Category Archives: The Reading Life

Survey: You don’t like the book you’re reading. Now what?

Posted in The Reading Life by

Has this happened to you? You start a new book — perhaps one by an author you’ve enjoyed previously, or a much-hyped book, for example — and it just doesn’t work for you. Maybe it’s the subject matter. Matter the characters are unrelatable. Maybe the writing itself just doesn’t grab you, or worse, maybe it’s just not good writing.

What do you do? I’m asking sincerely, since this is where I find myself once again. I’m about 100 pages into a new book (which shall remain nameless at this point), and despite my best intentions, I’m just not feeling it. The plot is pretty scattered, there are scads of characters who seem indistinguishable one from the other, and the whole thing seems like a bit of a directionless mess at this point. And yet, I hesitate to just drop it. I’ve read several other books by the same author, and I’ve really enjoyed some of them. The author is considered tops in her genre and typically gets all sorts of awards. So maybe it will improve. On the other hand, all those books I just brought home from the library aren’t going to read themselves, and life’s too short to waste on books I don’t enjoy.

For now, I’m sticking it out, although if this were school or work, I’d say it’s on its final warning.

So tell me:

The final read-aloud, part deux

Posted in The Reading Life by

Last week, I published a blog post called “The Final Read-Aloud” about my experiences reading with my 10-year-old son and dreading the day that he decides he’s too old to be read to. My beautiful, talented, and apparently neglected-feeling daughter, age 22, pointed out that my experiences with her were quite different. In the interest of family peace, as well as presenting another view of the end of reading aloud, I thought I’d add an overview of my daughter’s evolution as a reader as well.

Let me start by saying that my husband makes fun of me whenever I bemoan the difficulty of parenting a rowdy, active boy — because he thinks that I expected this one to turn out to be another perfect little angel like his sister, and as it turns out, that wasn’t the case. Don’t get me wrong, I love ALL my children. But you know the children’s book I Love You The Purplest? That really sums up a parent’s life in a nutshell.

My daughter  was easy from day one. I could and did take her anywhere with me and she got along just fine, whether it was lunch with girlfriends, shopping expeditions, or museum outings. We hit the theaters and movies, did crafts, enjoyed dancing around the house, or just sitting and watching “The Little Mermaid” for the thousandth time. And, like me, my little angel was a reader from the get-go.

We read together every night before bed, sometimes piles of books, and she never got tired of it. When she started elementary school, she took to early phonics and reading exercises like a champ. By second grade, although we were still reading together every night, she discovered the joys of reading on her own. Her first chapter books were the junior versions of Ann M. Martin’s Babysitters Club series — The Babysitters’ Little Sister books. These were perfect for her — not too difficult, and centered around a 2nd-grade girl and her friends. After she got tired of that bunch, she graduated into the bigger kid stories in The Babysitters Club, and then on into the big, wide world of reading, no mom filters required.

BUT, we hung in there and continued reading together as well. Our read-alouds gave us the opportunity to explore books together, and gave her the chance to enjoy books that she probably would have found too difficult on her own at that point, such as The Golden Compass (those first chapters are so dense, they’re practically impenetrable). So why did we stop reading aloud together? I blame Harry Potter.

We read the first three Harry Potter books together. She’s of the lucky generation that grew up with Harry Potter, always about the same age as Harry as he grew up from book to book. On book 3, I pretty much lost my voice by the end, as we’d gotten to the really good parts and she simply would not allow me to stop reading. What could I do? I was as hooked as she was, so we pressed on.

In the year 2000, when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published, my lovely girl was 10 years old. We brought the book home, read a single chapter together, and boom! That’s when it happened. She decided that it was just too slow, all this reading aloud business, took the book off on her own, and plowed right through it. See ya, mom! Of course, she loved it, and I loved the book too. We just loved it separately, that’s all.

