I Read Therefore I Am

I’m not one to have a book everywhere, but I read. Not as voraciously as I used to before demanding day jobs happened, but I read a lot all the same. I tend to obsess over a particular genre for some time and then snap out as soon as I realize that a girl’s warehouse can only hold so many facts, useless or otherwise.  That she can only get so much inspiration before it degenerates into boredom. That she has to decide whether her dad is rich or poor, get over it and get down to more African ways of doing business. That in her attempt to grow rich, she has to roll up her sleeves and get down to work. Aside from thinking of course.

So I read widely but if I were asked to pin down the one genre that holds more of my fancy, I’d have to say its True Crime and Investigation.

I’m intrigued by the criminal mind. Not petty muggers, pick pockets and bank robbers. No. Guys like Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway. The kind that kill, dismember their victims and stuff their body parts into suit cases. Those that rape their dead victims and eat their hearts. I will not try their sick in the head ways at home but I’d like to know from them how their minds operate. I’d like to play Clarice and talk to one of them if they could promise not to kill me and stitch a shirt with my skin.

I’ve read more Anne Rules and true detective magazines than I could count and watched countless programs about said insanes. Somewhere in my life there are hard cover volumes of criminal psychology and profiling books that I bought in a moment of blind impulse. Ok criminal psychology was a bit too ambitious but profiling I do read.

Unfortunately am not that brave after all. At some point I started freaking out even at whispering winds. I’d start at creaking doors and swaying shower curtains. I did not ever think that McShiko would kill me but hey, a lot of those victims are killed by loved ones.

As much as I read widely, I still go through other people’s lists of favourite authors and go, ‘whoarethose? This post is a promise to self to spread my wings and widen my reading scope some more. I shall soon look y’all in the eye and declare that my favourite authors are the likes of Robert Harvey Monro Elwes, Quintus Tullius Cicero and Pedanius Dipscorides. Soon as I can pronounce their names.

For now though, I’m re-reading Princess, Desert Royal and Mayada. If only for those book covers! Plus am intrigued by the Arab Culture and way of life.