I did not read this piece about how teens are not reading anymore, but by the accounts of many people I trust it was a bad article that made bad points. One of those points is “The notion that you should always have a book going—that notion, which all real readers share, doesn’t flourish in many kids.” I was raised with that notion! It’s a fine thing to suggest to a child! But I disagree with a lot here, mainly the idea that there is any such thing as a “real reader,” or if there is, a singular way to be one, but also because Denby my dude do you have any idea how hard reading is?
First you have to have a place to read. You may think sitting up in your favorite chair is a good idea, but there are many obstacles to this. Where do your legs go? Do you have them tucked up underneath you so your hip gets all cramped, or straight out on top of something that starts pressing into your heels? Does your head have a place to rest or do you have to hunch over to see the book in your lap?
Okay then, hotshot, if not the chair then surely laying down on a sofa or your bed is comfy, but oh ho you are wrong! If you’re laying down you have to do the whole move of holding the book over your head so your arms immediately fall asleep and the pages start flapping together, or propping it up on your knees and then curling your chin into your chest in a weird way that makes breathing entirely too noticeable for any pleasure.
Maybe you read on your commute. This is assuming you can find a seat on your form of transportation, or that your wrists are sturdy enough to hold your book open with one hand while holding onto a pole or something else, and that you can time it all well enough to flip pages without falling over. This also possibly requires having enough elbow room to move around, and enough room in front of you to hold the book at a comfortable length away to read.
Don’t even get me started on reading outside. There is wind.
If you even get into a comfortable position, which you won’t, there’s the matter of paying attention to the book in front of you, which is impossible. What if you read something that makes you think of something else and then you’re going through the motion of reading for five pages but eventually realize you’ve been playing out a different scenario in your head the whole time and have to go back? What if it’s one of those awful books that makes you learn a family tree or a map before even beginning and you have to keep flipping to it to make sure you know who is even talking? Or it’s been pages since someone mentioned a character’s name and now you don’t even know what’s going on or why you’re supposed to care about this guy and oh no you flipped the page and there are no paragraph breaks this is a disaster.
(Or hey, Mr. Sir, what if you’re a student, and you spend all day reading textbooks and essays and your own words and when the day is done the only thing you want to do is stare out a window in silence or lose yourself in Snapchat or just put something image-heavy in front of your face because the thought of scanning another sentence makes your eyes feel so heavy they’re going to fall out of your face? Or for that matter what if you’re an adult writer who feels this way?? No, it’s not personal.)
I tried reading Dune once and got a few pages in before I got tired of flipping over to the glossary ever second friggin’ sentence. David Denby should have to read Dune before he writes on this subject again.
I read Dune when I was 9 and Dune Messiah/Children of Dune (which have all the issues of Dune but none of the action) when I was 10. This is how I know that I am a Real Reader.
I tried to read Dune when I was 7, but that was 100% because Agent Dale Cooper (who I was very sweet on at the time) was in the movie my parents wouldn’t let me watch. My library access was MUCH less restricted.
I…I didn’t make it very far. You are a better Real Reader than I am.
I read the first two Dune books but I was kind of on the fence about the first one and the second one just made me livid from beginning to end, so I never read any more. What percentage Real Reader am I?
Silmarilion at 15, and again at 18, and again sometime in my early 20s. That is how I know that I am a Real Reader.
Ugh. Have read all the other Tolkein several times but… won’t even try Silmarilion.
You are Wise.
I read Dune when I was around 12 and my dad made fun of me for pronouncing Bene Gesserit wrong so I never read Dune again and all I remember is:
– Bene Gesserit
– He’s blind but psychic so he can “see”
– Incest
How DO you pronounce Bene Gesserit? I always read it like the bene in “molto bene”, I presume that’s hilariously wrong?
The only way I was able to succeed in reading Dune was to 100% have no idea what was going on and then to go “cool! Sandworms!” and base all of my preteen adoration on the conception that I would be a kickass sandworm rider. I gave no shits about anyone else except maybe Jessica.
I have not read the linked article and so didn’t know it was written by David Denby, but as soon as I saw your post, my brain said, “Of course David Denby wrote it. Of course he did.”
I’m not still annoyed by one of his movie reviews from almost 20 years ago or anything, nope, not me.
I have no idea how you get lost in a book.
I read plenty of books (not as many as I used to but it averages out to about one a week not including short fiction on the internet) I have never lost myself in a book.
*claws at pages* help I am stuck in a book, lost in metaphor, awash in a sea of text
TELL MY FRIENDS I LOVED THEM
This is literally a plot in the Thursday Next books
I am reading a Thursday Next book next! It is in a pile my mom gave me and I have just finished All My Puny Sorrows (suicide), Obasan (oppression of Japanese Canadians during WW2) and an about to finish Bone & Bread (anorexia) so I have resolutely decided to read something FUN next and Fforde looks fun. (Is it fun? Do you like it?)
I absolutely ADORE his books. Which one is it? It’s actually not terribly difficult to jump into the later ones- I usually do it on re-reads, since the earlier books don’t have the BookWorld in them much and that’s my favorite part of the books.
oh, I hadn’t considered that maybe you need to read them in sequence. I’m used to detective books being pretty discrete. I have no idea which one it is, I’ll check the title when I get home – it has a car on the cover, I remember that much!
That sounds like the first one. If you start reading it and can’t get into it I recommend skipping to a later book with more BookWorld.
I’m a little late to this, but the second one, literally called “Lost in a Good Book” is kind of a better starting point than The Eyre Affair (#1). I have no idea if you can read later ones out of order, but the books do grow on each other, and I’m not sure “detective books” is the best category to put them in. They’re… different. (But I love them!)
I can only speak for myself, it doesn’t happen all the time but I’ve definitely experienced it. I guess it would be a little bit like…you know in Chamber of Secrets when Harry’s dropped into Tom’s diary, and he’s kind of a ghost figure following the characters around? It’s like that. And I only realize the passage of time “outside” when maybe the sun goes down, or I start getting hungry for dinner, or some other very big cue.
I’m always a bit disappointed when books don’t draw me in that far.
It’s been ages since anything has done that for me. I miss it.
Next sunny day I have off, I might take a book to the park and leave my phone at home, because that’s the only way it’s gonna happen.
I have been lost in a book but not in a long time – I think maybe not fully since I was a teenager. It’s too hard to lose myself now, at least in the sense of getting completely absorbed in a book to the point of losing track of time.
It’s enjoyable as experiences go, but certainly not mandatory for enjoying reading overall.
I think the last time that happened to me in a really thorough way was with The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I read it in one go, in about twelve, thirteen hours? Sitting on the couch/bed, occasionally wandering around the flat, glued to the goddamn book. When I got to the end, I was dizzy with dehydration. So, not always to be recommended.
That terrified me (the thing that calls itself Ursula Monkton! That foot thing!) more than anything has for a very long time.
The last time I totally lost myself in a book was Nights at the Circus – I was so engrossed I missed my tube stop on the way to work and didn’t notice for another five stops.
Oh god, the foot thing, thanks for the reminder…. ugh. Also the way the dad changed, that was just. No. Also, I cry everytime about the poor kitten in the beginning.
Sounds like I should put that on my list, it sounds intrigueing! Another one that just sucked me in was The Slow Regard of Silent Things, but that’s so short it barely matters if you accidentally lose four hours.
I always have to skip the kitten bit. Since getting mine I am totally incapable of dealing with cat-harm in books.
Nights at the Circus is amazing – I haven’t gotten on with all Angela Carter’s books but this one just transports me instantly every time I read it.
I can’t deal with any animal harm (especially not in movies!), but I don’t skip the book bits. Some suffering is okay if the story makes it ok in the end.
I don’t think I’ve heard of the author before. Sigh, even more books to read…
i stopped reading game of thrones because they were threatening the doggy. uh, wolf, i guess. at the very beginning. the fact that i was bored out. of. my. mind. also might have contributed.
Yeah, that part affected me a lot, too. It was the first hint that those books do really, really cruel things to their protagonists.
It’s a lot to take in, but I was never bored. That happened in the later books, when I just couldn’t remember half of the people, and disliked the other half.
Oh man, I would have finished that book in one sitting if not for the foot thing. I was completely prepared to, and then I just had to walk away for a bit.
Given all the other responses, I’m ashamed to admit but … I don’t remember the foot thing. Not even a clue. And I was very drawn in to this book.
Do NOT remind me, thx
They should put a warning label on that book! I also read it all in one go, in a moving vehicle, which made me very very nauseated. My face was green but I was not about to put that book down, no ma’am.
After over ten years of being a bus rider, it was the His Dark Materials series that made it so I could read on the bus. I was not putting those books down for anything unless I had to.
A few years ago I was cleaning during the day and I picked up The Tin Princess by Philip Pullman, that had been sitting on a shelf since I was bought it about 13.
