My story as a reader

Since I was a kid, I've always liked reading. 

I don't know why, I just did. My sister didn't like it as much as me so it wasn't that we were bored and didn't have anything else to do. I used to read all I could get my hands on, especially my school books. And because of that, my mom used to ask me for help whenever she needed to find a specific subject for my sister's homework or the neighbors (they often came asking for help and we let them borrow our books) and I always knew where to find it. (And I still kind of do? Like I still remember some of the books and what stories and stuff they had).

I used to borrow books too. From my aunts, an uncle and once from a neighbor that had a book with ghost stories and legends. I also borrowed  a few from a friend at school that had all the books from a series of local ghost stories I was really interested in. I even read my mom books! She had one that was also about ghost stories (can you guess what I liked reading the most?) from around the world but it also has strange phenomena like Tutankhamun's curse. I got so scared after I finished it that when my mom decided to throw her books to the trash, I let her throw it out lol. I was a scaredy-cat back then.

Some of the books that I still have:

I always loved learning about nature so I read these a lot. They have really beautiful illustrations

We had a computer pretty early in our lives but we wouldn't have internet until much later. So we had CD-ROM's with cool educational programs like La Máquina de Hacer Tareas and Encarta. This was a digital encyclopedia that came with Windows at the time. And guess who expended hours reading there?

I loved it so much I ended up memorizing the answers for the games after playing them too many times

Once we got internet installed at my house (when I was in high school), I started reading fanfics on MetroFLOG. Then I went to fanfiction.net and fictionpress. But the first ever book I owned was The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (the title was different in spanish). It was a gift from my grandmother, from when the whole family went together to the mall. She let me choose one thing to buy me and I chose this book:

This is not a book for kids lol I thought the cute angel meant that it was harmless but oh, boy. I was wrong. But I really liked it! Fun  and wacky stuff

After that I became interested in getting more for myself.  The next time I bought Twilight (this was before the series got popular) and I got hooked. I read the whole series! I classmate let me borrow The Da Vince Code from her aaaaand I got a bit obsessed with it. You know how hyperfixations hit. I got a Mickey Mouse wristwatch because of that book. I also love Mikey and Minnie, so it was something I wanted anyway (I still have it, though I haven't used it in years. It needs new batteries).

At school they asked us to buy a book to make a presentation about one of the stories but I didn't buy it. I didn't want my parents expending more money than they should had. So I asked a friend to let me borrow it from her and I fucking loved it! I devoured it in a day and regretted not telling my parents to buy it. It was an sci-fi anthology with a pretty damn good selection of stories. Some of my favorites were A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick and Exile by Edmond Hamilton. Look them up if you can, they are awesome.

But reading books in physical form wasn't enough. I couldn't find as much variety at the the stores as I would liked and I couldn't afford a lot of the ones I could find. So, I started reading on my phone. Mind you, this was a really small phone. I didn't had a smartphone until 2020:

A Huawei U3205 (left) and a Huawei G7300 (right): the former worked for like 14 years!
 

It could read Word documents so that was the format I read on it. But for the latter I had to download a Java App and it only read .txt files.

I read like that for many years, maybe too many. With screens that didn't let me dim the brightness at all and one screen the size of of my thumb (U3205) and the other one smaller than the palm of my hand  (G7300) I caused a lot of damage to my eyes that can only be fix with surgery. So don't be a fool like me and reduce the level of brightness of your phone to the bare minimum,  use warmer filters, put a background and text color that doesn't contrast much and put the font really big! Don't buy one of those popular eReaders that I have see around that are like the size of a G7300. You'll regret it. I don't know why they aren't teaching this at schools since this generation is all about smart phones.

Then in college I discovered Booktube and that became a whole thing for a while. I used to follow the most popular channels at the time but I eventually got tired of how much they only talked about the books that were sent to them by the publishers. I did unfollow most of them but there are a couple that I still watch after so long because they are genuine and talk about any book. I'm going to leave them here 'cause I will always recommend them: 1book1review, Sues BookNook (she's on a hiatus, I think, but watch her videos anyway! They are good), Brown Girl Reading and a few newer additions: Famicon Collects (he talks about old manga mostly, gekiga, eroguro and a lot that hasn't been translated yet. Expect spoilers! He likes to show the whole thing while talking about the whole plot) and Seji, who does talk about manga and books.

After college the prices skyrocket here and I hadn't able to buy more books since then. They were a luxury back then but now they are THE luxury. All the bookshops I used to buy from? Gone, not a single one of them left.  There are a few around but most are newer. I think I still have pictures of two of them from when I was very active in the Blogger book community. Yep, that was another thing lol. My blog won some prices and I even won a giveaway! Sadly the books got lost in the mail :c

R.I.P these book shops

A picture of my modest bookshelf from my old blog 17-12-2013

I still read on my phone (and before you said anything. Yes, I know. I need a eReader or at least a tablet. When I can afford one I'll get one) but it has been a blessing to my eyes to use a smart phone. I can use Darker to save my eyes from the glare of a bright screen and Reasily to read really confortable epubs. What's even best it's that I have an english dictionary, a translator and a text-to-speech app. You don't understand how important those have been in helping me improve my english.

Also listening to audiobooks is just *chef's kiss*

But nowadays I don't read books as I used to. I read mostly fanfics and manga, with a couple of webcomics here and there. Maybe a book once a year and that's it. Even when I found someone that trades books I wasn't as interested in reading them. But I'm trying to change that.

Since I prefer reading in digital now, I'm thinking of selling or giving away the books I still have. Don't get me wrong, not all of them but most. I don't have the space and they are just collecting dust. But before that I want to at least read the ones I never got around to reading. They deserve that.

Anyway, the point is, I love reading. Always have, always will.

Eli.*☆