For the Love of Reading

As I have written before on this lovely blog of mine, I have always loved reading ever since I was a boy in the '90s. I owe my love for reading to Dad who bought for us plenty of books, magazines and newspapers. How I came to love poring over those reading materials! Especially when I was at the university.

So much did I come to love reading that I would at times get into loggerheads with Dad for ransacking his bedroom in search of books to read. When Dad castigated me for interfering with his bedroom, I would ask him in Kikuyu, "What are books for if not for reading?" But he would hear none of my arguments.

One evening in 2014 after Dad found I had again ransacked his bedroom without his permission, he chastised me. And yikes! I felt offended so much that I didn't turn up the following day for a job that had opened up for me to tutor the son of an uncle of mine called Gichure. (Yes, I was that immature.)

In an effort to process my anger that day Dad offended me, I wrote a blog story in which I narrated how Dad didn't want me to look for books in his bedroom. A blog visitor from Canada named Norman Brown read the story and then sided with Dad. He informed me quite frankly that he, too, wouldn't take kindly to anyone violating his personal space.

As far as I can remember, I never again ransacked Dad's bedroom when we used to live in our old wooden house. Because the wooden house was always infested with rats and termites, my senior brothers did our parents a great favor by constructing a brick mansion which we officially moved into in December 2015.

Some time in 2018, I asked Dad for permission to transfer the books, magazines and newspapers that were in our old wooden house to our new brick mansion. To my delight, he permitted me to do the transfer. Whew! At last, I had the opportunity to peacefully see the reading materials at home.

Transferring the books, magazines and newspapers to our new brick mansion turned out to be a taxing task. It took me about three or four weeks. But I thoroughly enjoyed it, much in the same way moths enjoy flying around bright lights at night.

While doing the transfer, I was overjoyed to discover an abundant number of books, magazines and newspapers. Among the books I found were Billy Graham's The Secret of Happiness and Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families.

Sadly, some of the books I came across, such as Toni Morrison's Beloved and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, had been nibbled by rats and termites beyond repair. How annoying!

After I was done with transferring the reading materials, my brother Bob Njinju was very impressed with the way I had neatly arranged the books, magazines and newspapers in a room in our new brick mansion. He took a video of the room, which we now call "library", and then shared the video in a Whatsapp group of my brothers.

Since that day he admired the neatly arranged books, magazines and newspapers in our home library, Bob has been entering into the library to search for books that could benefit his three children. Just yesterday when he paid us a visit in the early hours of the night, he strode into the library and carried a music book for his son to read.

Like Bob, I have also come to relish our home library with its abundant number of reading materials - more than you can shake a stick at. And I am lucky to have the time, ability and motivation to devour those books, magazines and newspapers. With all those reading materials at hand, I have no excuse to be idle and indolent.

By the way, I had for a long time relied on the books Dad bought for us to satisfy my love for reading. But in recent years, I have made an effort to buy books of my own taste. These days, I usually purchase two or three books whenever I travel to Nairobi.

My beloved reader, I encourage you to also develop a love for reading. It's beneficial to your grey matter. As the entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David aptly observed, reading an hour every day will put you at the top of your field within 10 years. So read, read and respect books!

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NEW! NEW! NEW! If you missed my social media update two days ago, let me take this opportunity to inform you that I have produced a new hymn titled "As Sons of the Day". Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the hymn.