7 hours later it was dark and I had finished it in one go. I don’t read for a long time and then I marathon a whole book in a day.
That’s the reason why I’m not allowed to pick up a book during breakfast. I’ll simply forget that I was supposed to leave for work two hours later.
I assume being lost in a book is like when I was reading Mark Twain and I had go spend the next few days thinking the way all his characters talk.
Or when there’s a really dramatic ending and I just need to sit down for a bit after.
Of course, I do get lost a lot. In a good book. In a good movie. In a large building.
One day, I will own a house with a perfectly situated window seat. It will be outfitted with perfectly-plush pillows and a heap of blankets, and the sun rays will warm it to the exact right degree.
Until then, I’ll just keep reading until 3 pm in bed on Saturdays when I realize I should probably get up and do something since I’m still in my PJs and haven’t moved since 8 am.
I dream of living in a gorgeous house on the sea with a ton of well-situated windows so I can read by natural light all day every day.
This is my dream too! Only i would have to move countries because Canada: that window seat is only useable for 3/4 of the year. At best.
I am Canadian and also want that window seat, in a well-insulated house, with a lamp for when there’s no natural light outside of work hours in the winter. (Also a side table within easy reach for tea/wine.)
Lying in bed until 3pm on a Saturday is the absolute correct way to read (at least for the childless). Especially if the bed is by a window that gets a pleasant amount of morning sun.
If you train your children to pour a bowl of cereal and turn on the TV, you can make it at least until 11 am. Longer if they’re capable of making a sandwich, and bonus points if they bring you one, too.
I like the way you parent 😉
I CANNOT WAIT
I’m trying to train my cats to make me coffee and toast and bring it to me in bed so I can stay under the covers reading until at least noon, but no luck so far.
Same, but I have to get up and make coffee. So I sit in my living room with coffee and stay there in my pjs until I get hungry.
Living your best life. Really, if I were you I’d just get up for a snack, then go back to bed. What else are Saturdays for?
You can also prep for a Saturday morning by placing a box of snack food and a huge glass of ice water on your bedside table Friday night. NOT THAT I’VE EVER DONE THAT.
I find a good corner is the way to go; I had my bed in the corner as a kid and I think I read most of the harry potters propped up there.
ETA: Saturdays don’t start until at least 4pm. Thats the law.
When I was a kid (not yet a teen), I would climb a tree and take my books up with me.
This almost sounds like the start to a poem I would like to read.
Me too!!
Trees do have the advantage of having thousands of weird positions you can wedge yourself into. Surely one of them must be comfortable.
me too! and often a bag of snacks, if I could convince the powers that be that this was a good idea and neither the snacks in question nor the awkward bundle to carry up a tree were a threat to my health.
Fruit trees! They come with their own snacks and no one questions whether 5 lbs of cherries is healthy
Until 8 hours later when no one can figure out how we ran out of toilet paper in only one day.
I am so jealous of your fruit-tree reading ways, the best I could do was reading in the magnolia tree. Alas, this is your fate when you live in the mid-Atlantic region and everything is either 40 feet tall with no branches until you hit canopy, or it’s a wee little flowering tree or a teensy red maple and every branch breaks under your weight, OR it’s a pine tree and there’s a zillion branches and it seems like a Great Idea until you get really sticky and all the branches are absurdly annoying to get around.
I had one true climbing tree, I dream of it often.
Yes yes yes, my tree below was a magnolia tree. Magnolia trees are so easy to climb. There are some other climbable trees in my region, but I have a soft spot for magnolias.
Mine was a liquid amber, so beautiful spring, summer and autumn. A bag with book and snacks then hours out of the reach of younger brothers – heaven.
As a kid one of my favourite places to read was sitting on the front porch. I still like doing that but I had way more stamina to sit on a concrete slab as a 12 year old.
Porch swings! I highly recommend them. Hammocks are even more comfy when you’re in it for the long haul.
By the way, I love your moniker.
I miss my body’s ability to sit on hard things. When did I get so soft?
As a college freshman, there was a spectacularly climbable tree outside my dorm. I discovered that if I climbed all the way to the top, the trunk split into four branches arranged perfectly into a seat. I did so much reading there during college. That is still my ideal reading experience.
I did this too! It was a weeping cherry so most of the time, no one even noticed me as they walked by. Every so often someone would see me and jump and then giggle nervously 🙂
We had an apple tree in our backyard when I was younger and I did this all the time, which was great up until the very windy day when I fell, tried to catch myself on a branch, and ended up with massive bark scrapes all down my arm. The scars eventually faded though, so it’s all good.
Aww… but with out scars how will people know that you’re a Real Reader?
I was really worried you were me for a second but I fell all the way to the ground so we’re cool.
Oh, I did fall all the way to the ground, just after trying (and failing) to catch myself.
I tried this once as a kid because it sounded so nice and idyllic but it was really uncomfortable (I was wearing a scoliosis brace and that couldn’t have helped) and I lived in a suburb so I was right next to a street and it was all incredibly disappointing.
Trees are surprisingly comfy places to read when you are a child and your bones haven’t solidified yet. Plus in the summer, if you have an apple tree, you can nosh on apples all day and never come down.
I had an excellent reading tree, improbably located in a little parking lot island outside our house. Until one day my friend and I tried to climb it and a HUGE MOTH dive-bombed us and I swear it made a horrible loud buzzing sound and by the time we got up the courage to go back we were too big to sit comfortably 🙁
I never even got that far because i leaned against a tree to read as a child and then there were ants and THAT relationship ended quickly.
I have gotten over ants. I STILL don’t like reading while leaning against trees, tho, even when they have very inviting roots/branches
I tried to lean my head against a tree while reading and leaned my head directly onto a wasp. No more reading in trees for me.
Oh god there was one tree in our yard that finally had a bush in such a way that you could climb it, and we got so excited! And climbed away! And then…ANTS EVERYWHERE OMG
I would lie in the sunny spot on the floor to read as a teen. My mom used to think it was hilarious that I would shift over time to stay in the sunny spot just like a cat.
i still do this at work. when a guy worked here who would bring his dog in me and the doggy would chill in the sun together. a+ work experience, would recommend.
I did this all the time. I think about it now and it seems so uncomfortable, but kids are weird. (The tree in question now houses many hummingbird feeders, so it’s still nice to visit when I go up to see my folks.)
I did that too! It was never comfortable, but always felt real cool so it didn’t matter.
me too! And it was near a church so the bells would ring.
What about getting other people to leave me the fuck alone when I am reading?
Ah yes, and also the elusive sub-function that falls along the lines of “getting people to leave you the fuck alone when you are reading and they are your significant other who wants attention but all your attention is in the pages of a book right now, thanks, you do still love them, you just want to be left the fuck alone.” Someday I will perfect this science.
you know what I should do is marry books. That should settle the question once and for all.
Is there a convent where you can wed yourself to books instead of god?
Can we start one?
OMG, this is _actually_ what I wanted when i was a young girl dreaming of the convent life.
YES
If my partner dies before me I am totally signing up for this.
(He’s an introvert if I’m stuck in a book it means he gets alone time, so it works out.)
This is so difficult! It’s very easy to slip into the persona of a Victorian husband, barking SCUSE ME DARLING I’M TRYNA READ ABOUT FOSSILS at the breakfast table.
My old flatmate/best friend was, in many ways, perfect. She would not only leave me alone when buried in a book, she would also bring me tea and, occasionally, food.
Yes this is an important question. Specifically, how do I get my husband to stop telling me interesting things that are happening in the book he is reading that I am planning on reading in the future, so I can read my actual book that I am reading now?
WHY DO THEY DO THAT? I read Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene after GentlemanX (he knew this was coming) and at the end i was like “well that was a waste of time as i have already heard the best bits”.
This is why The Kids These Days are smart – they read with Twitter open in the other hand so they can share all the fun facts they come across there. It’s social AND quiet!
And I can read the tweets when I want them, instead of having bits of information poured into my brain willme or nillme!
I recommend living alone and encouraging your neighbors/delivery people to believe you are a witch.
CO-SIGNED
I reply to literally every sentence with “I’m sorry sweetheart, what? I was reading.” I engage _just_ enough to let him know i listened, and return to said book. Upon next interruption: “I’m sorry sweetheart, what? I was reading.”
Generally I fall into books when GentlemanX isn’t around, because he gets worried at my ability to do literally NOTHING but read for entire days on end.
I mean really, I have a reading chair. I do nothing but read in it. What do you MEAN “oh sorry I didn’t see you were reading.”
hahaha. I read in bed. He is almost always looking DIRECTLY AT MY BOOK when he enters the room to address me. idk, maybe they think because women are better at multitasking we can and will read and also pay them attention at the same time? This is why i have a prepared script that includes pointing out the obvious. because yes i DO want you to feel stupid that you feel entitled to my attention at all times.
