On Pyjama Days & Reading

Sometimes my days off really aren't days off. Sometimes I just take a few hours out in the evenings to put on new fresh pyjamas that are long and wide to billow out around my legs, get comfortably cross legged on my seat of the sofa - right in the corner near the light and plug sockets because even when I'm off I'm on - and read a new book. I'm a big reader (or so I like to think) and peppered between the classics and some monumentally crap paperback I'm flicking through out of sheer masochism and desire to find out what the fuss is about there are recommendations. I love my crime thrillers, police procedurals and criminal psychology books both fiction and non. True crime is my passion and while that undoubtedly sounds odd, it thrills me rather than scares me. Turning over the pages of each chapter laced with suspense is like a drug to me and I find that I am thoroughly absorbed.

This was the case last night with Harlan Coben's Six Years. I saw it in Waterstones at number 2 on the charts and after I'd heard the name for the first time through a few Twitter recommendations I picked it up along with another Twitter recommendation. I started off with it at 9pm and by 1am I had finished. There was no break, just reading and getting whizzed along by revelations and suspense until it was all over. Was it the best book of it's genre I have ever read? Not a chance but I really do enjoy the authors style so I'm going to hunt down some more of his work and see if I can be impressed. It's not a thinking person's book. Everything is there for you and wrapped up with a neat little bow in the end but that's okay because some nights that is exactly what I need - and judging by the popularity of his books what other people crave too.

So tonight I'm beginning Louise Doughty's Apple Tree Yard which I've heard quite mixed reviews on. The premise sounds great so I'm excited to open the cover and see what's in store. I hope that it will grip me as other books have where I find myself glancing up bleary eyed from text after a little bit of a marathon reading session and a sense of peace that every word has been devoured and understood but this is the hope I have with every book I get my hands on and one that only a slight few have ever fulfilled. Sometimes I'll leave a book and really and truly leave it behind because it just wasn't that affecting but others have stayed and lived within me which have come to life in my imagination and my heart as more than arranged letters on a page. I guess that's the chance you take but, as with love, when it works, it really works.