Speak Out With Your Geek Out Day 3 #speakgeek

And we've made it to day 3 of Speak Out With Your Geek Out. Today's geek confession might not seem that geeky to some but I've heard the phrase 'What are you reading for?' way to many times in my life.

As you can probably guess from that last sentence and the photo it's books. I'm not a first edition antique book fan. I'm not a rare hand lettered bible fan. I'm not even a manic fan of a specific author. Where I get pulled up for going to far is reading so much when traveling.

Until my wife got me a smartphone that I could download books onto I went everywhere with at least one book in my hand and one book in my bag. You might not think anything of that until you realise that until very recently I walked everywhere. Unless it was raining I'd have a book in my hand. It became second nature to not even look where I was going and to know just how many steps between each road junction so that I could look up for cars. My peripheral vision was fantastic. I don't think I've once bumped into a lamppost or someone else walking along the pavement.

We have a slight problem in the new house. In the old house we had a purpose built bookshelf that ran half the length of the house which held our books floor to ceiling. It didn't hold them all however as we had plenty elsewhere in the house. Our new problem is that there is nowhere in the new house suitable for bookshelves and the bookshelves that we did bring would be lucky to hold maybe 1/20th of the books we have.

Some of you may be still wondering why this is so geeky. If your one of them then I applaud you. The looks I get from some of the parents as I drop the kids off at school because I'm reading confuses the hell out of me though so it seems I'm in the minority.

Being dyslexic I sometimes struggle with heavier texts. Those about physics or history can be a real struggle to get through but whether it's a throw away sci-fi novel or a book about the creation of the first nuclear bomb I just can't get enough of them. The day I was diagnosed as being dyslexic I found this piece of art by Elph on a wall in Glasgow and it's the first time I've seen something that shows someone else gets what I see and feel when I pick up a book.

Oh and you just can't beat the feel and smell of an old paperback :)