Mr T and I have a room in our home that we term "the office". It has a desk and an office chair, so the name is not far off the mark, but what it really is, in my mind, is a library.
The desk is angled just so, to allow anyone seated in the plush leather chair - one in a dubious shade of burgundy that Mr T insisted was the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in - to enjoy the view out of our windows.
Towering above the desk and dominating the room are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that flank an entire wall in the room. On those shelves, nestled in a seemingly haphazard fashion, are piles and rows of well-loved books. Books I have quite a serious relationship with. Books that Mr T steadfastly ignores.
It is perhaps one of our biggest differences: I am a bookworm, my husband is a bibliophobe.
We cannot become regulars at a beloved café, sinking deep into worn armchairs and engrossed in page-turning novels, only raising our heads every half-hour or so to share an interesting passage, because only one of us would have a book. The other - Mr T - would be perusing the menu, wondering what other type of coffee to try.
I cannot wax lyrical to him about the beauty of the descriptions used in some author's bestseller, nor share with him my excitement at the release of a sequel, nor spend an afternoon with him whiling the hours away in a bookstore, because he does not share my love of the written word.
His interests lie elsewhere. He is a product of an online world that reveres electronic readers and the speed of assembling information through a quick internet search; he does not get sentimental over a first edition, nor does he spend time questioning the accuracy of a translation.
Mr T will pick up a book only if it will aid him in passing yet another computer certification. His field requires such heavy, dry reading, he says, that it is a wonder he can ever pick up any other book. His entertainment includes strumming his guitar, watching an anime or reading about the latest scientific discovery on a website.
There are two reasons, really, why I mind. One is that I feel he is missing out on the pleasure of getting lost in alternative worlds. He disagrees: he gets lost in movies, he says.
The other is simply my need to have more time to read for myself, and not feel guilty that I am approaching my third hour of being held captive by a novel, while my husband is waiting for me to spend time with him instead.
Marriage is many things. Finding the time for your hobbies (a most inadequate word to describe a love of reading), when your attempts to get your spouse to share those hobbies have failed, is just one of them.
Which is why I spend so much time reading in the car when the lights are red, reading whenever I get a haircut and reading standing up in the kitchen while I wait for the water in the kettle to boil.
I've learnt to carve out a little bookworm time just for me.
