World Book Day 2026

Both my parents love books and encouraged their children to read, to look after the books we own/borrow and to use books as tools for learning.

There was something common about books. Books were everywhere and for everything before the internet. I remember the big "phone book" (Yellow Pages) but also some kind of respect. All the people in my family had a big wooden book cabinet with glass panels to protect the books where the biggest, most revered books would be kept. These were usually in the living room for easy access and contained dictionaries, encyclopaedias, thesaurus, World Guinness record books. When someone had a question or there was a disagreement on some trivia question the relevant encyclopaedia would be pulled out to fact check the mystery of that day.

Our family weekend ritual was (and still is when I go back home!) to go to the local library. Sometimes to borrow new books, other times just to browse or to sit in the library and read comic books or magazines. It is a place I associate with fun (books about so many topics!) and relaxation (quiet and no expectation to interact with anyone).

Once I gave up trying to read "age appropriate" books (often very gender stereotyped and taking kids to be dumber than they are) and just read whatever novels I found interesting (mostly fantasy). I started reading a lot.

It was a great way to talk to friends at school without having to play "pretend games" or navigate subtle social interactions, especially when they happened to read similar books and we even started lending/borrowing each other books.

There is something very sensory pleasing about books: the smell of new and old books, the texture of the cover and of the paper, the different fonts, beautiful images sometimes... and you can also collect them and group them in the way you like.

I am definitely someone who will judge a book by its cover. I have read books many times just because their cover drew my eyes or struggled to enjoy even books that i liked the story of if the cover put me off or did not match the vibe of the story. There are books that I would keep just for their cover, for example "The Autist" which had a soft and very subtle texture that I find amazing to stroke with your hands.

Some books that I love are just for the sensory aspect of them. This includes my parents' visual dictionary & my second hand copy of the "Gaffio". Unlike most visual dictionaries that are mostly targeted at young kids, my parents' one covered a wide range of topics from quantum chemistry to car mechanics and fashion history. And those topics were covered with depth and accuracy. My favorite pages were the ones listing all the types of curtain draping styles (there are more than you would think!). I liked the idea of something as random as curtains having such a long and codified history. It was very pleasing to see the variety of these things well organised in categories, and compared to each other on equal footing. The Gaffio is a famous Latin-French dictionary that includes illustrations. My edition was quite old as it had been at my high school library for a while before it became mine. So the illustrations and fonts were very old fashioned, which lended itself very well to a dead language book.

Through Highschool I read less as I had to spend a lot of my reading time into syllabus imposed books. I found them to be mostly very long and often boring or written in old fashioned styles. Through university, I continued to read very little due to high workloads. When I started working I did not have any commute time so still did not read much. Having access to film, series and TV through the internet also meant I spent more time on those and less time on reading when at home.

Then when the Pandemic Lockdown happened, someone at my workplace started an online Book Club featuring DEI books (Diversity, Equality & Inclusion).This Book Club motivated me into reading more again & widened the range of topics I was reading about. I also rediscovered the joy that I had had as a kid and teen to talk about books with others and am glad to be able to do more talking about books with Autism Hounslow’s monthly Book Club.

Not all Book Club books are favorites of mine but there are things to learn about the world and about oneself from even the worst books, and they make for great conversation starters!

I like to read for entertainment & escapism (fiction) as well as for learning new things or questioning myself on a topic (biographies, non-fiction, essays, thesis & academic papers). I was asked recently what I enjoyed most about reading and I must say that across genres the common value that I find is that books allow me to discover new perspectives on the world.

In relation to Autism, I think that there is something very calming in having a virtual place (that you can carry in your pocket or bag). You can escape for comfort whenever you want, and hopefully even find characters that you identify with, even if they are not autistic characters as such.

For me there is also an element of my experiences coming through books; emotions, experiences or relationships that I may not live or not recognise in real life. And perhaps even learning about social interactions through stories. Most books provide something that is often missing in day to day life. Unlike a lesson, a film or real life, with books you can take things at your own pace or repeat some parts as many times as you need. Or you can have books read to you which is a great shared moment, or go for an audiobook and let the narrator highlight aspects of the story you may not have noticed if reading it on your own.

Long Live Books!