.

Not all of them for me, saved for just 2 titles.

Louis & I have been together for 8 years, of which we've been married for 5 years. In all these time, he's not read a single fiction book from start to finish. In the earlier years when we were dating, I had given him as presents a couple of books from Bill Bryson which I enjoyed tremendously.

Not even for the sake of our courtship days would he read the books that I've given him from cover to finish. Actually, I'm not even sure if he'd even thumbed through a few pages :)

I'm the regular bookworm. Books are where I enter into another realm of fantasy, romance, suspense, travel or whatever, depending on the genre that I'm reading. I'd rather curl up in bed reading a good book to recharge myself for the weekend or to wind down at the end of the day before I turn in.

Louis' idea of recharging himself or relaxing is to go catch a movie, exercise, go out, sleep, or do things that he doesn't have the time to do. In other words, reading was not his idea of fun, relaxation or to rejuvenate, unless you're talking about non-fiction books.

A few weeks ago, while I was nursing and reading to Faith before she turns in for the night, Louis asked if Faith would be distracted if he stayed in the room. I wasn't too sure but I told him let's try it out and see. If she gets too distracted and wants to play with him instead of following her usual bedtime rituals, he could always go out again.

Sitting on the bed while Faith and I are on the mattress on the floor next to him, he was wondering what to do to pass time in the room when he saw a copy of my J.D Robb's futuristic crime book on the headboard of our bed. He picked that up and started reading. And so begin his "love affair".

When Faith finally slept and I was ready to head out with him to the living room to watch some TV programmes like we usually do, Louis' head was still buried in the book. I asked him what he thought of the book and he said it was quite an interesting read so far. And he went on to finish the book over the next few days.

I guess this whole incident of him injuring his knee has led to a surprising discover for the both of us. There are long stretches of time every day when he's lying either on our daybed in the living room or our bed so that he can prop his feet up to relieve the swelling on his knee & ankle -- yes, it still slightly swollen. There's only so much TV programmes or thumb twiddling that he can do, while my mom, Faith & I continued with our daily routines and going to and back from classes.

Encouraged that he finished reading that book, I went to the library and borrowed a few more titles, from different authors that I read and like. Thus far, he's read books by J.D. Robb, Lee Child, James Rollin, David Baldacci & Philip Margolin. These tend to be crime, investigation or thriller types of books.

He's declared that he likes Lee Child's books the best amongst all. In fact, he can't get enough of Jack Reacher, the lead character in which all of Lee Child's books are about. So much so that he's been devouring them so quickly, some of them he's finished in a mere 2 days, that I've been going to the library on a weekly basis to return and borrow new titles.

In fact, my latest "score" for this week was 6 books, of which 4 are by Lee Child. Our library next door has limited titles and I had to venture a little further to Bishan Library cos I figured that it was newer and would have more selections. I was right :)

And so, that's how Louis and I have been spending our nights. After Faith sleeps, we continue to read in the bedroom till midnight. Some nights, like yesterday, when we are coming to the end of the book or when there are parts where the story intensifies, we stayed up until 1 am before turning in. Thankfully, Faith continues to sleep blissfully even when we have the light on.

Its a really nice feeling not to talk or chat but just sit companionably, side-by-side, reading our books in bed. I don't know what it says of us but I don't think its a sad reflection on the state of our relationship that our favourite activity now is to stay up and read our respective books.

I'm thrilled that we can now talk about the characters, plots and style of the various authors that we've both read. We're even excitedly looking forward to the library's reservation notification for when Lee Child's latest book arrives.

As for Faith... I'm glad that she loves her books and wouldn't let me skip her bedtime ritual of reading to her. Some nights, she's insistent that I read 2 books to her or she would scream and cry for me to "Read! Read!".

She's got many favourites, but I think her Mr Men and Little Miss titles are her treasured books. So much so that we've just gotten her the entire collection of Mr Men. Yup! All 46 pieces of them. Its been so difficult to find the individual characters that she loves, e.g. Mr Happy, Mr Bump and Little Miss Sunshine to match the soft toys my friend, Eileen, had gotten her for her Christmas present.

Who knows, we might just turn out to be a little family of bookworms after all :)