Do you read..

I was asked this by a new friend this week.
At first it seems an odd question - but given the myriad of ways we gather information nowadays - the explosion of shared social interaction - perhaps it becomes a little more understandable. I read every day - I imagine life was once very difficult for those that didn't - but now? We have computers that talk & even more amazingly listen. In an age of YouTube, iplayer & interactive broadcasts the written word has certainly got competition - but books still hold a magic - you fill in the blanks, there's always an element of you in the reading - you can learn a little of yourself along the way.
I've spent the last three years reading instructional books, course work pieces and essays - this Christmas for the first time in a long while I asked for books that weren't relevant to studies or courses, books I could just sit back and read - and it was fabulous. I found myself on high mountains inching upwards with a poet, shivering in a shed with future climbing superstars & realising that some heroes were imperfectly human but the better for it.
I don't do resolutions - but I can do realisations - and life's better with a good book to hand.