On Reading – Grace Harper Books

I read many different genres, for the past three weeks I was reading a vampire novel and at the same time reading a sci-fi novel.

Here’s what happened, I get a train to work, it takes roughly twenty minutes from standing on the platform at home end to getting off the train at work end. I was offered The Martian to read, in paperback form. I am more likely to read a book if it’s a paperback. Don’t know why that is but I love turning the pages. I love scrambling around in my handbag when I first have to stop reading the book and need a book mark. The final pages of all my read paperback have an obscure bit of paper in them as a marker. I never remove them they stay there.

So, my journey, I dipped into Mark Watney’s world every morning and every evening for twenty minutes each time. I’d be walking to the platform wondering what Mark has been up to while I was sleeping, mad isn’t it? It’s a piece of fiction where I refused to read it at home to string out the pleasure of reading the story.

I skip to the end of the book because it a brilliant book, that I enjoyed thoroughly but here is how desperate I wanted to know if he survived. It was a usual packed commute, I rarely get a seat but this day the two previous trains had been cancelled. We were pretty much nose to nose already and then more people shoved their way on. A woman was having a panic attack in the corner because she was on the opposite site of the train being squashed further into the glass of the train door. Two complete strangers calmed her down by telling her jokes to take her mind off the panic that had consumed her. Anyway I digress, the person squashes against me had a big furry hood, which was wet from the rain. Rain drops were getting on my book and blurring the words. So holding the book above my head I carried on reading because I had to know – desperate to know, because the author was leaving the ending to the very last page (hell roast him).

Another stop and another ten people pushed their way on and the woman in the corner had been flanked by these two strangers to the point where she was protected from being squashed any further. She was going to be fine for the last few minutes of travel. Raindrop girl was far enough away from my book, I had something to hang onto and I kept reading.

The train pulled into the final destination and I had one more page to go, outraged. I had to get off the train not knowing what happened to Mark Watney. I got off the train with an awful lot of other people shuffled along the platform and found a set of seats. Hurling my handbag and coat onto the spare seat I grabbed the book and continued to read. Not going to tell you the ending because that’s bad form. My point is that I couldn’t go to work without knowing the ending. Leaving the last page until the journey home was out of the question.

I miss checking in on Mark Watney and what he’s doing, I loved the book so much. I want to see the film now to see how it looks on-screen. I’ve always been disappointed before. Well, I saw always there have been a few books, like The Silence of the Lambs which lived up to the book and there are a few others that escape my memory.

Roll on when the film comes to Sky Movies and I will be watching it, seeing Mark again and how he copes with Mars.

Do you have a memory of loving a book so much you rationed your reading of it?

Thanks for reading

Grace

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