My husband and I both wear earphones and listen to audiobooks and podcasts while we do household chores. It took me a matter of a few months to get used to seeing that he’s got wires dangling from his ears and I should maneuver into his field of vision and get his attention and wait for him to turn it off before launching into whatever it is I need to tell him. It’s been FIVE YEARS and I am still hollering “PODCAST!” at him whenever he starts speaking to me in the same situation.
Men: oblivious to the fact that not everyone is paying attention to their every move at all times. i feel your pain.
My boyfriend and I BOTH DO THIS. The problem is that we both tend to leave our headphones on long after watching whatever youtube video we had on, so it’s hard to tell when we’re actually watching/listening to something.
My family’s idea of togetherness is we all sit in the same room while we read. I suspect my life-long singleness is due, in part, to not being able to find someone else who gets this, let alone wants to join the club.
I wish I wasn’t married, because then I would suggest we move in together and never speak. Because as it is I have to say POINTEDLY to my husband “can you let me get to a break in the writing?!?” Don’t just start TALKING to me while I’m reading!!!
I have reading parties with my friends. We all sit quietly in someone’s living room and read. It’s AMAZING.
OMG, this sounds amazing!
One new year’s eve party in high school was just my friends and I reading in my bed until 4 am.
When I’m reading in my bed in the evening, I LOVE IT when my teen daughter gets in the bed next to me with her book. <3
My 9 year old just started doing this! It is delightful.
This is the family I grew up in, and visits to my mother still consist mostly of me, her, and my husband all reading things until one of us looks up and asks if it’s time to think about dinner yet.
My mother-in-law does not grasp the idea that people are sometimes ok with sitting and reading quietly and and is constantly suggesting people play a game, watch a movie, go shopping, etc. if she spots one of us reading. It’s kind of exhausting to visit that side of the family.
I had this fight with an ex-sister-in-law who just could NOT handle the fact that i would rather be in the other room, alone, reading than hanging out with her and her husband and GentlemanX watching hockey (i have a hard time blocking outthe moving picture box to read).
My partner’s mother is the same – I will be sitting peacefully with a book or my laptop, and she will start making small talk that neither of us is interested in because she doesn’t want to sit in silence. (This is normally a few hours into the visit after I have already made lots of conversation and exhausted all topics, and just want to be left alone.)
My partner and I are both book worms who attempt every weekend to go to a cafe and read for a couple of hours in silence together. With some cake and tea it is absolute bliss.
Gotta try the reading party with friends sometime
a special treat when i was little was getting to read at the dinner table. reading while eating == still the best.
I used to read at the dinner table constantly. When my family would go out to dinner, I would bring a book, and only put it down to order and to eat. I’m surprised my parents were so lenient!!
This is how my family vacations! One time I brought a friend on a trip and she didn’t bring a book. Luckily we all had back-ups so she was able to choose one and sit quietly with us for the afternoons.
That’s why I had to stop eating lunch in the break room at work. I just want to eat and read, not explain my book to people.
At the last library I worked at everyone just sat quietly in the staffroom reading and not talking to each other; it was the best.
Most of the people at my workplace (at the time) were also like “Oh thank god I don’t have to talk to customers right now” and wouldn’t bother me, but I did explicitly have to tell one girl “I’m on my break and for fifteen minutes I don’t have to talk to people. I just want to read my book.”
We sat in silence for about a minute and a half and then someone else came in and she latched onto them.
….I used to go eat my lunch in my car, because I could prop my book on the steering wheel and eat and read without having forced interactions with coworkers in the very small lunchroom.
I don’t even really mind being interrupted, but if you don’t give me a second to tear my mind away and refocus on you, I am 100% going to miss everything you just said.
LIKE how hard is it to start with “hey meg, do you have a second?” [wait patiently until I acknowledge that I’m listening] and only then jump into whatever it is that needs my attention??
My roommate definitely had a full conversation with me yesterday that I remember NONE of.
ugh we are definitely related, since this is the exact conversation I have with my partner whenever she just starts talking to me while I am reading a book.
‘What are you reading?’
WHYYYYYYY. Why do people feel the need to ask this question?
I was a complete loner in school and I would go and sit in a nice quiet corner with my lunch and read a book, I was very happy and content. But the other kids could not compute this (I suspect because they were assholes who just wanted to annoy me and couldn’t understand that I didn’t want to be part of their ‘gang’) so would deliberately come over to my quiet corner in a big gang and ask me what I was reading. I’d usually just continue reading and hold up the front of the book. Sometimes that did the trick and sometimes it prompted them to pull the book out of my hands and insist on ‘having a look’ and making me tell them what it was about.
I went to school with a lot of assholes who did not understand that reading is a solitary activity.
The only time it is okay to comment on someone’s book while they are reading is when you say “Oh my gosh, I love that book! Come find me when you’re done, I can’t wait to talk to you about it!”
Also also, even if you are someone who reads every night to fall asleep or give your dirtbag insomnia brain something relaxing to do while it’s refusing to sleep, you can’t read DEEP INVOLVED things and maybe that’s ok too even if you read a lot of DEEP INVOLVED things in college but that was college and what’s the point of it when you’re not discussing it with anyone and it’s basically just a signal for your brain to go the fuck to sleep already?
What I’m saying is that I just finished a book called “Werewolf Cop” which was not nearly as campy and fun as I was hoping it would be, but is about on par with my “bedtime/commute” reading choices difficulty-wise and I refuse to feel bad (worse) about this.
this is PRECISELY how I got stuck in a rut of reading a ton of second-rate YA fiction instead of the 19th century highbrow bullshit I actually specialized in academically.
I feel like, if I am not reading, my brain starts spinning like car wheels stuck in mud, and we all know that that just burns out the engine while you never get out of the mire. Crap fiction is the kitty litter you put under your brain wheels to get you out of the mud and prevent burn-out.
ETA: and now that I see the next response below is Mrs_Peel on excretory reading, I see the phrase “crap fiction” is more apropos than I had realized.
Exactly. I read to unwind and there’s no kind of unwinding that happens if I’m contemplating if the protagonist’s love and fear of the sea is really mean to be a veiled metaphor for their relationship with their father or notice how certain other characters are always associated with the color blue and nautical terms. I want it to be engaging enough to look forward to, but not compelling enough to keep me awake longer than about half an hour please and thank you.
i have three levels of put-myself-to-sleep reading: a. whatever i’m currently reading, compelling or not, b. something i’ve read a million times, and c. the dictionary. i play a game with myself kind of like the game you play on road trips where you have to find each letter of the alphabet in order. i usually fall asleep around h.
It’s a book called “Werewolf Cop” that I picked up specifically because it was called “Werewolf Cop,” and it somehow managed to have not enough werewolf and not enough cop and way too much self-loathing yet self-excusing adulterer.
Thanks for nothing, Werewolf Cop.
Let’s just admit it: most books are read on the toilet. (According to an anonymous survey I just did of a single participant).
I used to keep a stack of magazines in the bathroom for this very purpose (my parents did this in our old house too), until my roommate asked if we could stop and I conceded.
This is a common thing, right? Like I always just assumed it was normal and good until I lived with other people, each of whom were aghast that I would touch things with my Pooping Hands and then willingly touch them again at a later time. Which is a gross misrepresentation of bathroom habits, I thought.
I mean it’s certainly a cliche, whether or not it’s all that common in reality.
ahahaha, those people are doing reading on the toilet wrong, methinks.
It’s totally a common thing. All my family does this, and nobody knows who started it. I assume my brother. We always had drifts of books on our bathroom floor (also because bathtub reading), and could very nicely track who was reading what, and would also cross-read other people’s books. There were WARS when books vanished from the bathroom and one of the readers wasn’t done yet.
Come to think of it, there were drifts of books in every room of our house except the garage.
Obviously, you hold the book with your Non-Wiping Hand and/or put the book on the bathroom counter or toilet tank before you finish up business. Your hands, before wiping your butt, are not any less clean just because you sit down on the toilet.
I’ve been reading in bathrooms since I could read. Seriously. I don’t know why I wanted to at the time, but I suspect it was a good way to read without being interrupted by my younger siblings.
Who are you people and how long does it take you to poop?
Plus in my house there’s no peace to be had in there anyway, with the cats filing in one by one and saying “Oh we’re in here now? Okay what’s going on is there something in here for cats?”
Our younger cat can open the door to the master bathroom, and alas it is a double door that can’t be locked (we tried Velcro strips, but he just pulled at the door until he broke the hold), nor can the door be reached when you are otherwise engaged. So time in there mostly consists of a race to see if you get done before the cat flings the door open and rushes in to see what’s going on. (my husband and I agreed to call out if we approach that door and do not know with 100% certainty where the other person is.)
Thou shalt not have closed doors.
Signed,
The Cat
I recently, in my adulthood, realized that my mother would sit on the can and read forever because she could hide from her brood there with a plausible “don’t bother me!” reason.
