Booking Through Thursday: "Statistics"

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but . . . how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit?


My very dear friend is a voracious reader. She inspires me. She devours quantities of books, and she slogs through books that I would toss onto the floor without compunction. Her incisive mind dissects the books, sees symbolism where my poor brain sees none, understands allusions, ferrets out abstruse meanings and gets enormous information and entertainment in everything. Sound familiar? She should; she's TeaBird. I admire TeaBird extravagantly.

Janet reads a lot too, as befits a librarian. She's plenty sharp, too. I admire her madly for managing her household, extended-family duties, her job and her personal pursuits which include reading. I couldn't do it.

My family? I really don't know because we are not in close contact. But we all read a lot during childhood. I was the only one Mom called a "bookaholic," but we all read, and I was not the only one who read the dictionary for sport.

I recall afternoons spent in a friend's room with an old appliance box full of comic books. We'd pull and read one after another, pausing to read aloud bits and to swap good comic books. This friend and I read science fiction in those days, and we'd trade paperbacks, too. Whatever we read we also discussed every which way. We were schoolgirls then, and - - alas! - - my friend reads no more. I have fond memories of reading with her, and I wish she read still.
(submitted by Moon Rani)

Booking through Thursday

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but . . . how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit?

I was not surprised by the statistic. As a librarian for almost thirty years, I have seen how reading habits have changed. Where once, patrons would stagger to the circulation desk with a dozen books to check out, now they have three or four. Where once, we would have to buy a dozen copies of the latest bestseller, now we buy three or four. Perhaps, some of this trend can be attributed to the online booksellers, whose deeply-discounted prices make it more attractive to buy a best-seller than to wait for 3-4 weeks to get it from the library. More likely, people who once were casual readers have become less likely to read for any of a million reasons - I won't bore you with my cynical list of possibilities.

One of the details in the MSN article caught my attention - the notion that women are less likely than men to read biographies . I won't generalize from myself, since I'm a fiend for biographies, especially if they're about literary or intrepid women. (I'm itching to read the new biography of Gertrude Bell, for example.) I will generalize from my women friends, though - they (we) all read history, biographies, science, all manner of nonfiction, and we discuss amongst ourselves.

Another detail - or omission - from the article made me wonder whether the survey included audio books. I've seen discussions and debates on whether audio books count as "reading" - for example, check out this excellent post by Moonfrog and the comments below - and I've been rather surprised by some of the conclusions. For the record, I think that any medium that lets you absorb the author's words qualifies as reading - and I wonder who amongst the scoffers would tell, say, blind people that they aren't reading their "Books on Tape."

So, do my friends and family read as much as I do? Friends, yes, but wouldn't you expect that we'd choose friends whose passions complement our own? In fact, some friends astound me with the number of books they read, especially since they also knit amazing things, create and sustain splendid gardens, raise excellent children, work time-intensive jobs....Would that I had the energy and time-management skills to keep up with them!

(Family - not as much. Alas.)

melanie

Uncommon Arrangements - Katie Roiphe

Meh.

Have you ever seen those mind-map-like charts that begin with one celebrity and radiate / branch out to show who has had (ahem) relationships with whom? That's this book.

In no particular order, these are some of the linked literati: H.G. Wells, Rebecca West, Elizabeth Von Arnim, Katherine Mansfield, Lady Ottoline Morrell, Bertrand Russell, Clive Bell, Virginia Woolf, Vera Brittain, D.H. Lawrence, Vanessa Bell, Radclyff Hall, E. M Forster, Rebecca West - (no, wait, I already listed her - she finds her way into an amazing number of these stories!) -

Some had children with each other. Some were jealous of others. Some were not jealous of others.

Some are old literary friends of mine. I already knew all of the tidbits herein. I did not learn anything new. Had I not known anything about these people, all I would now know is that writers have libidos.

Not recommended. Not.

Meh.

melanie

Booking through Thursday : Indoctrination

When growing up did your family share your love of books? If so, did one person get you into reading? And, do you have any family-oriented memories with books and reading? (Family trips to bookstore, reading the same book as a sibling or parent, etc.)

My family reads. Always read. Always will read. It's our nature to read. No matter what else we do or don't do, that remains constant.
My best family-oriented book memory is a trip to the big Barnes & Noble store on Fifth Avenue in the late 1950s. While my mother was looking for art books about The Floating World, I wandered around the used-book section, where I found a lovely Everyman's Library copy of Jane Eyre, bound in red cloth, and only a dollar or two. I had a dollar or two. Reader, I bought it, read it, and still read it.

melanie

"Indoctrination"

from Booking Through Thursday:
"When growing up did your family share your love of books? If so, did one person get you into reading? And, do you have any family-oriented memories with books and reading? (Family trips to bookstore, reading the same book as a sibling or parent, etc.)"