Goblet of Fire wasn’t necessarily a cold-turkey stop to reading aloud together, but it certainly marked the beginning of the end. That experience showed her, beyond a doubt, that she was a full-fledged independent reader who could handle longer, more complex stories on her own.

It didn’t feel like a sad ending of a chapter with her, probably because she has remained a devoted, avid reader all her life. Like me, she gets overly involved in her books, falls in love with the fictional worlds she visits, becomes highly invested in the characters, and likes to be surrounded by the books she loves wherever she goes. We’ve spent our whole lives together talking about books, trading books, and recommending books, and I don’t think we’ll ever stop.

Which brings me back to my son (sorry, daughter sweetie, I know this was supposed to be all about you…). I think the reason that I dread the end of our reading-aloud times is that I don’t feel confident that he’ll end up a reader. Left to his own devices so far, books are the things that he picks up when he’s forced to. I can count on one, maybe two hands, the times he’s voluntarily chosen to spend time reading. I’m afraid that once he no longer wants to be read to, he’ll fall into a book-less void.

I’m not giving up. I know I still have a job to do to get him to the point where reading is fun and exciting, and not just a chore. We’re not there yet. But we’ll get there, I hope. Onward!

The final read-aloud

Posted in The Reading Life by

The day is coming, and it’s not that far off, when the moment I dread will finally arrive: The day when my youngest child turns to me at bed-time and says, “That’s okay, Mom. You don’t need to read to me any more.”

Our bed-time reading ritual has been a daily staple since he was a newborn, when I’d lie on the bed with him and watch him kick his feet in time to the rhythms of A. A. Milne’s fabulous poetry:

Whenever I walk in a London street,
I’m ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, “Bears,
Just look how I’m walking in all the squares!”

(A. A. Milne, “Lines and Square”, When We Were Very Young)

As he grew, our choice of books varied, but always, always, we’d grab a few books off the shelves, cuddle up, and dig in. During the toddler and preschool years, favorites included:

For some reason, the “corn car” always cracked us up.

Board books galore, such as Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks From A To Z (try reading this to a toddler and have him/her repeat all the car names after you. Guaranteed hilarity!); any and all of the oh-so-silly Boynton books (The Going To Bed Book and Pajama Time are special favorites of ours); the Margaret Wise Brown books, of which Big Red Barn is far and away the best.

As he grew older, we moved into the world of Seuss and friends, first the shorter classics (One Fish, Two Fish and In A People House were among the most requested), then moving on to The Cat in the Hat and all of those crazy shenanigans. As he progressed through the early elementary years, my son became hooked on some of the longer, wackier Seuss works, such as The Sneetches, I Had Trouble In Getting To Solla Sollew, and a perennial favorite, Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book.

 

 

A moose is asleep. He is dreaming of moose drinks.
A goose is asleep. He is dreaming of goose drinks.
That’s well and good when a moose dreams of moose juice.
And nothing goes wrong when a goose dreams of goose juice.
But it isn’t too good when a moose and a goose
Start dreaming they’re drinking the other one’s juice.
Moose juice, not goose juice, is juice for a moose.
And goose juice, not moose juice, is juice for a goose.
So, when goose gets a mouthful of juices of mooses
And moose gets a mouthful of juices of gooses
They always fall out of their beds screaming screams
So, I’m warning you, now! Never drink in your dreams.

(Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book)

Now that he’s a an older elementary school student, practically on the verge of middle school, his tastes have changed, although his interest in bed-time reading sessions has not. Two years ago, the boy decided he wanted to know what all this Harry Potter fuss was about and asked to watch the first movie. “Aha!” I said (paraphrasing here…), “here’s my opportunity!” and I insisted that he read the book before seeing the movie. This negotiation quickly ended with the compromise that he’d listen to the book if I’d read it to him at bedtime. And so we did. I read, he listened, he became hooked, I got to re-read a favorite series all over again and see it fresh through a child’s eyes. Ten months later, we closed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with me having read OUT LOUD every book in the series. (I was quite proud of myself, really — I’m not a very dramatic reader, but I do think I managed a pretty good Snape voice).