So it’s the “closed door” not the “excretory function” thats the appeal.
Apparently my nephew gave himself a hemorrhoid thanks to his devotion to reading on the can? I’ve always been a “get in, do your business, and get out quickly” person and this incident didn’t do anything to change my mind.
I used to read all the time on the toilet, stopping only when my legs fell asleep. Then I got a cell phone and now I just play games.
When my phone’s battery was broken and it only worked at all if plugged in, I got a lot more book reading done because I was no longer taking my phone into the bathroom.
Also I once made a stranger laugh in a campground bathroom because I was reading as I brushed my teeth. Doesn’t everyone?
I only started reading Harry Potter as a kid because the first book was on a bookshelf beside the toilet and I stared at it for so long I eventually just picked it up and started reading. I was there for a *long* time after that,
It’s actually surprising me a not-small amount that there are people who DON’T read on the toilet???? Like, that’s just a thing. How haven’t you heard of this? That’s why they make bathroom readers! My grandmother has one (this one in fact – http://www.bathroomreader.com/) that stays in the guest bathroom! It has stories of varying length depending on what kind of business you have to attend to. Come on y’all. Do not act surprised about reading on the toilet.
I guess in theory I know that it’s a thing, but since my bathroom trips are all relatively quick, it seemed like more of a sitcom thing to me. I’m just not spending enough time on the toilet to make it worth my while to bring a book in there. And I always had solo space to read (I was one of those climb-a-tree-with-a-book kids), so the closed door held no appeal for me.
I mean, I have definitely had the experience of being so invested in a book that I carried it everywhere, to the toilet, to cook dinner, to walk down the street, but it seems like that is a different thing than you are talking about?
The concept of “real readers” is horrible all by itself. Frequently I have four or five books going at a time, but that makes me no better or worse a reader than someone who reads one book a month and nothing else or who reads a ton of newspapers or reads graphic novels or WHATEVER IT DOES NOT MATTER ALL READERS ARE REAL READERS.
Weirdly, I get a ton of reading done in waiting rooms, of all places. I was secretly thrilled when my husband had his wisdom teeth out because I got an hour and half in the middle of the work day to sit in a comfy waiting room with a book. It was phenomenal.
I get most of my reading done in trains, while commuting. I think I’m the only one enjoying it when there are delays in schedule, or the train just decides to sit on the track for half an hour, because more reading time in a comfy warm place! It’s great.
I have had the flu for the last three days and while it has been miserable, I haven’t been able to spend this long just reading peacefully (aside from the coughing fits) for years, and that part of it has been honestly been kind of nice.
This kind of illness is how i read Dune.
I recently had a doctor’s appointment and they were AN HOUR BEHIND SCHEDULE and I was like “Whatevs, I’ve got my book and no where else to be.” I was reading Ancillary Justice at the time, so it was pretty great.
I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that the perfect reading chair is simply outside my price range. Is it supposed to be this type of chair?
I have no idea, as I have never gotten to sit in one of these $10,000 chairs or whatever they cost, I don’t know, so I have no baseline for this except my own fantasy.
I have been searching for the perfect reading chair/couch (on a budget) for ages. An ex had the perfect reading couch and my only regret is that I didn’t ask him where he got his couch before we broke up.
I have a recliner that’s tall enough to rest my head back on. Pretty much A+, also it came form BigLots so it was like $250
Big Lots is a wonderland of low, low close-out prices. I always do a little dance of joy there.
I used to be embarrassed that my parents liked Big Lots so much until I went in with them once and MY LIFE CHANGED.
I introduced a friend of mine (who is from out of state) to Big Lots, and promptly made a convert out of him. One of my greatest accomplishments.
I think I would like a larger-than-normal beanbag chair, and then probably something like one of those laptop pillow/surface thingies to put the book on.
Either that or a ball room, so I could just lounge on them in whatever way felt most comfortable that day.
I have one of these: https://www.sumolounge.com/Omni-Bean-Bag-Chair_p_… and I love it. It’s not *perfect*; it takes awhile to get into the exact comfortable position you want, and I have to move around every so often or things start falling asleep, but it was totally worth $150.
I always thought a papasan chair was the ideal reading chair until I got one and…nope. Affordable and very conducive to curling up (both important!) but the back support in that position was disappointingly abysmal. I have yet to find my perfect reading chair.
I thought this too! Reality, man, it is so disappointing.
I don’t know, doesn’t look like you could sit entirely sideways in it with your back against one armrest and your feet dangling over the other side. (This is my ideal reading position.)
I’ve got a double papasan chair (we’ve dubbed it “the taco”) and the only downside is that it’s really really hard to get out of. I need to prepare with snacks and drinks and make sure I’ve gone to the bathroom before i settle in.
I will one day make the love seat at my dad’s house my own. It’s basically a giant, squishy armchair with an oversize ottoman and I have spent entire weekends not leaving it except to take care of basic life needs. Also, a hammock like the one my mom once had for when it’s nice out. With these I could spend the rest of my life reclining in bliss.
I sat in this chair once, and it was sublime–it comes in small, medium, and large sizes so it actually accommodates different body types! And it’s only (“only”–hah) $1800. Some day ….
http://www.scandinaviandesigns.com/living/accentc…!
audible gasp of delight
My mum has a chair just like that! (Well, it is in my parents’ house, but she is the one who sits in it the most.) I assume it’s a cheap knockoff version, but it’s very similar. (Hers does not have a tilting headrest, but the chair itself swivels.)
The chair pictured is actually an Eames Lounge. Stressless are really nice alternatives (I really want one when I’m a real grownup!) but aren’t even close to the many, many thousands for a real Eames.
I had a perfect reading chair once. It came with the dilapidated rental we lived in throughout my childhood, and it was equally dilapidated itself. I loved that house and I loved that chair. It was an old-fashioned armchair, so old that the fabric on the seat cushion had worn away at the front and the horsehair (not actual horsehair) was coming through, and you could I think get jabbed by the springs as well? You could feel them clearly at any rate. So it always had several blankets on the seat, but it was springy and soft, but not too soft, and had a reasonably-but-not-too-high back and you could sit in it any which way you could possibly imagine and you would always be comfortable. We could have taken it with us when we moved, but I understand my parent’s decision not to, as it was held together mostly by force of habit by the time we left. My mother did express a little regret at leaving it and not bringing it and reupholstering it, which would have been nice, but I suspect it would have become a different, somewhat less perfect chair if we had. Ah well. All things must, in the end, pass.
My parents have a pretty good dupe of this chair that didn’t cost nearly as much and it is, in fact, an EXCELLENT reading chair.
Encouraging news on all fronts, then!
I have to have my feet up. Like they cannot ever touch the floor. I don’t even know why. So all my reading (and show watching) takes place with me: longways on the sofa with a stack of pillows at my back, sitting in my hand-me-down recliner, or in bed. How anyone sits in a fancy chair with no ottoman is just beyond me.
As a teen (when I used to read more books) I babysat in a house with these, and it was indeed a good place to read. (These are made in West Michigan where I grew up so lots of people have them obtained at employee discount).
Do you happen to remember the name of the company that makes them? Clearly I need to start saving up for one as one saves for retirement.
Herman Miller! I checked out prices out of pure curiosity (I’m also in Michigan and see them in antique stores pretty regularly), you can buy a new, legit Herman Miller Eames for the low low price of $5k.
For that price, I’d better be literally transported to the fictional worlds of my current reads.
We used to have this chaise lounge that I’m fairly certain was the perfect reading chair. It was disgusting and old and it was a blessing to throw it away but goddamn was it comfy.
Whoa, that scrolldown actually gave me goosebumps. Looks so comfy!
Yes, the Eames (ish) recliner is the perfect reading chair. I spent most of my childhood in the knockoff one my parents had, reading everything, made my parents keep it when I was in college and they redid the house, made my brother store it in his basement when I was renting for years, and finally got it recovered when I bought my own house. It is perfect.
Just throwing it out there, I picked up a decent replica of that exact chair and ottoman (in firetruck red!) for about $250, from a guy off Gumtree. It is, indeed, super comfortable.
(His dad had given him a bunch of furniture and for some reason he didn’t want it??? Whatever dude, I’ll take it off your hands.)
I want a rocking chair (or even better, one of those gliders) and a side table with a lamp. The rocking motion helps me read because ADHD.
this makes me feel so much better about myself.
I have two modes of reading:
the world-devouring one when I HAVE to finish something in one sitting, where I stay stationary for hours and literally do not move or feed myself or accomplish anything for days on end, and
the one where I don’t read anything at all that wasn’t published on the internet.
I’ve never, ever mastered just reading a few pages or chapters before bed, or on a commute, or anything of that sort. Which means that mostly, when I want to be a functional adult out in the world, I’m not reading anything substantial. I only read books these days when I /want/ to lose an entire weekend in the same chair.
