The joy of accidental reading: how libraries are everything.

Accidental reading. Incidental reading. A chance encounter. A Sliding-Doors moment. It’s getting romantic now. Can you relate?

🥰 And it is romantic! You can meet your very own Mr Darcy this way. You can travel the globe! Or, at the very least, you can decide what to have for tea.

Accidental reading can happen anywhere: a charity shelf at the back of a supermarket, a nosy at a friend’s bookshelf, or, in my case, at a library.

🤔Ah, but how can reading be accidental if you are in a library?

Let me explain.

📚 When I was 12, my mum got a job in a library. On Saturdays I’d be dropped off in town by my dad to meet my friends, then once I was cold and fed up of trailing around, I’d head to the library to wait for my mum to finish.

I look back and see how much good hanging about in a library did me. Especially as I entered my teenage years. I don’t think I would have gone without a reason, but, there I was. Killing time. No mobile phone to occupy me – it was the mid 90s. So, what’s a girl to do? Pick up a book, of course.

So many books ended up going home with me. I’d read the blurb. I’d read the first page. And I just HAD to find out what happened.

❓ Has accidental reading been a ‘thing’ in your life? What gems did you stumble upon?