MY 2018-THIS IS MY HOBBY: READING NOVELS

It has been said that if you want to hide a secret from an African, put it in a book because we don't read; well whoever said that doesn't know me well now, does he?

My bed is never empty😍

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DISCOVERING MY HOBBY: THE YOUNG YEARS
When I was a kid, my parents always kept me locked up inside the house. School ended by 1pm, I got home in about 20 minutes then I had my lunch. After lunch, I had siesta which was compulsory and it ended by 4pm then it was lessons until 5pm. From 5pm to 6pm was my playtime but I managed to wriggle some extra time into my playtime.

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I had two windows in the room, I shared with my cousin. Both windows had bars across to protect us from robbery, my parents had said but I believed that it was to keep me in. I discovered one day, that my head could pass through two of the horizontal bars in one of the windows and from that moment, when asked to go to sleep, I would meekly go into my room, wait for my mother to sleep off, then slip out through the bars and join my friends outside. I got whipped for this several times but it was worth it, I tell you.

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When I was not being a truant, I was delving into the world of books. Due to the fact that I had limited play time and my cousin was a girl, I discovered the world of imagination and books became my companions. Luckily for me, my father shared this fondness and had some old books stuck around the shelf in the sitting room as well as some dusty boxes in his room.

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I found books like Oliver Twist, Alan Quatermain, King Solomon’s Mines, Ayesha, Chaka the Zulu, Treasure Island, Gulliver’s Travels, Silas Marner, Robinson Crusoe, Ivanhoe, Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare among his things and I devoured all of them. I still have these books somewhere I think. I know I saw my nephews reading them recently but I don’t know where they found them. They looked a bit tattered and uncared for after a bit of handling and I had to set an embargo on my books. Kids, right?

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Longman publishers abridged versions were a lifesaver then as I grew up thinking these books were that small. When I finally saw the complete works of Shakespeare among my father’s things and realized that Shakespeare was a playwright not a novelist, I nearly collapsed at the sight of the book's heft.

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I realized that I had been reading compressed versions but I can tell you that I have only read the unabridged version of Gulliver’s Travels and King Solomon’s Mines. Shakespeare was compulsory for study and I had no choice or would have failed several courses in the university.

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I also had access to a series no longer in circulation presently; the Pacesetter series. Africans in general and Nigerians in particular who grew up in the 80’s would know of what I speak. They had titles like Evbu, My Love, The Instrument, and so much more. They had so many lovely novels in the series and it saddened me to see that it is presently no longer in circulation. If you want to indulge in good and simple reading material back then, Pacesetters offered this.

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THE GREAT BAN: THE MIDDLE AGES
At first my dad encouraged my reading. He gave me access to his novels and at a very young age, I was already moving further in my vocabulary than my peers. But when I got into the secondary school, it became a bad habit. I read during lessons, after school when I was supposed to be studying and even at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. I burnt through candles and kerosene when electricity went out and slowly my dad started to get irritated by it. It got to the point when teachers started noticing and a novel ban began. This was the Middle Ages for me, my friend. This was war!

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My novels were seized in school and I never saw many of them till date. My parents also placed a ban on my reading anything outside school work. I hated school work; just attach marks to reading a book and immediately it became boring for me, men even till today.

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I remember one time, I was preparing for my Junior Secondary School Exams, an exam conducted all over the country that enabled one move from Junior Secondary class to Senior Secondary class. I had a room set aside for study and I went there every evening, supposedly to study. Well, I did try to study but the novels, they called to me like sirens, I tell you. I therefore devised a plan. I picked up a textbook, opened the middle and placed my novel there. Anyone who came into the room and saw the book cover thought I was studying while I was eyes deep in an adventure somewhere in the Orient or something. I think I was reading Jules Verne's Around The World in Eighty Days then. I thought I was smart, I thought I was winning.

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My father knew me well, you see. When I was studying, I became restless. You would hear me sigh, scratch, scrape, mutter, drum and of course yawn but when I was reading a novel, I was as silent as a church during the working week. I do not hear, see, or feel whatever is going on about me. I could go a whole day without food, if I had an interesting novel before me. So he knew there was no way, I would be studying and be so silent. He came into the room and watched me for a second then he came forward and took the textbook from my hand and behold a novel sat in its middle. He was furious, I tell you.

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I did the same thing throughout my years in school. In my university days, I was always with a novel. Once a lecturer was done with the class, I brought out my novel and started reading. I do not know how I graduated from the university without failing a course.

