Slacker

I finished a book yesterday morning. Probably for the first time in my life I was ashamed of how long it took me. Nearly three weeks! 

Twenty seven days on one book. 

It’s wasn’t as though I didn’t read every day. It wasn’t as if it was difficult to read or long. It wasn’t as if I hated it. 

In fact, it was the opposite of that. I read it at every opportunity. I loved it from the very first word - from the dedication even. It was short and easy to read too. The problem was that I loved it too much. It is the perfect book. I’ve never read anything better. It was deep, wise and witty and I didn’t want it to end. I just read every word a million times. I read slowly.

If you read it, you might think differently but for me Fredrik Backman’s Anxious People is the best book I’ve ever read. I loved a man called Ove and Mum, my sister and I used My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologies and Britt-Marie was Here to help us through grief after Dad died (even buying industrial sized tubs of baking soda and cleaning everything). Now, he has written a study in anxiety that is better than any textbook on the subject. 

My shame at taking so long has been relieved though because after I’d finished it I felt hollow and empty, as if I had suddenly lost my best friend. To compensate I started and finished Tom Allen’s biography, lent to me by a friend. I was feeling guilty that I had kept it so long. Three weeks is a long time for me and as she lent it to me she told me that her husband had said he’d like to read it but she had reassured him that I wouldn’t have it for long.