Reading

As I recount, i can see book genres echoing the various chapters of my life. Yes of course there were those books forced on me by various courses of study, but it is the others that I recall now. 

As a young teen it was all about surfing, Tracks, Surfing World & Surfer from the USA. The first two magazine titles were likely to feature surfbreaks or surfers that i knew or who were well known nationally. Tracks magazine, being a kind of surfing .newspaper was more affordable & up to date., it also was a lot about plain surfing culture. The glossy magazines featured heavily manicured images that probably etched themselves into my psyche. Malibu & Huntington beaches, oily looking waves, kelp on the water and surfers in full rubber wetsuits. I can feel this imagery almost as strongly now fifty years on. Sadly these mags also flooded readers'' with coloured advertising & the desire to buy, buy, buy. This ultimately generated feelings of inadequacy & discontent with what you had, it was never as good as in those magazines. We now know those images were heavily crafted, the best looking surfers, surfer chicks, boards, clothing & cars. Even the surf conditions were limited to near perfect days & photos taken by professional cameramen were edited & coloured to unreal levels. The unattainable was made look easy to buy. 

Then it was sailing, cruising & boatbuilding. Again, a miniscule education of cultural & practical aspects of sailing, but heavy on presenting the edge of reality as desirable & attainable. Nevertheless, some sailors' stories carried through & offered inspiration. 

There was motorcycle literature too & fortunately Iron Horse & Chopper contained stories of individuality, solo travel & rebellion. An attitide of bucking the system & living fully immersed in the lifestyle. Well at least that's what i took from each of these genres. 

More recently & somewhat nonsensically I've taken to reading westerns from the American pioneering era. I really enjoy the mix of trail life, slow remote travel on horseback, living on ones wits, being guided by scriptures & a sense of justice. 

Early or late most days o csm be found buried deep in books, now mostly ebooks, transformed on space & time to imaginary scenes. I've always enjoyed the way a book can wmgagr you mentally to draw aemtal picture of the place, characters & events as well as developing a relationship with the lead character & perhaps allowing shared traits come to the fore.