This is me since law school. I have been a voracious reader since childhood, but law school broke me.
It me.
I am very slowly getting better at just reading a couple chapters before bed, but basically I have a reading problem, and if I start a book I am dead to the world until I am done.
This is my husband. He is a voracious reader. . . but only when he is ready to read the whole damn thing. He will spend hours reading his fishing board on the internet each day but he won’t touch a book unless he has the time to finish it.
ugh this is me. I have to carefully deploy books because if I like them even a little, I will stay up until 4 or 5 AM multiple days in a row to finish it as quickly as possible. That’s how you know it’s good!
I reward myself with a new book on Kindle at holidays or when I have a plane trip, otherwise I would never get anything school-related done.
One of my fave things is putting a long (like, long-novel length) piece of fanfiction on my phone’s e-reader before getting on a plane to a fan convention.
I once: didn’t have a working computer, worked a few blocks from my favorite bookstore, and had just discovered one of my now-favorite authors (Ursula K LeGuin). I barely slept for a goddamn month because I was plowing through them and would stay up until two am or later to finish one.
And if you’re a student, there’s the problem of a) carving out the free time to read in between class and extracurricular a and a job and homework (which for me is ~100 pages of reading every night), b) having a book on hand during the 20 minutes of lunch you have to yourself, and c) making sure that book is one you enjoy enough that you’d rather stare at its pages than veg out with your phone.
There’s a damn good reason my fic-to-book ratio went up when I started college.
Same! I took two literature modules my first term of university, and if you’ve spent several hours wading through mediaeval French poetry you want what you read for pleasure to be easy and instantly gratifying. Fic fits that perfectly, because it’s generally shorter and doesn’t need to introduce you to the characters and world like a book does.
Exactly! Even after graduating it’s so much harder to read a book with a when you can spend the same time browsing the archives of a newly discovered fandom/ship/fic writer.
Yep! I read voraciously as a child and teen, slowed way down in college, and ramped back up after graduating. But I read SO MUCH Sherlock fanfic while doing my master’s.
Exactly, I majored in physics, but would make sure to take a reading class (chinese philosophy, japanese lit, Sci-fi etc) a semester so that I HAD to read…. because it was homework.
I did exactly this, too! I chose all my electives based on the reading list.
And then you realise you can’t even read the book you managed to bring along on your commute because it looks like it’s going to get emotional because it is a Serious Book and you don’t want to cry on the train at peak hour on the way to work
yUP
pretty much the only things I read my junior and senior years (of an environmental engineering degree) were georgette heyer and fic.
I actually thought I’d lost my attention span/was no longer able to read, and then I graduated and it’s like my brain unfolded again. I suddenly had way more available bandwidth.
One of my tutors on my MA last year told us that we should spend the year reading stuff related to our course rather than reading for pleasure. I ignored this.
(It was a library degree.)
I’ve also found that my ability to enjoy substantive reading since going to grad school is much lower; it goes up in the summers when I’m not in class.
might I suggest this as a solution:
A+ contraption!
IntenseDebate, sometimes i need to like things more than once.
Won’t fit in my dorm, tragically.
The original tabbed browsing!
Yeah, I could make this work for me.
I always have a book going, in that there is a bookmark in a book I plan on reading, for really real this time, as soon as I read these 87 fanfictions about a pairing I hate myself for enjoying.
Not to cast aspersions on fanfiction! It’s just, I am fairly certain that the dude who uses the term “Real Reader” wouldn’t count it as a valid literary choice.
SHUT UP GUY SOMETIMES I JUST WANT TO READ ABOUT PEOPLE TOUCHING EACH OTHERS BUTTS.
FANFICTION IS 100% A REAL LITERARY CHOICE, I READ IT ALL THE DAMN TIME ON MY KINDLE. NO SHAME.
Yeah, but is isn’t written by “real authors”.
MOST of the time i want to read about people touching each others’ butts. There is not enough butt touching in most Literature.
My best reading is done on airplanes. No options for changing position, good light, lil tray table that you can use for leverage (after thoroughly disinfecting, don’t worry Mom), weirdly oxygenated air that makes it easier to concentrate, pleasant levels of background noise, drinks/snacks brought right to you.
I totally agree! It is especially great because planes are the one place where i feel like books really work as code for “please just don’t interact with me”, because we are all living in a special hell made out of other people’s presence and we all understand.
YES. My partner’s family is overseas and twice I’ve gone over there separately, when she’s gone earlier, and there’s nothing to dislike about an 8 hours by yourself to read a book and no one demands anything of you.
When I went to Australia with my partner a few years ago I was very excited about the reading possibilities, but discovered that spending that much time on a plane just turned my brain to mush and rendered me incapable of focusing on a book. It was very disappointing.
I start to get a little claustrophobic on any flight over three hours, so it’s likely that whenever I finally travel internationally I’m gonna ask my doctor for a sedative, which means I won’t be able to read. 🙁
Probably a quarter of the books I read last year were read on airplanes, which I felt a little ashamed about until I read this comment. Now I realize that it just makes sense!
This is too real. I now have a reasonably comfortable couch, and I will finish a book on said couch if I am the proverbial “lost in” said book. But I am conditioned from years of living in small apartments with sparse furnishings and I do almost all my reading on public transportation. I start and finish books on the go. And I finish a lot of books!
This is also why I will fight anyone who claims that e-readers are anything like the vanguard of modern evils. Having a lightweight reader that fits in my purse made me an exponentially more voracious reader. Or, I guess, I was always hungry but now I’m getting enough to eat.
Yes to all this! Fits in my purse, contains a multitude of reading material, can be read and page-turned with one hand so the other one can be holding a pole on the subway. <3 my ereader!
Yes! You can read in bed without one side of the book being weirdly weighted so that your wrist gets sore.
I’ve also read so much more over the last several years since I got one. It totally revolutionized travel for me. I don’t have to bring a suitcase full of books! Just one light l’il e-reader! My only complaint about my Kobo is that it doesn’t show the title of the book at the top of the screen while it’s in reading mode, so I NEVER remember what anything is called now. I know I’ve read so many wonderful books lately, but I cannot tell you what they were.
Before I learned how to drive and my dad was teaching me only how to take care of the car, there were some days spent mostly underneath his old Passat. I’d take a paperback, stick it in a wheel well, and pull it out whenever he wandered off in search of a tool he needed. Flat on my back on the cool concrete floor of the garage, fresh air because I insisted on keeping the garage door rolled up, and cramped unadvisedly underneath a car has been kinda the best short-term reading position ever. (Once he didn’t come back for an hour or twof. Do not recommend sticking it out for so long by merit of stubbornness.)
What are y’all’s best weird reading positions?
As a child/teen i used to go into the boardgame/surplus linens walk in closet that was attached to the computer room in the basement, build myself the COMFIEST nest out of blankets and pillows and disappear. For hours. DAYS. It was glorious, because no one ever thought that i would hide there and i was not hiding so much as… making myself comfortable, and because it was not really a “room”, no one ever thought to look for me there. So many MANY days spent reading in total comfort with a bottle of water and a snack and little else. And since it never occurred to me that my parents would be looking for me while i disappeared, they were never suspicious when they asked where i was and i replied “reading”. I read my first smut this way ^_^
Now i am trying to think of ways to recreate this in my adult life, where walk-in closets are conspicuously absent.
As a child I used to put a book under my chair at dinner, then drop my fork and go down to pick it up… only to pick up my book instead.
I feel like this is a safe place to share that I actually enjoy reading on my Kindle more than I enjoy reading “real books.”
1) It is lightweight
i) This means I am more likely to take it in my purse
ii) It hurts my wrists less. I have hurty wrists!
III) I am a millennial and therefore doomed to move every 18 months on average, and always curse my heavy-ass books
2) Bookmarks are automatic
Anyways I stopped “reading” for a while because college, and had trouble picking up the habit again once I graduated, but the e-reader has helped a lot.
(Serious question: how does one “get lost” in snapchat? Do I just not have enough snapchat friends? It takes me maybe 2 minutes tops to check.)
SAME. I love my Kindle and honestly would be happy if 90% of my books were on it. There are very few books that I feel the need to own on paper.
Plus you can read one-handed with a Kindle, which makes my preferred activity of eating-and-reading so much easier.
E-readers make my preferred Stupid Human Trick, that of reading while also knitting a sock or other complicated object, much easier, without detracting from the impressive nature of said feat, accordinb to bystandets.
I also read *really* fast.
My Kindle has ruined “real books” for me tbh. I was recently given a moderately-sized hardcover and it just seems so unwieldy in comparison.
(the only downside to the Kindle for me is that it is in black-and-white so if you’re reading a book with a bunch of pictures in the middle it isn’t so great. but that doesn’t really come up too often in my experience.)