I come from a family of readers. Although my mother steadfastly refused to teach me to read and write, she did take my siblings and me to the library when I was older. Getting a library card felt like an important step. She took us there often.

Mom loved books from childhood onward. When we were growing up, she took us to her favorite discount store occasionally, and gave us each five dollars to spend as we wished. Such wealth! I was always thrilled. Invariably I used my money to buy as many paperback books as possible. I remember standing in front of the book-laden racks figuring and re-figuring how to buy as many books as possible without going one penny over the dollar bills clenched in my hand.
(submitted by Moon Rani)

Booking through Thursday

One book at a time? Or more than one? If more, are they different types/genres? Or similar?

(We’re talking recreational reading, here—books for work or school don’t really count since they’re not optional.)

Monogamy? HAH! No way. I have no discipline, no plan, almost no discernment. Whatever comes along, if it looks delectable, I will taste it.

As for what I read - No rhyme, no reason - No, that's not true, because I am apt to be reading poetry and non-fiction together, along with fiction, which can be anything from classics to children's books.

(In fact, I have just joined a read-and-knit-along for Anne of Green Gables, and I'm looking forward to it as I would look forward to curling up with ice water and peppermints... no, that's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I also want to reread...)

melanie

Summer chiller!

For a crisply cool treat with which to face these waning days of summer, try this: brew your favorite tea or tisane extra strong. When it cools, pour it into popsicle molds, or make your own with Dixie cups and spoons. Freeze several hours or overnight before slurping a delicious ice pop that is definitely out of the ordinary. Make these without sugar for the ultimate in guilt-free splurging. You'll be able to make flavors never found in your grocer's freezer. These would be fun at barbecues, afternoon teas, impromptu get-togethers and anywhere you'd like a treat.
(submitted by Moon Rani)

You must see this!

Trot on over to www.pgtips.co.uk/ to see the most appealing Website! Tea lovers are well familiar with the trusty PG Tips brand, the tea in the pyramid-shaped bags. If you've never tried it, you owe it to yourself to try some today. In metropolitan areas, PG Tips is carried at many grocery stores, tea shops and gift shops while the rest of us must order it online (from an American site).
Brew a bracing cuppa to sip while you visit this site. If you don't fall in love with the monkey, well, there's just no hope for you. The site is clean-cut, well organized and easy to navigate. The colors and layout refresh the eye. I even learned where the "PG" comes from, while visiting. In addition to product information and health tips, there are games and a monkey gift shop, too, though the prices are all Pounds Sterling, not dollars. By the way, it's a gift shop that sells toy monkeys, not a shop that sells gifts for monkeys.
Thanks to TeaBird for putting me on to this site.
(submitted by Moon Rani)

"Letters, We Get Letters"

"Booking Through Thursday"
Have you ever written an author a fan letter?
Did you get an answer?
Did it spark a conversation? A meeting?
(And, sure, I suppose that e-mails DO count . . . but I’d say no to something like a message board on which the author happens to participate.)

Yes and yes, but it feels a little goofy to tell. Remember the country-and-western comic, Minnie Pearl? She wrote her autobiography in the 1980s. I knew her comic persona, but knew nothing about her true self. It turned out that she was an educated, cultured lady who, among other things, toured with other entertainers for our troops during World War II. Her real name was Ophelia Cannon. I wrote her a brief letter after reading her book. She sent a thank you note on a postcard. I have it, somewhere.

I am not a country-and-western fan. I don't know what caught my interest in her autobiography, but I found it interesting. It just feels funny to say that I wrote a fan letter to Minnie Pearl. For the record, No, I don't leave the price tags on my hats.
(submitted by Moon Rani)

Booking through Thursday

Have you ever written an author a fan letter?
Did you get an answer?
Did it spark a conversation? A meeting?


I've written to a few authors, but only received three responses. Joseph Epstein, whose collection of essays, The Middle of My Tether, delighted me, sent a typed postcard thanking me for my comments. Laurie Colwin wrote a short note. And Joan Didion, to whom I sent a letter of condolence on the death of her husband, sent a personal note on her lovely blue stationery.

I've met authors, but not through letters, only at book signings: Joyce Carol Oates, Alexandra Stoddard, Dominick Dunne, Alan Dershowitz, Marvin Kitman...

(Have you read Carolyn See's Making a Literary Life? One of the suggestions she makes is to write letters to authors. I really should write one to her.)

teabird