Harry Potter set us on a course of venturing into longer books and books series. We’ve read The Mysterious Benedict Society series, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, started (but didn’t enjoy) the Lemony Snicket books, read a few classics such as My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George and a variety of Roald Dahl books. Our current book is Chomp by Carl Hiaasen, which the author probably did not envision as a bed-time story — full of adventure and danger in the Everglades, as well as some unique and very funny characters — but we’re fully enjoying it together.

The bottom line, for me, is that our bed-time reading ritual ensures that the kid and I have quality time together at the end of each day, that we have a shared book experience to discuss and enjoy, and equally importantly from my perspective, it gives my boy, a truly reluctant reader, a chance to experience the joy of reading. It’s a struggle to get him to pick up a book and read on his own, which he is capable of doing — he’s just usually not interested or so inclined. (“Mom, I can read. I just prefer not to.”) Our night-time reading sessions let him see the beauty and excitement of a good book and experience how great it feels to be so caught up in a story that you just have to know what happens next, that you dream about the characters, that you wake up in the morning with a theory about one of the book’s mysteries.

My son is ten. He’ll be in middle school next year. He’s growing up, I know — picks out his own clothes, checks his email, going boogie-boarding with his big brother, and mostly wants to assert his independence. I’m guessing that at some time in the coming year, he’ll decide that he’s too old for all this read-aloud business. But I’m hoping it’s a ways off yet. For now, he’s definitely enjoying it, and I plan to hang in there as long as possible to keep our reading time alive.

If you’re a parent of an older child, I’d love to know: Do you still read to your kids, even it they can read on their own? If not, when did your read-alouds stop? Share your thoughts in the comments, please!

A bookish sort of romance

Posted in The Reading Life by

When people ask me how I met my husband, I usually just shrug my shoulders, say “mutual friends”, and leave it at that. I never really thought there was much of a story there… until my online book group told me otherwise. That group of avid readers convinced me that, for a booklover, this is a good love story indeed.

So… About 20 years ago, I moved to San Francisco, newly divorced and full-time single mother. I settled in, got a job, made some friends, and occasionally indulged myself by hiring a babysitter and going out folkdancing. (Woo hoo, wild times, right?)

I met a group of people through dancing that I could share rides with, got to know some of them, and enjoyed their company. One of this group was my husband-to-be (HTB). HTB was quite a bit older than I was, also recently divorced, father of two, nice looking, and a pretty funny guy. That was my entire impression of him. I didn’t know him as well as some of the others in the group, but my overall thought was that he liked to joke around, was always laughing, had a nice smile, and seemed like a decent person.

Then, one fateful night, we both got a ride from a friend and ended up sitting together in the backseat for the 45-minute drive home. We made small talk for a while, and somehow the conversation wound around to books. HTB did not grow up in the US. He learned English as an adult and speaks it very well, but it’s certainly not his native language. I had already learned from him that he grew up in a poor, religious household and did not get very far with his formal education, being expected to pursue a trade by his mid-teens. During our car ride, HTB started telling me about finding refuge in books during his teen years and into early adulthood, journeying to other worlds and cultures through his reading, and finding fulfillment intellectually in a way that he’d been denied by lack of schooling.

Wow. To think that this nice, light-hearted guy was a booklover like me! True, our paths to reading were very, very different, but there we were, chatting in a car about the books that had had an impact on our lives. He mentioned several books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that he had loved, and then he began telling me about one book in particular that had had a huge impact on him. It was, he said, a series of letters from a young man to his mother. The young man had left his home country to seek a life elsewhere, and through his letters, we see his experiences adjusting to his new life and culture. HTB said he’d found the book incredibly moving and interesting — but unfortunately, he wasn’t sure about the title. He’d read the book in his native language, not in English, but even then, it was a translation from the original. The title was something like… Letters to China? Letters to Taiwan? Something with letters. That’s all he remembered.