I have a very old kindle that I love, and when I get a book like that or want to read a graphic novel I switch to an iPad that I rest on a pillow in my lap to relieve my weak baby wrists.
Plus–and I know this is blasphemy–but if you are a compulsive reader and you also happen to be deathly allergic to book dust, e-readers don’t accumulate dust that makes you feel like you’ve come down with a particularly virulent flu if you happen to get a noseful of it.
Not to mention that if I’m traveling or whatnot, I can bring many, many books (including long ones!) with me and not have to worry about them fitting in my purse/carry-on/etc.
Fun fact (I, too, feel that this is a safe place to share): after listening to the Hamilton soundtrack, I purchased the Alexander Hamilton biography from my local bookstore. I chose the paper book because it is non-fiction and I want to have awesome non-fiction on my bookshelf so I can be like, “Look, people, how erudite I am with biographies of the Founding Fathers!” All 750+ pages of it. I realized very quickly that it does not travel well, is annoying to schlep around, and hurts my wrists/is difficult to hold upright when I’m reading in bed. I regretted almost immediately not getting the Kindle version. Its size may or may not be the reason I haven’t finished it yet, or even touched it in a few months.
Ha, I’m reading it right now and it is definitely a pain. I’m able to read it in bed but have to prop it on the covers in a way that doesn’t hurt my wrists. Also the print is really small! Kindle version would definitely be an advantage there. But I’m finally into it, so should finish it in the next couple weeks (going to take a break for Rebecca Traister’s new book starting Tuesday but that won’t take long).
I didn’t get through the Crimson Petal because of its size! Whizzed through it on kindle and really enjoyed it.
Our bedroom door is perpendicular to the kids’ bedroom door, so the kindle and its light are what save me when I want to stay up late reading. I turn off the lights, open the doors, and turn on my kindle. I can read, the Mr can sleep, and the kids can sleep. I can read until I am ready to fall asleep and don’t have to get out of bed to open doors. I mean, I still read some paper books but I have seen the kindle light and love it.
Kindles are fantastic for reading in bed! They hurt so much less if you fall asleep and drop them on your face, plus mine’s the paperwhite so I can read in the dark. And they’re fantastic for travel and eating.
But harder to flip back to check something from a few pages or chapters ago.
But there is a search function!
Absolutely twelvety-hundred percent agree. I would very cheerfully never read another paper book, the kindle is so much lighter, easier, more convenient in every way.
Except for reading books with footnotes or, heaven forbid, end notes.
Footnotes pop up in a little window when you touch the asterisk or whatever is used to denote them. Made Jonathan Strange much easier to read!
Ah, perhaps I need to take Amazon up on the “how much is your Kindle worth” trade-in program, because I have an old model (side buttons, no touch screen) and it requires me to “Go to” the footnote, and that trashes the “sync to furthest page” function.
Definitely! My sister had that model and when I was playing with it to see if I wanted one it massively put me off. The touchscreen ones are so much more intuitive.
Yesssssss truly my people are here.
So many people I know try to give me crap about having pretty much entirely switched to kindle, but it is I who laugh at them when I literally never run out of books on hand. And it means that I can be standing, gently cuddling strangers on the 4/5 and still nose deep in a book.
(Serious question: how does one “get lost” in snapchat? Do I just not have enough snapchat friends? It takes me maybe 2 minutes tops to check.)
http://www.buzzfeed.com/benrosen/how-to-snapchat-…
I HAVE LEARNED SO MUCH.
I like the Kindle app on my iPad because it lets me quickly switch between wikipedia research on something I just came across in the book and Facebook and Instagram and also reading. Nope no ADD here i don’t know what you even mean actually??
So I tried to read Hild a couple years ago, and I got like twenty pages in before I was on my phone looking at youtube videos of card weaving. ADHD readers FTW.
I read SO MUCH MORE when I had a Kindle – the ability to read pretty much anything I wanted whenever it struck my fancy turned out to be great for me. My beloved friend died after an incident involving a broken jar of homemade Baileys in my handbag and I haven’t quite recovered.
Oh man, I am pursuing a PhD in English literature and I casually mentioned in class one day that I “don’t mind” physical copies of books, and it was like everybody in the room died a little inside. But… I have to work with a lot of books?? Like, everything from remembering where I am in six books at once, to making sure I have everything I need when I work at a cafe, writing marginal notes, finding important passages again — it’s ALL easier with ebooks! Add the fact that I move all the fucking time as a student, including across the continent more than once, and damn right I am only going to put up with dead-tree versions of books if I literally can’t read them any other way.
AMEN. I do not understand the Kindle shaming that goes on? Like, get over yourselves everyone. It’s just another way for people be snobbish and “better than” and it pisses me off. I’ve read SO MUCH MORE since I got a Kindle. There’s the actual Kindle, and then there’s the Kindle app AND the Kindle Cloud reader so I can read on my desktop when I’m bored at work, but immediately Alt+Tab my way back to my email if need be. If you like “real” books better then good for you! But don’t make me explain why having a lightweight device with like 150 books on it is a good thing.
I really prefer paper books myself, but good lord, I wish I preferred e-books! They take up so much less SPACE.
When I was a child, my favoured reading position was sprawled belly-down on a bed or couch with my face poking over the side, my arms dangling for page-turning ease, and the unwieldy book supported by the floor. Unfortunately, either my parents or my grandparents convinced me that this reading pose (and the sheer amount of time I spent in it) was the reason my eyesight was getting so bad*, so I stopped and have not since found a position quite so comfortable.
*I asked my optometrist about it when I was a teenager and he laughed a great deal and said something to the effect of “no, it is definitely genetics and not dangly reading”
Also a big fan of this position.
Also kneeling on the floor torso half laying on the bed/couch/whatever. It’s like read laying down but I find it take a lot more pressure off my elbows/arms. Unfortunately it’s a ridiculous looking position that can only be attempted in the privacy of a locked room or in public before you’re about 7 years old or so and no one expects you act like anyone is watching.
RE Different ways of reading hurt your eyesight:
My youngest brother (of six; I am the oldest) was caught by my mother reading in bed in the dark *on purpose* because all his older siblings had glasses and he really wanted them and had been told that reading in low light will ruin your eyesight. My mother was by turns exasperated and amused.
Epilogue: He ended up needing glasses after all, though most likely due to the genetics reason and not reading in the dark.
Yes, that is an ideal position for reading indeed. Pretty sure I consumed most of the Harry Potter series like that.
I have no idea what this “reading” you refer to is. “Books”. “Pages”. This sounds all very foreign and slightly made-up. Is this an American thing?
Also I gotta say since I found out about Overdrive I have been consuming so many audiobooks. It may or may not count as reading but it’s a great way to spend time.
I’ve been super into audiobooks lately too. I can read (“read?”) while also driving/exercising/cleaning? Awesome.
Sarah Vowell’s historical nonfiction is fantastic on audiobook and when my phone crapped out on me in Portland with a three hour drive ahead of me, I got a new phone and loaded up Lafayette in the Somewhat United States and had a delightful drive home.
My favorite thing to do in the summer is to put on an audiobook (preferably Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Boys series; the narrator is AMAZING) and wander around the woods/my neighborhood. Reading and physical activity!
ahhhhhhhh how excited are you for the last one?
Ugh I cannot wait. Also trying (and failing) to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable crying/angst/devastation.
Yes this is me! Have you discovered listening at a faster playback rate? I’ve found I can often listen at 2x speed comfortably, which means I can get through books at a more reasonable pace.
The day I discovered I could get library books on my Kindle through Overdrive was one of the best of my life.
I absolutely count audiobooks as reading. When my husband and I read aloud to each other, I count that, too! The important thing is consuming something you enjoy or that is helpful, meaningful, fun, whatever, not the medium.
I’m a big fan of accepting that people like different hobbies. Some of us like reading enough to hurdle the various difficulties, and others like sporting events enough to buy expensive tickets and find parking and then remember who won the game.
And also I didn’t read for like… two years after graduating college (except for fanfic).
I didn’t read for pleasure for A Very Long Time after finishing law school. It was just….. too much. (Also, all those teeny footnotes ruined my eyes).
I didn’t either. I’d been so busy reading for school work that I just got out of the habit of reading for pleasure. It took awhile to remind myself how much I liked reading, especially when I got to choose what I read.
Glad we all got back into the habit! After an MA in literature I needed a break. Ooof.
So my issue is less with my wrists and more with the size of my hand. I like to read one-handed on my commute if I’m actually reading a book and not listening to a podcast (this is becoming increasingly rare because I’m a millennial, I guess?). But I can only do it with softcover books or relatively short hardcovers because my hands are tiny, elfin hands that can’t stretch that way without an assist.
I on the other hand can comfortably read a Rand McNally Road Atlas one handed though I suspect it wouldn’t work on a subway regardless.