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WHY THIS HOBBY?
So you understand that reading a novel is not just a hobby, it was and still is an integral part of my life. I do not read for the pleasure alone, or to learn new words, I read to keep myself busy. Novels kept me out of trouble and showed me the numerous possibilities the world has to offer. It was through novels, I discovered the interest in writing and I can say that I write because I want to give a small boy somewhere, the gift that was given to me when I was his age.

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Novels made me meet girls too, back then. I had so many female friends, my guys were jealous. In fact, some of them started calling me Casanova. Then I thought it meant just player, but I had not read his work then, what did we know. But unknown to my friends, it wasn’t a gimmick and the girls knew this. I actually loved to read as much as they did and that got me lots of female fans. Instead of playing sports, I would spend hours discussing the merits and demerits of a novel with a guy’s girlfriend and they would get so pissed at it that it got to point that guys either started borrowing cues from me to impress the girls or stopped talking to me. Funny enough, I was quite shy, so I didn’t even utilize my opportunity to woo the girl of my dreams back then. She is married now with kids, hmmm… story for another day.

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NOVELS, NOVELS, NOVELS EVERYWHERE, YET NO BOOK TO READ
By the time I was done with school, I had started buying my own novels and as i took them home on holidays, I now have a little collection of novels in hard copy; Sidney Sheldon, Mario Puzo, Elizabeth Haydon, John Grisham, Danielle Steel, Robert Ludlum, etc. I also had novels that I had stolen some years back. Oh yes! It is a part of this hobby thing. The way you loaned your friend’s ps4 control pad and never returned it until he forgot he gave it to you, well that’s how this worked too. My novels are also in someone’s collection too; it is part of the reading club’s rules. The thing is, if the owner comes and he claims ownership, I have to return it; no beef.

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During my service year in the mandatory one year National Youth Service Corp program (NYSC) organized by the federal government for every fresh graduate, I was lucky enough to share rooms with a friend, Donald. He introduced me to three things that changed my life; the computer, Japanese anime and eBooks.

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Before I went to Zamfara State, where I was posted to for the service year, I knew next to nothing about a computer, as nerdy as I thought I was. Donald changed that for me. He allowed me access to his laptop and even taught me some computer stuff. He allowed me this access because he knew I wanted to watch Naruto, Full Metal Alchemist, D’Grayman, Bleach and so on and also because I wanted to pore through his eBooks.

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It was a novel thing for me then, reading on a computer and gradually it has become my thing. I presently have more eBooks than I do hard copies. My father has drawn my attention to this again and again as he has started complaining about the damage I was causing my eyes but I can’t help it; I am addicted to eBooks, simple.

The best eBook Reader presently in my humble opinion😋

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I may not read as much as I used to or want to because I have other things taking my time but I still find time to go through novels when I find the particular piece to be interesting and I am actually quite a fast reader. I have read the Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time four times in the past three years and you know how many books are in that series. I have also read Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen twice in two years also. This is aside from other books like Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot Mysteries, and fantasy authors like Prior, Anthony Ryan, NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, Brandon Sanderson etc. I just finished Cora Carmack Stormheart series, Roar and I loved it. I just can’t wait for the second installment.

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IS IT STILL A HOBBY? HELL YEAH!!
I must say that my reading interest has changed over the twenty plus years I have been reading novels. I find Robert Ludlum difficult to digest these days and prefer fantasy novels more and more. Maybe, I want the world to be better, human beings to be different and life to be fair, after all the hero always gets the girl and wins the day, right?

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I have fewer friends who are interested in novels as I am now. We have all grown up and life has a way of washing away fascination and wonder from the eyes of men. I believe that reading novels has made me keep some of the child in me and I will never really take life serious to the extent some of us do.

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Reading is not expensive for me as books are cheap. In my country, there are flea markets where one can get old books for a bargain, and you will find me there hunting for new authors. I get those ones from my dad, who after retiring, has now picked up his interest in novels again. I mostly download or buy online in the pdf or epub format for my own use. I presently have 600 to 1000 books on my hard drive. I am not too sure about the number, as I have never bothered to count. I have not read all of them though and I may not read all of them.

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This is my hobby and I know that there are so many people out there who share this hobby with me and I am glad to share this with you. I would love to meet you and talk about books that we have read and the ones that have changed our perception of life.

THE END

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This is my submission for My 2018, This is My Hobby contest organised by @anomadsoul. I hope I did it well; I am not good at nonfiction o. 😂 You can check out the contest here CONTEST: My 2018 - This is my Hobby | 100 SBD in Prizes!

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Image sources:
Image 1 and 5 were taken by my infinx hot lite phone.
Image 2
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Music: Only God Can Judge Me by Tupac Shakur

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