That car ride changed my life. My eyes were opened to a whole different side of HTB, and from that day onward, we began to talk more, hang out, spend time together, and ultimately… well, this is a love story, after all! We started dating seriously within a month or so, and never looked back. This year marks 19 years of our relationship, 14 years since we tied the knot and made it official. We’ve bought a home, combined our families, and added another child of our own.

But you know, I never really forgot about that car ride and the conversation. I’d tried to look up the book he’d mentioned soon afterward, but didn’t have enough information to go on and never ended up figuring out which book it was.

And then — last year — I attended my favorite bookish event, the Big Book Sale sponsored by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. The Big Book Sale is an annual sale of used books that raises money for the library, and is just heaven on earth for book folks. (See my recap of this year’s event here). While browsing the fiction tables and filling up my cart with all sorts of goodies, a certain book cover caught my eye. It was this:

I knew as soon as I saw that this was the long-lost book that HTB had told me about almost twenty years earlier! Letters From Thailand, written by an author named Botan, translated into English from the original Thai by Susan Kepner. Needless to say, I bought it (after jumping up and down a few times).

When I got home that night, I practically bounced all the way down the hall to find my husband and proudly held up the book, shouting something unintelligible along the lines of “LOOK! IT’S THE BOOK!” Once he got over thinking that I was a lunatic, dear HTB did in fact confirm that I’d found the book that he’d loved so many years ago.

So there we are. In a certain way, this is the book that brought my husband and me together and helped us fall in love. The book itself? I read it and enjoyed it, although it wasn’t as life-changing for me at this stage in my life as it was for HTB so many years ago, as an under-educated young man trying to find his way and looking for more.

Romantic? Well, as a booklover, I’d say our is definitely a tale of epic romance!

And, in fact, although I am by far the book fanatic in our household, we do share a love of reading to this day, and our lives continue to be enriched by the books we share, discuss, and even argue about.

Scoring big at the Big Book Sale

Posted in The Reading Life by

Nirvana. Paradise. Garden of Eden. The Promised Land.

If you’re a book lover living in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can get to heaven simply by heading over to Ft. Mason this week, where the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library are holding their 48th Annual Big Book Sale. According to the event website, over 500,000 items are on sale, all benefiting the SFPL’s literacy programs. It’s an amazing event, truly. Filling a warehouse-sized building, there are tables and tables filled with books of every shape, size, and subject, from tattered to pristine, from fiction to the most esoteric of topics and then some. For most of the sale, all hardcovers are $3 and paperbacks are $2 — but if you want the biggest bargain of all, stop by on Sunday when everything is $1.

Tuesday night was member preview night, which I’ve attended for the past several years. Doors opened at 4:00; when I arrived at about 3:30, the line snaked all the way around the building and down the side of the adjacent pier. I couldn’t help but get a thrill walking by all the early birds on the way to the back of the line — these are my peeps! A crowd full of book folks! People as crazed as I am, showing up with boxes, tote bags, and granny carts, chattering excitedly about what they hoped to find and what tables they planned to hit first.

My friend and I used our waiting time wisely, scoping out the map of the floor plan and plotting our order of attack: Start with science fiction and fantasy, then horror, then move on to regular fiction. Time allowing, we’d probably split up after that: me to kids’ books, graphic novels, and science; her to literary criticism, travel, and occult. Of course, once the doors opened, we were swept up in the mass rush for good books, four hours flew by in the blink of an eye, and I never did make it much further than fiction. C’est la vie.

I went to the sale with a very short wish list this year. Having spent this past weekend putting books on my new bookshelves, I went to the sale damned sure that I’d keep my purchases to a minimum. I have plenty to read in my house already!*

*I’m quite certain that if I bought no new books and took nothing out of the library for an entire year, and spent the year reading only those books already on my shelves which I haven’t read yet,  I would not run out of reading material by the end of that year. I actually thought about setting this up as a challenge for myself — my year of no new books! — but where’s the fun in that?

