Following Jean's post about her reading club, I thought about my Mom and her reading habits. When Mom's knees gave out and she became wheelchair bound she was living in a small Texas town with limited tv access, I'm not sure she even had regular cable since she was still renting DVDs.
Anyway, she became very focused on reading. Her plan, which I thought was really good, was that she kept two books going. In the mornings, she read a difficult or thought-provoking book and in the evening she read a fun novel. Naturally, she went through the evening books much faster than the serious books.
She became an avid on-line thrift shopper for book outlets, always looking for the next read. I remember her telling me about one of her morning books that was lasting forever because she had to reread so many paragraphs to take in and understand the message.
Some of these serious books she really disliked because of either the message or writing, but she kept on. Unfortunately, she did not have anyone to share these books with except my sisters and I. I confessed, some did not interest me in the least but I admire her tenacity.
Even though I do continue to enter contests for books, I have a stack that I just can't begin. My preference is still audiobooks and luckily, I have a large choice from my library. But, like Jean said, they are not always available when you want a certain book.
After all is said and done, I still love the smell or an old library of fabric covered books and glue.
More later ...
My husband does audiobooks. I love the feel of a book in my hand and after the cataract surgery, I have been reading up a storm!
ReplyDeleteMy Mom was a great reader as well. I brought her many, many books at the nursing home to read because everything in the home's library was too simplistic for her. But as her dementia progressed over the years, she was able to read and comprehend less and less, and eventually stopped reading.
ReplyDeleteI'm not the avid reader that I once was and I blame the internet.
ReplyDeleteFunny about your mom with her book habit; really, it was pretty genius.
I still have one or two going, but it takes me forever to finish a book and I still like a book in my hand, not on a kindle.
I'm glad I could inspire some great memories of your mom. Her idea of reading the tough books in the morning and having another lighter one going for night is an idea worth copying. And I will. Thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteMy mother rarely read. I do remember gifting her a Henry Fonda biography the year it came out, as he was her favorite actor, and she read that immediately. But that was after her last chick (me) left the nest, and she had time. She never watched television either, and her motto was, "Have something to show for your time." Luckily one of my older sisters and I were born readers, and she nurtured my love of reading (and shared a lot of books that were probably not age appropriate...I remember reading several by Jacqueline Susann, John Fowles, and Mario Puzo's The Godfather when I was still in school). I have almost entirely moved over to e-books, as they are so much lighter and my poor arthritic thumbs rebel against heavy hard-backed copies. I am reading a hard back library book at the moment, because a) I couldn't find it as an affordable ebook, and b) it's on the list of books "requested to be removed from school libraries by our state's 'esteemed' political leaders, so I wanted to read it in protest. :)
ReplyDeleteKudos to your mom for her reading diligence.
ReplyDeleteI tried Scribd for awhile, but it seemed like what I wanted to listen to wasn't what was available. Got tired of the search.
I also like audiobooks, but they were not always enjoyable because I sometimes found the narrator's style annoying. Do you find that to be true, also?
A good narrator stays just out of the way enough to make the book stand out, I think. I also think some narrators like the sound of their own voices just a little too much! 😜 But a good narrator is worth their weight in gold.
Just like reading a book, if I get started and I don't like it for some reason, I don't waste time forcing myself, I just go on to the next audio. My hearing is really getting bad and men's deep voices work best for me although I have found a few female voices I can hear. I use an Overdrive app in connection with my library. I regularly search categories, say mystery, and put audios I am interested in on my list. Then when I want to listen, I go to the app, search my list under "available" and choose what I want to listen to. I also put some I really, really want to listen to, and usually they are new releases, on my hold list and just wait, sometimes forever, for them to become available. Maybe your library is connected to Overdrive too.
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