Might I recommend, if you have a buddy (spouses, etc., are very good for this), reading aloud to each other before bed? It is very relaxing, and fun and gives you something to talk about in addition to the normal stuff.
My wife and I have read Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings (great books, but not great for reading aloud – would not recommend), and are currently on Golden Compass. It has been a lot of fun!
I love doing this, it is a solid foundation of my relationship! I read The Griffin and Sabine (have you read this? Please read this. It is sosososo good! I note that the first three books are the only ones that exist, the next three never happened) series to GentlemanX when we were first hooking up, and then we read the Hobbit and… something else that I cannot remember, and are currently making our way through the (extremely problematic, yes, but beloved from my childhood) Thomas the Tank Engine books.
Bf and I are currently in a Harry Potter re-read! Well, re-read for me, he never actually read beyond CoS.
I’m not in any way attempting Hagrid’s accent. I did put on a throaty sort of hiss for the basilisk’s words, though.
We did tone of voice, so my wife was really good at Gollum, whereas I was better at Treebeaed. But we didn’t do accents really, just the feeling of the character, given that neither of us can do a particularly strong English accent
I love to read aloud and miss the friend I did most of my reading aloud with.
Yes, boyfriend and I do this, we love it. Bonus: we are interpreters and read books in the B language we share, and this helps in the booth!
But sometimes it is v hard not to fall asleep when he is reading to me because mmmm all the relax. So he periodically says ‘Qué opinas’ and when all he hears is a light (cough) snore, he stops.
Ahhhh I’m in grad school for translation and interpretation and this is exactly what I’d want in a relationship! I think I may have to leave the country to find a straight man who shares my B language though.
10 years of graduate school and two since leaving ABD have ruined me for reading. So much mental exhaustion. I really hope it comes back. Does it come back?
Yes and no? I did not leave ABD, but after an MA in lit, and i still have trouble making myself sit down. But i think this has more to do with prioritizing things other than carving out the two hour block that i like to devote to reading.
In my case I think it has more to do with the fact that I can’t find a job teaching, which is what I truly love and had never tried before grad school, and I could cry oceans every time I actually think about that — even seeking mental quietude (as reading requires) lets that grand disappointment in.
I still hope it comes back.
I will cross my fingers for you.
I hope so. I’m three, nearly four years out of law school and it hasn’t yet.
I actually finished the degree, which nearly killed me, but yes, the love of reading came back within a year. Do not start with War and Peace unless that is seriously your jam, otherwise pick something brainless and fun. I suggest easing your way in with fanfic and other things that “don’t count” as serious literature, because they are no-pressure but so fulfilling and renew your love of reading all the same. Also consider re-reading old favorites, by opening to a random page,crusading through to the end, and then starting over at the beginning till you catch up….
I promise, it gets better.
Thank you for saying this. I recently reread The Brothers Karamazov and Anna Karenina (which was a slog, but set me up perfectly to finally watch the 2012 movie adaptation! streaming on Netflix! and as great as I wanted it to be when I intended to see it in the theater but it left my town too soon!) and I think I need to break out my Austen favorites, but probably some great collections of short stories would be a better idea for now. With no Russian names.
What if you’re an editor and after a whole day of words you just can’t manage anything but Toast comments and webcomics?
See also: reading after a lot of proofreading. Even a misplaced comma sets the teeth on edge!
TBH most of my reading these days happens when I go to the library to work and I get ensnared by the “New Fantasy and SF” rack next to the stairs. I never get to finish anything! (I had made my way through most of “The Library at Mount Char” over a series of five visits, and then it got checked out or properly shelved, and I’m still mad, but not mad enough to actually commit to checking it out myself.)
CHECK IT OUT. If you’ve made it most of the way through you’re still missing some LEVEL ELEVEN shenanigans coming up.
Seriously? I felt like it passed level eleven somewhere around the third chapter…that book is really out there. Although probably reading it piecemeal didn’t help. Anyway, once I get dug out from my current mountain of deadlines, I will find it again! Thank you!
Ipomoea is right. . . it just keeps going and going and. . . I really had no idea what I was getting into when I read that and for a while I thought “what is this that I am reading?” but now after finishing, I’m trying to figure out who I can recommend it to next.
Glad to hear another recommendation for it, thank you! It was odd, when I first picked it up in an offhanded, going-to-do-my-work-soon way, I was like, wait…what?!?! and put it down pretty quickly, but it stuck with me. And the next week when I was working at the library, there it was again, and I thought, “Yeah, there was something about that…” and picked it up again. And so it went every time. And it kept getting further beyond level eleven.
Now I want to actually read it properly, not just the end, but the whole thing. OK!
Kind of related to this: being bilingual, and having done translations myself, I’m not able to read translations anymore. If it’s an English original, I’m unable to read the German translation because it hurts my brain. I can just feel that the text is wrong (ok, or I imagine it), or slightly off. Half our bookstores are useless to me, and almost all of our libraries. I’m ordering a lot from UK-based sellers…
Thank you! I thought something was wrong with me. I’ve always loved reading, my whole life I’ve had a book or two or three going at all times. Now I read, and proofread, 8+ hours a day, and by the time work is done, I just want to stare at the television and watch something move. Sometimes I think I made a mistake, doing what I love for a living, but then again, it’s my only marketable skill, so. Maybe after retirement I can read all these books…
Nothing wrong with you at all! I think we just eventually have to figure out how to work our beloved books in around the edges of the words-for-money. Since I freelance, I have occasional dead periods when I can binge on “fun” reading, which is nice. And at least we’re bringing books into the world that others (ideally) will enjoy!
In all seriousness, reading on my phone has been THE biggest convenience-enhancer! It allows me to read while standing on a crowded train, trying desperately to hold on to a pole with whichever two fingers can reach something. Or if I’m at a social event and want to look super busy (because that’s what people think when they see people staring at their phones) I just pull up whatever YA novel I’m into at the moment. It makes lounging around in the position of my choice much easier too, and I don’t even always need the lights on! (I know, I know, that’s bad for my eyes and health and whatever.)
Basically, phone-based reading apps are the sole reason I still read as much as I do. Different things work for different people, obviously, but I always recommend it to my friends and my students who just get overwhelmed by the logistics of it all. At one point I def got in trouble at the school where I taught for allowing students to read on their phones. I still stand by it as a great way to make reading more accessible for kids. And adults. And really everyone. *climbs off soapbox*
I will say, though, I now work as an editor, which means I’m staring at screens all the time, so sometimes I just want a break from that too. THE STRUGGLE iS REAL.
I remember the very first ebook I checked out of the library. I didn’t have a dedicated e-reader yet, so hadn’t read them, but I was stuck waiting in the hall at jury duty for hours and didn’t feel like reading any of the books I’d brought, then remembered the library advertising Overdrive, so logged in to the library, browsed, checked out a book, and read it, all while sitting in the hall at the county courthouse.
That was six years ago and I’m now on my third Kindle.
As a Real Reader, I will say that sometimes I don’t have a book going because I finish something that is Too Good and I can’t move on from that world and into a new book.
Ugh yes. How will anything be as good and perfect and compelling as that book I just read? It’s impossible. Then I discontentedly watch shows on Netflix until I feel better.
Truth.
Sometimes, if I am too full of feels to move on to a new book that carries a risk of making me feel more, I use either a fun-but-unexceptional-looking urban fantasy or or romance re-reading a Discworld book as a sort of cleanser, or, like, that thing in a canal that adjust the water level, I think it’s called a lock? Then I have the emotional energy for another book I think might eat my soul.
Saaaame.
See also: finish book, immediately begin reading same book again.
When I finished the His Dark Materials series after doing nothing else but eating sleeping working and reading for two weeks, I think I stared at the wall/ceiling in shock for over an hour. I think I was just in a daze the rest of the weekend.
One of my greatest accomplishments as a child was learning how to read one-handed. I’d flip the page of a book with my pinky and thumb of the hand that was holding it up. I can still do it if the book is not too heavy. It took a lot of practice.
As a kid/teen I was always one winning the quantity-based reading contests (though I was very angry in one of them where the ENTIRE Chronicles of Narnia were lumped as ONE BOOK on a reading list, so it took me seven books to check it off; in retrospect I probably could have lied). I read like every book my parents had around the house, regardless of what it was. I also read ridiculously over my grade level, so like the Communist Manifesto and the Feminine Mystique in middle school, which I don’t really think I got anything out of, but literally reading words on a page was all that mattered.
But then a decade of phd/post-doc spending so much time reading not-so-entertaining and sometimes not-interesting things, the reading plummeted. At some point (at an absurdly old age), I realized that it was okay to do a couple things: 1) stop reading a book that I wasn’t enjoying and never come back to it again (I’m looking at you, Frankenstein) and 2) read books that were interesting and not just “important” or “deep” or whatever. Since then, I read actual books at a stilted pace (though I do have a tendency to binge read series) depending upon workload and where I am in the semester, and then I read all the other stuff (internet, etc.) that is actual reading too. I have a kind of long car commute, so I’ve been doing a lot of listening to sci-fi stories, which, idk, kind of counts as reading to me?
