Reading and Roaming

I've been taking an accidental holiday from updating this blog, due mostly to the fact that I've been busy with work, travel and most importantly, spending as much time outside as possible.

But I have been thinking a lot about this space and how it needs to grow with me and where I'm at in my life now. I'm beginning to see ways in which my current-future travel experiences will eventually intersect with the world of words.

Recently I've been gabbing with some fantastically talented indivduals who are soon to be part of an exciting collaboration that sprung from the genius mind of Sean Cranbury of Books on the Radio.

And it got me thinking, mostly about the way I read books set in places I've actually been to and the way I read books set in places I've yet to go. I've been mulling this over and over in my brain about how experience changes perceptions and how this affects you as a reader.

When I am travelling, I'm living in the moment. Taking it all in. Trying to soak up every smell, every texture, every element in a place to really try to contain the experience in the now. I never envisioned what would happen next. How my opinions would change because of the moments I have in places. How my perception would be forever altered, not simply about the destination, but also about every other aspect of my life and even every new place I would visit.

And I certainly didn't expect to read books differently. So, that's what I'm currently exploring. How our bonds with books, characters, authors, story lines are influenced and forever changed when we journey to the places that we expect to escape to as a reader.

We'll see how it turns out. And, if nothing else, it's going to get me reading a whole lot more.