However, my good intentions flew out the window once I entered the sale. My tally for the night: 44 books for $88. I never did find the book I most hoped to find. (Note: If you go to the sale and happen to spot a copy of Doc by Mary Doria Russell, grab it for me!)

I did walk out with quite a satisfying haul:

  • For someone who professes not to be a fan of short stories, I sure ended up with a bunch of short story collections. Among them, four (4!!!) books of Stephen King stories, Sherman Alexie’s Ten Little Indians, Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories, a Norton anthology of science fiction, and a big fat volume entitled Treasures of Fantasy.
  • I managed to pick up some mint condition copies of classic works of science fiction by Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, and Greg Bear.
  • Lots of people seemed to have off-loaded ARCs this year. My finds included ARCs of Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, and The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe.
  • I found lovely hardcover copies of The Thorn Birds and The Good Earth, both books I read and adored years ago, but which I’d lost or misplaced in various moves over the years.
  • I replaced a few books, lost when loaned out to friends who never returned them… you know who you are. Don’t worry, all is forgiven. Just don’t ask to borrow any more books.
  • Picked up — dirt cheap — various volumes in series I’ve been meaning to read, including books by Karen Marie Moning, Seanan McGuire, Patrick Rothfuss, and Jasper Fforde.
  • Plus, several other fiction titles, some very new, some I’ve always wanted to read, some I’ve read as library books but always wished to have on my shelves.

Ahhh. The pleasure of being surrounded by people who adore books, pawing through stacks and piles of paperbacks and hardcovers, looking for the gems among the thousands of books on display.

Then there are the books which I have already and love insanely. Every time I’d see a Diana Gabaldon book, I’d have to touch it and say hello. (Don’t judge me; I wasn’t being creepy or anything.) Whenever I came across something by Christopher Moore, I’d have to stifle a giggle — just seeing his books makes me laugh.

Of course, on the flip side, every time I came across a book I’d bought during the past year for more than $3, I wanted to kick myself. When will I learn? Every year, I leave the Big Book Sale resolved to not buy any more books until the next sale rolls around. Sadly, I never manage to live up to my resolutions.

What more can I say? Awesome event, great selections, amazing bargains, and all for a good cause. Check it out!

It’s survey time! Bookshelvers, unite!

Posted in The Reading Life by

I’m obsessing over my shiny new bookshelves. What goes on the new shelves? What stays on the old ones? Are some shelves more special than others? Which books belong together? Which books should never touch? I could spend hours, days, weeks searching for the answers to these important questions… and so I turn to you, o wise booklovers: Tell me all your secrets!

Thanks for sharing! Check back for results!

 

Can we build it? Yes, we can!

Posted in The Reading Life by

Remember this?

The glory of an empty wall.

And these?

Lonely, shelfless books, left to fend for themselves in brown paper bags.

Wall, meet books. Books, meet wall. NEW BOOKSHELVES ARE IN THE HOUSE!

Our great and glorious bookshelf-building project commenced this weekend, and I’m so happy, I probably glow.

Here’s what’s happened so far:

An unimpressive pile of boxes? Think again. Treasure lurks within.

Step 1: The nice Ikea delivery people dropped off these skinny, unassuming cardboard boxes.

World’s best 10-year-old assembler of shelving units.

Step 2: With some skilled help, we begin sticking pegs into holes and other challenging carpentry tasks.

That’s one, one, one bookshelf up against the wall.

Step 3:  The first is done! Four more to go. Can we do it?

Going strong! Up to three!

Step 4: The master builder (aka, my husband) gets involved. We live in earthquake country, so no furniture installation is complete without wall brackets and other fun anti-falling-down measures.

FIVE! The magic number is FIVE!

Step 5: Built, mounted, dusted, and ready! Now all we need are some books. Where can we get some of those?

Where to start?

Oh, yeah, we’ve got books.

The first shelf.

