A BUNCH OF LETTERS

‘I’m not gonna sit there and read a bunch of letters’, he proclaimed.

I laughed. It was the way he said it. With conviction, but also a hint of sarcasm.

‘I didn’t laugh. There was no need for that’, he said in a monotonous voice. I couldn’t help but laugh once more. There was that sarcasm again. But no hint this time. It’s something that runs in my family.

We had been discussing books. A favourite topic of mine. But definitely not for my son. Initially, I was asking him to get a book from the school library for his Advanced English class. His teacher had called last Friday to discuss my son’s reluctance on picking a book for the current assignment. I assured her I would talk to him about it.

I was trying to get him to agree on my ordering him a real book to read. Not the comic book ones with many drawings but few words. Something he still seems to enjoy.

Previously, I had bought him several spy novels and detective stories. It’s a genre that I enjoy and I had hoped he would too. He had finished the Alex Rider series about two years ago and started a second series with another teenage spy. But lately, he simply refuses to even look at books.

I remembered I had ordered three books for myself and got up from the table to check Amazon’s delivery.

‘It’s not arriving until tomorrow’, I was a bit disappointed and had forgotten it was only at 5 o’clock this morning that I placed the order. Browsing the virtual bookstore was what I needed for my brief bout of insomnia.

‘Hmmm. Sucks, I guess’, came the reply from my son.

We finished dinner and he agreed to choose a book from the school library tomorrow. My mind wandered to the walls of our apartment, wondering how I could transform the small space we have into a cozy reading retreat.

A brief Google search for ‘cozy reading room ideas’, led me back to Amazon where I was enticed to buy yet another book. Books Make A Home: Elegant Ideas for Storing and Displaying Books (2022) by Damian Thompson. The accompanying photos of the wall of books with a cozy reading chair nearby, a roaring fireplace, and the library ladder were all I needed for my decision to add this book to my burgeoning collection and to support my obsession with the medium of ‘a bunch of letters’.