Same here! One of the biggest injustice of my young life was in 3rd grade, for a school reading contest I ended up reading about 10,000 pages. I got a cabbage patch kid, which was pretty cool, as my parents never would have bought me one. HOWEVER, they had divided the grades to have 1st-3rd grades in one category, and 4th-6th in another. The one who won in the 4th-6th grade category? Read about 3,000 pages less than I did. Their prize was a bike.
I feel your pain completely. Maybe you can console yourself with my guess that the bike probably would have been giant for you? (I’m sure the grapes were sour, anyway).
In 3rd grade, one of the reading contests I won had a prize of getting to eat lunch with whatever teacher you wanted. The 3rd grade teacher at my school was the best, so all the grade level winners chose her, so there were four of us having lunch (tiny school, one class per grade level), and apparently some of the other teachers took it really personally.
Reading about everyone talking about reading modes and chairs and things is very soothing on my brain. It’s like my brain is taking a bubble bath or being stroked like a cat. I very much approve of all these comments.
Or what about when you’re reading in bed and it’s really cold and all of you is under the covers except your face from the nose up (because breathing) and the one hand that’s holding your book, and then you have to, like, switch hands, because your hand gets too cold, and that involves rolling over, and just… ugh.
hot water bottle. That way your hand warms up extra fast ^_^
YES
Having a child makes reading exponentially more difficult. It has forced me to become very selective because I know my reading time is limited and I want to make it count. I am reading higher quality stuff, and really enjoying it, but I never get enough.
But then again, kids make doing almost anything more difficult, so I guess it is a good thing we like them.
When I was a kid my mom tore through paperback novels. I can remember exactly how she’d curl up on the couch, leaning on the arm. She also liked sitting at the table. I was a voracious reader myself as a kid, but I wonder how much of that was having reading modeled for me?
Haha the transportation thing is too real. Since I moved and started riding a jam-packed subway every morning – it’s podcasts every day now. (Miss you R train!) Even if I could hold a book out in front of my body, letting go of the pole to turn pages ain’t happening.
And then when I get home, all I want to do is watch TV, after a job of staring at words all day…
But! excuses excuses. I’m going to try to read in bed this Saturday morning
People around me talking loudly while I am reading = THE WOOOOORRRRRRRST
ALSO THIS IS HAPPENING NOW WHILE READING THIS ARTICLE, GRRRRRR
The day I realized I could access Archive Of Our Own on my smartphone was the day my life changed forever.
YES. AO3 access anywhere, anytime? O brave new world, that has such readily-available smut in it!
Half the reason I was excited as hell to get my first smartphone: reading ao3 in bed without bothering my significant other. I used to actually lie in bed with my GINORMOUS laptop propped up on my thighs, or while lying on my side.
The first time I fell asleep while reading and dropped my phone on my face, though….
I HAD NO IDEA OTHER PEOPLE FELT THIS WAY!
I have always, in my secret heart, thought it was uncomfortable to read on my belly/on my side/leaning against a tree/with a book in my lap because “I’m too fat” as if my body can’t even hold itself up.
But apparently it’s hard for everybody! THANK GOD.
I can’t even tell you how much better I feel.
All of those are uncomfortable to me and I’m a thin person, I can anecdotally promise it is not a body shape issue. Also, does anyone like stuff touching/constricting their stomach? Because I firmly do not.
If I lie on my front I feel sick and my ribs start to hurt. Also my elbows get sore from propping myself up to read a book. Being a human sucks.
You would think by now we would have evolved into a form that’s more conducive to reading.
Hi.
The discussion was going on about people sitting around together, each on their particular device – pro, con, commentary. It was said that there was a day when it used to be not uncommon for people to be sitting around together and at least one was reading. “Oh. Yeah,” was said.
I want to read on my commute. I want to read on muni SO BADLY, but motion sickness is a cruel mistress and I cannot escape her grasp.
Sometimes even checking facebook on my phone for too long or knitting a project I have to look at too much will set it off. Gah.
Listen, I am an elementary school librarian so I am in on the ground floor when it comes to this shit. As such, I am willing to share with you my top two never-fail tips for becoming a voracious reader as a child.
1. Have insomnia
2. Don’t not have insomnia.
I have many, many young students who can’t be without books, because all of them read for approximately 3 hours a night while trying to fall asleep. In my more unforgivable moments, I think parents of reluctant readers should try giving them a 4 PM cappuccino and a 7 pm bedtime in a book-lined room (Faraday cage optional).
As a lifelong insomniac, I can confirm this. Read an engrossing book into the wee hours or lie in the dark desperately hoping to fall asleep? The choice is obvious!
Yes, but I’ve often wondered if (a) read all night BECAUSE I’m an insomniac? Or (b) am an insomniac because there’s too many good books keeping me awake?
Audiobooks!
Almost every day I’m reminded why I have an undying love for The Toast. You put things that live in my brain into words.
How on earth is one supposed to read a book in any kind of comfortable position? I’ve given up in the last few years due to bad back, bad wrists, sore neck and bad eyes that make reading properly painful for me 🙁 At least with netflix watching i can prop myself with pillows and I only have to face the right direction.
And don’t even get me started on reading on public transport, even if I can get a seat its impossible. Audiobooks tided me over for awhile but I ran out of youtube harry potters eventually.
I’m giving it another go, I’m trying to rectify my lack of Agatha Christie reading by reading Murder on the Orient Express, but its been sat in my bag for a a week now. (My house is full of old Christie books that have been left by previous housemates, I might as well try and read them?)
Read the article, and now I’m all riled the F up. What the HECK is he on about with the “Could a country that had widely read ‘Huckleberry Finn’ have taken Donald J. Trump seriously for a second?” He thinks that Trump’s the leading Grand Old Party candidate because teens today don’t read enough Mark Twain?!! What? I do not follow.
I’m definitely reading really hard in the library right now. Yup, super engrossed in this book that I am definitely holding in my hands and turning the pages of… this book is 100% being read by me right now and not lying next to me on the table while I procrastinate doing the thing I was trying to do in order to procrastinate reading the book. VERY VERY READING RIGHT NOW.
I have always read in the bath (ETA: I mean, when I’m actually *having* a bath, not, like, lying in there without water in). It is still my favourite place to read, especially my parents’ bath, because it’s a corner one and thus more roomy. The pages of most of my fave books from when I was a teen are crinkly because although I perfected the art of holding the book with one hand and turning the pages, I have at some point dropped/dipped all of my faves into the bath.
My first grade classroom had an old clawfoot bathtub with pillows in it for reading! So, you know, lying there without water in can be a thing too 🙂
I feel like this is a safe place to admit that ever since I got a smartphone and downloaded the Audible app, the Overdrive app, and Podbay, almost 90% of the books and short stories I “read” I actually listen to. Catch up on the latest S/F stories while I make my morning coffee and breakfast. Listen to an audiobook in the car, during downtime at work, in the evening while I’m doing laundry and dishes or sketching or cuddling with the cat.
Sometimes my work involves creating indexes and glossaries, and while that might require my focus if I actually have to write entries, if i’m simply creating citations or copy-pasting things from one box in a grid to another, I can even begin to do that by rote enough that I can listen to an audiobook at work.
It’s wonderful. I don’t care if it’s not “real” reading or if my mind often drifts and I have to rewind a bit, I like it.
Also, my fave short story podcasts are Clarkesworld magazine podcast and PRI Selected Shorts; what are yours?
Probably the main reason i spend so much less time reading for the last few years is because I spend so much time reading cleverly written, humorous articles like this one, and then the funny, clever comments down below. I am not kidding or being sarcastic. But wait, I guess this also technically counts as reading!
The day I realized I could access Archive Of Our Own on my smartphone was the day my life changed forever.
I’ve had this reputation as A Reader ever since elementary school, so I feel like a fraud and a Bad Librarian because it takes me months to read books. I come home from work and my brain is tired, so I’d rather watch Hulu or Amazon Prime. Somehow even reading stuff on my computer screen is easier than reading physical books. idk
I love traveling when I don’t have to drive, because then I can read ebooks on my Nook. I have all the ereader apps yet I hardly ever read ebooks on my phone.
Also, when trying to read lying on your side holding restingon your elbow? Hahaha, your wrist will die from holding your head.
There is never enough natural light but if you use a lamp then it’s too much.
Reading outside? Too much sun. Also, bugs. And sand. And getting food on your book.
Reading with a Kindle or Android so you don’t have to hold a heavy book? Battery dies and cord too short to reach outlet unless you’re in an uncomfortable position.
You finally got comfortable? Gotta pee. Or ran out of snacks. Or drink.