An auspicious moment: placing the very first set of books on the very first shelf. I felt like saying a quick Shehechiyanu (it’s a Jewish thing). Pride of place went to my various graphic novel collections, which have been languishing in undignified piles for far too long. Love ya, Buffy! You too, Fables! Welcome home!

Shaking with excitement or exhaustion? Or just poor photography skills? Either way, it’s a glorious sight!

Et voila! I plan to spend the next several day sorting and shelving. What joy! And just in the nick of time, too. Tomorrow night is the Big Book Sale of the public library, and I can’t imagine that I’ll be coming home empty handed.

I HAVE SHELVES! I feel like a kid in a candy store. Time to go indulge!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there such a thing as too much reading?

Posted in The Reading Life by

According to Goodreads, I’ve read 140 books thus far in 2012 — although to look at the stacks, piles, and bags of unread books sitting around my house, you might reasonably assume that I’ve done nothing all year but twiddle my thumbs. Occasionally, I feel like this:

i-73c19bd88539520d00a6fc53d6eb2f2b-buried-under-books-no-words-alpha

Side note: If you Google “drowning in books”, you get a few images like the one above, and then lots and lots of references to books in which there is a drowning. Sometimes, I feel like Google just doesn’t get me.

So returning to my 140 books… let’s bear in mind that you might not consider all of these “real” books. I upped my goal for the year pretty drastically once I realized how many graphic novels I’ve been consuming. So far in 2012, I’ve read all of Buffy season 8, all of the Fables volumes to date plus some of the one-offs, the Jack of Fables series, some of the Locke & Key series, and a bunch of stand-alones. Roughly put, I’d say about 40 – 50 total. Now subtract from my total the kids’ books that I’ve read aloud to my son, and I’d put my “real” total somewhere around 70 or 80.

Why ask if it’s possible to read too much? Several reasons. First and foremost, I wonder if it’s possible to retain that much material, when there’s so much new data entering my reading brain on a daily basis. The answer, I think, is probably not. Sure, I could give you a description a sentence or two in length about just about anything I’ve read in the last few years. But ask me about plot details, chronology, character names, or other nuances, and I’ll probably draw a blank. This actually comes up quite a bit in my house. My husband will end up reading a book that I read six months or a year earlier and will expect me to be able to discuss details with him. When I give him a vacant stare or shrug my shoulders, he’ll usually respond with a snide (but deep down, kind of loving, I’m sure) comment about me losing my memory faster than he is. (Only funny if you’re aware of the fact that he’s 20 years older than I am. Sorry, off-topic and a bit TMI). What I keep reminding dear husband is that in the six months or year since I read the book, I’VE READ 50 MORE BOOKS! That’s hundreds of characters, plot points, funny quotes, and unusual locations to keep track of!

This probably has a lot to do with my reluctance to get involved in series or trilogies, especially if they’re currently unfinished. I loved reading the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher, which I picked up after the sixth and final book was published and read straight through, beginning to end. Likewise, with A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, I read books 1 – 5 pretty much without stopping. That’s the way to do it! No lapses, no time in between books for facts and figures to be overwritten by extraneous information from bunches of other books! When I read a book, no matter how great, and then have to wait a year or more for the sequel, chances are I won’t remember it as well as I’d like, in which case I can either a) re-read the first book (as I did with A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night this past summer), b) wing it and figure enough will come back to me as I read the new book (which tends to be my approach with certain ongoing series like the Sookie Stackhouse books or the Dresden Files, or c) realize that the details aren’t sharp enough for me to truly care what happens next, shrug my shoulders, and decide to skip it (as was the case for me with the sequels to The Strain — that book scared the bejesus out of me, but by the time book two rolled around, I was over it and didn’t bother reading any further).

