Books ain't that boring

I knew people who like reading my whole life and I always found that weird personally. I mean not reading part, but more that people who I knew always read some novel, or even stranger to younger me; poetry.

It just didn't make sense as they were reading to kill time, but it is not 1800s anymore and people have invented much more effective and addictive ways to kill time and get dopamine rushes.

So younger me found it strange why, in face of today, was book still an option, and even weirder, why was paper book an option? Stupid question, I know, but 16yo me was just that shortsighted. I have grown out of that order of thinking and got to see the appeal other people see in books. 

Now I know this phrasing makes it sound like I had divine revelation, but it was a revelation, if not divine. Imagine a boy, who hadn't made a step into a library for good 3-4 years since he last rented a book he needed to read for school (idk how it is in other countries, but in Croatian schools students need to read a given book every month and then do test about its content) he chose to get a sneak peek as it was by his bus stop and he had time to spare. First thing first, he needed to renew his membership as it is only valid for a year. "No problem", he said and 10 EUR lighter he renew his membership. He got a look at the catalogue of books spanning from ancient poems to sciences of today. I wanted to see if anything caches my eye and found some interesting book about "How to persuade anyone in 60 seconds" or something like that I think. It was a thin book of around 80 pages and filled with illustrations but I found it interesting as knowing I will need to get better at making my demands clear and making sure to use power of words in my advantage in near few years I thought it is a good skill to hone. I never read the entire book and honestly, parts that I did read, already vanished from my memory. I remember it even being well written but I was rusty from years of no book reading (and even in the past I would always read them with eyes and not brain), and it just collected dust for 1.5 months I has it. I returned it and took another look at all the book they had. I was wanting to get into writing blogs and accidentally found a book just about that. Took it home, opened it and.. "Wow, this is shit!" was my reaction. It felt like I was reading user manual for a blender spanning 100 pages. It was so useless and boring and misleading I wanted to return it then and there. It wrote how to start a blog on some long dead google blog service and how to do some basic SEO, but bulk of it were just links to other people blogs, 95% of them long gone, and last 5% long abandoned. It was useless, so useless in fact that I was wondering why did anyone ever print this? It could have just been some article on some website and no tree would die for such a shameful cause. It was then that I found out slop books exist. Books that are so useless you wonder if the same author made a book on "how to open a door" or similar. 

At about the same time I got head first into anime. Yeah, for all I was criticizing it in my life, now I found it entertaining and fascinating to watch. 14yo me would probably not believe what had I turned into, for better or for worse. Either way I got much closer to Asian, and especially Japanese culture. One day I got into a store that sold generic everyday items like jars, carpets, pens; everything small in your life that you don't bat an eye to, but room would feel emptier without it. They also sold books, though they sold them in a box next to the checkout and on the box was a simple paper stating "2 EUR/piece". Inside were books of few labels, but they all had one thing in similar; they were all books no one had heard about, or their authors. Probably left-overs I thought and when I saw the print date of 2004 I was certain. They were for the most part same series, different volumes, and few single volume books mixed with self-grow books of yesterday and christian yaps. I took a glance and at the bottom was a little book, 1.5x the height of a modern smartphone and on the cover it was some neon town in the death of night, quickly I figured it was Asian, and an anime girl.. head.. of unnatural color palette in lower left corner, for some reason upside-down. It was a cover that screamed I AM NOT LIKE OTHER BOOKS and can't lie it peaked my interest. Back cover said something about it being a Japanese thriller novel with dashes of criminology. It looked fun and I bought it. That was the best mistake of my life. If you want to know the name it is "hr. U miso juhi" / eng. "In the Miso Soup" by Ryu Murakami, but don't read it if you have a weak stomach, I warned you. It was the novel that finally opened my eyes to the beauty of written stories and also gave me nightmares for few weeks. Murakami was the figure that had ignited the spark of reading inside me and it is glowing brighter than ever! For that I thank you, Murakami, from the bottom of my heart. I will almost absolutely read more of his work in the future. 

You just read how I started watching anime and how I grew a love for book, and you can probably guess what happened next. Yeah, I started reading Novels animes are based on. Notably my first one was "I'm a spider so what!" by Okina Baba. That was by far the best series I have ever read, period. The writing style, the characters, the descriptions, worldbuilding, LOOOORREEEEE!! It was almost perfect, and I would kill myself before pointing out the little tiny problems I had because it would feel like spitting at rest of that amazing story where our main heroine is, drum roll please....  a spider. It sound like such a "another isekai" that I can't even blame people when they ignore my non-stop praise. Still, give it a shot PLEASEEE! It is such an underrated piece of art I can't forgive the human race until it is framed at Louvre behind three layers of bulletproof glass! .. 

Well maybe I overdid it a bit, but it is true that the work Okina put in is just amazing and I truly hope I will see more of out White Weaver. Don't even try to tell me than wont happen! Just let me believe!!!   - I read few more series after that one, but none came close to my beloved White!

At the same time as I finished reading "In the Miso Soup" I got interested in political books. I was by then already head first into politics and I found it interesting, learning different views of people and how they differ depending on time and place. First one I started reading was "Neoconservatism" by Irving Kristol. Not because there was some deeper meaning to it but it was just a book that we already had at home. When I asked parents where did we get it from, they didn't know. Reading that book just made it clear to me how dumb I am. I thought I knew more of Croatian words that your average high school student, but when every third word was unknown it was hard to keep pace with the text. I still believe I understood most of what I read, but still I wanted to understand it in full. So i put the book on hold, reading about 1/3 of it, and took up another political book. One that was far more known. I took "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli. It was a really informative book that, I believe, opened my eyes to some questions and problems I didn't think of before. I think most things from that book are still applicable to days of now, but there were some things that no longer hold true. Right now I am reading "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, and while I don't think of myself as a communist, there are some ideas I align with. In the end I am not reading these books because I believe in their big ideas, but because I want to find and stand by what I believe am I reading books to get to know those political spectra. Some people might say it is a cowards way for choosing to believe in someone else's ideas instead of working my head, but I am not following their words blindly, but choosing to accept or decline every word they wrote. After all they already made the work of finding and giving solutions to problems in society, so why would I do the hard work if I don't have to if I can just agree or not, and think of a solution only if I don't agree. But now I trailed off so let's conclude.

I know it was some time from last post and in last post I said more is soon to come... well now I mean it ;3. It was a sudden start of the year but books have given me something to ease the stress and for that I am thankful. There is little doubt I will read this in few years and will probably want to cringe at how stupid my taste and views are, just as I am thinking now at me from few years ago, but let's say that means I have grown and to future me, hope you're doing good. Keep calm and carry on! Don't let go of your aspirations and push trough all barriers! .. man I don't need to wait few years for it to be cringe speaking in 3rd person about yourself.

And that is it.. not anything smart or noteworthy in this block of yap, but AI crawlers will at least be happy about it. Have a great rest of the day! :3