When did you start reading as a hobby?
This question is what usually comes to my mind first whenever I meet some new fellow bookworms. I love talking about books especially hearing stories as to when they started to love reading books as a hobby, who influenced them to read, etc. So, for this week’s geeky discussions, let’s talk about that, shall we? Ok. I’ll go first.
When Did I Start Reading Books?
I can’t exactly say when but I think it was during second grade. Our school library was doing some book cleaning and the librarian asked us students if we want to take some of the discarded books home. I got curious so I browsed and picked out two textbooks (I think it was a geography and English book). At an early age, I’m always fascinated to learn different cultures and traditions around the world as well as listening to people speaking English. So yep, after acquiring those books, I’ve been reading them interchangeably since then.
But it wasn’t until 5th grade that I read my first ever romance novel. Tagalog romance novels were really popular during those times and I remember how my aunt, mom and (especially) my sister loved reading them. Unfortunately, my mom doesn’t read books now like she usually did before as well as my sister but my aunt still reads books occasionally (only English books this time). And yep, my sister being a bad influence introduced me to a (surprisingly) beautiful world of tagalog romance and handed me my first ever novel (which I passed on to my best friend, haha).
Aside from my aunt, mom and sister, my family isn’t really that big in books. When I entered the world of romance novels, my grandfather wasn’t really amused of the idea. I’m still so young back then so I can understand his reasons, so whenever he sees me or my sister reading one, he shuts us down or even confiscates them (depends on his mood though). But even so, I still keep reading them all throughout highschool and even until now (good thing I’m a ninja, haha), *wink.
And I eventually started reading my first ever English book one boring weekend when I was in College but it wasn’t until I came across Mary Higgins Clark’s Loves Music Loves to Dance that I finally realized my love for reading. And since then, I started collecting books.