My second reason for asking if it’s possible to read too much? Well, I suppose it’s just a “stop and smell the roses” sort of thing. Am I reading so much, so fast, trying to get through so many books, old and new, that I rush instead of savoring? Am I really tasting each bite before I swallow? (Is that kind of a gross metaphor?) Perhaps I should take more time, read more carefully, wallow in the sensations, admire the deft turns of phrase. I think I enjoy the books I read. I think I get quite a lot out of my process of reading. I can’t really imagine slowing down. But I do wonder if I’m denying myself the pleasure of a slow read in favor of reading everything in sight. We shouldn’t gobble our food; is it a good idea to gobble up our books?

The final reason for my question gets back to Goodreads and all the various reading challenges that seem to have proliferated in recent years. In this age of reading as social media event, has reading become a competitive sport? Read a title for each letter of the alphabet, read an author for every letter, read every book on a Great Books list… the number and variety of challenges out there in the blogosphere are seemingly infinite. When did we start worrying so much about meeting goals? Is this a form of peer pressure? Keeping up with the Joneses? In one of my online book groups, there was a debate about whether certain types of reading “counted” toward an annual total. Counted as what? Real books? If I can hold it in my hands and turn the pages, it feels pretty real to me (and okay, yes, I acknowledge that e-books are real too; not completely dissing technology over here). But isn’t it a bit weird to stop and think about goals and totals before deciding to read a book? If I want to re-read a 1,000 page book, shouldn’t I just go ahead and do it, without worrying about scores or keeping up? Granted, this is partially just my own dormant competitive streak coming to the surface — I’ve never been the slightest bit athletic, never felt compelled to run races or set swimming records, but reading is something I’m actually good at! Can I get a gold medal in fiction reading? Please?

So here I am again, back where I started, wondering if I do, in fact, read too much for my own good. I don’t have any answers. I know that reading brings me joy and satisfies my intellect, emotions, and curiosity in ways that nothing else does. But would I enjoy more if I read less? I’m not sure that I actually want to find out.

Sunday morning musings

Posted in The Reading Life by

Sunday mornings are a special time, a weekly reprieve from plans and commitments, the one time each week when everyone at my house seems to just go with the flow and acknowledge that we have a tiny window of down-time. I’m typically the last to rise, which is only fair, since I’m up and at ’em before everyone else each day during the school and work week.

We float on our own paths toward the kitchen. My son ensconces himself on the couch with the TV on. My husband makes a yummy hot breakfast for the kiddo (today’s feast included french toast and turkey bacon). Husband brews himself a small pot of decaf; I show up afterward and make a big pot of the fully charged stuff.

And then we divvy up the paper. We’re modern creatures and enjoy our technology like good consumers, but we’ve stubbornly clung to our morning delivery of the local newspaper, hot off the press and printed on actual paper (which we diligently recycle after reading). There’s nothing like a cup of coffee and a big fat newspaper on a Sunday morning.

No conflicts in our house — we each grab our favorite sections of the paper, no need to fight or compete. The kid takes the comics, of course, not realizing that he’s lucky that his older siblings no longer live in our house, thereby avoiding the comics wars that used to plague us when we had a house full of kids. Hubby takes the front page — he’s a serious follower of politics and world news — and then moves on to sports, which is the green section in our paper.

Me? No surprise there. Straight to the book review section. I’m happiest when it’s full of fiction reviews, but I tend to read it all. I even take notes occasionally — books to read immediately, books to remember a year or so from now when they’re released in paperback, books to recommend to my daughter. This morning, my smartphone happened to be sitting right next to me, so without delay I navigated to the public library website and put in a request for a title that caught my eye. (I’m request #77 of 77, as it turns out — we’ll see if I still have any interest by the time it becomes available).

I love to read the “Grabbers” feature –“a selection of first sentences from new books” — you never know what will be there, but they’re always fun. I check out the literary guide to see which authors will be speaking locally this week.

And on the last page, I pore through the bestsellers list. I can’t help feeling a little glimmer of civic pride, product of my previously confessed book snobbery, when I compare the lists. Each week, the paper includes both local bestsellers, based on data collected from sales from local independent booksellers, and national bestsellers, based on “computer-processed reports from bookstores and wholesalers throughout the United States”. Here’s what I learned this week:

Both locally and national, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is #1 (and I’m request #300-something at the library — it’ll be a looooong wait for this one). From there, the lists diverge. Locally, bestsellers include A Hologram For The King by Dave Eggers, Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, and The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. There’s not a title listed that makes you think “supermarket shelf” or “airport rack”. (I told you already, I am a book snob.) Looking at the national list, I see Debby Macomber, Emily Giffin, Dean Koontz, Daniel Silva, Brad Thor, and Danielle Steel. Clearly, lots of people enjoy these authors, but mass-market bestsellers do not equate with works of literature.

My to-read list now a few titles longer, I’m ready to move on to the news sections, business, travel, the arts, and yes, the comics. Sunday morning ritual completed once more, it’s time to face the day, plan our plans, and get out of the house. Maybe we’ll even manage to find sunshine within driving distance of home.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone, wherever it may take you. And read some good stuff along the way.

Genre confusion

Posted in The Reading Life by

It’s finally happened — Facebook is “timelining” me. (Yes, I just used timeline as a verb. I expect a bolt of lightning any minute now.)

One interesting side effect is the random voyage through my personal history that it’s providing. Movies, TV shows, odd things I said that I’m sure I thought were quite witty at the time… it’s all there. A quick scan through my recent Facebook past revealed this forgotten nugget, dated September 16, 2010:

Dawning realization that the book I’m reading may in fact be a romance novel. Bodices have been ripped.

Any idea what I’m talking about? Only one of my all time favorite novels, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon! Of course, at the time, I didn’t yet realize how very much in love I’d fall with this series (and with the main character, Jamie Fraser, but that’s a different topic).

I can be forgiven for my genre confusion, having just read this passage:

Randall slowly drew the knife in a semicircle under one breast. The homespun came free and fell away with a flutter of white chemise, and my breast sprang out. Randall seemed to have been holding his breath; he exhaled slowly now, his eyes fixed on mine.

Followed on the next page by – ta-dum – our hero’s arrival:

“I’ll thank ye,” said a cool, level voice, “to take your hands off my wife.”

By the end of the book, I was hooked, so much so that by October 16, 2010, my status update read:

Have finished four books of a seven-book (so far) series in the past month. Page count: 3926 read, 3740 to go.

What can I say — other than, I’m glad I stuck with it! Despite the ripped bodice and the occasional heaving breast, what I found myself reading was not a romance novel, but a remarkable piece of historical fiction that includes a lovely romance, as well as a crash course in the history of the Jacobite rebellion, battlefield medicine, Scottish culture, and speculative time travel.

So what shelf does Outlander belong on? According to the author (on her website, here):

In essence, these novels are Big, Fat, Historical Fiction, ala James Clavell and James Michener.  However, owing to the fact that I wrote the first book for practice, didn’t intend to show it to anyone, and therefore saw no reason to limit myself, they  include…

history, warfare, medicine, sex, violence, spirituality, honor, betrayal, vengeance, hope and despair, relationships,
the building and destruction of families and societies, time travel, moral ambiguity, swords, herbs, horses,
gambling (with cards, dice, and lives), voyages of daring, journeys of both body and soul…

you know, the usual stuff of literature.

Thanks, Diana G., that clears that up!

So, has this ever happened to you? Have you ever started a book expecting one thing, and found yourself someplace completely different? And if so, were you glad for the detour?

I know I originally picked up my battered, used edition of Outlander because I remembered seeing the title listed in reference to time travel. I’m sure, though, that if the original context had been about romance, I probably never would have thought to give it a try.

So, here’s to trying new genres! Stepping out of our reading comfort zones! Crossing the book store aisles and browsing a new shelf! You just never know where your next new favorite might be lurking.

And thank you, Facebook, for this strange trip down my book-addicted memory lane.