(OT) Reading

[agate]

BBC.com (January 18) is displaying a collection of photos showing people in various parts of the world who are reading.

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Quite a nice tribute to reading as an activity. I'm still addicted to reading even though my reading material is always in recorded form. I'm always in the middle of at least one book and several periodicals.

[Jeanie Z]

:) I was a voracious reader before I met David. I often checked out 10 or more books from the library. I no longer have any desire to read. If I have extra time I try to nap.

Now I do crosswords and play Solitaire and Majjong. I check online here and one other MS site and FB and the rest of the time I relax. Jeanie :)

[Frog42]

I'm like that too. I'm too tired to read or even listen to books these days. I have a book I wanted very much to listen to but I couldn't get past the introduction.

[Parsi]

Ever since I had a problem with my eyes, reading has been more of a chore. But on rare occasions I still get caught up in a book.

[stillstANNding]

I'm a reader. I go to bed and read for at least an hour.

ANN

[SuzE-Q]

I used to read rapaciously, always had a few books on the go.

For some reason, I lost the interest. I think I read 2 books all of last year, Girl on a Train, and a book about a scientist who took in a barn owl and kept him as a pet for 20 years, and her observations of the breed. This, after nuthatch turned me on to the barn owl live cams and I fell in love with them.

If Virginia wants to start a book club here, I'd love to have the motivation to read the assigned book and discuss it in a regular thread with others here. It would give me chapter deadlines which would help to keep me on track. I attribute my adequate vocabulary to my love of reading as a child. I'd like to spark that enjoyment again if I can.

Perhaps Friday may be a good day to start as I refuse to have my television counted as one that is tuned to the inaugeration. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of huge ratings, I'll do my small part and only watch the highlights on the news later that night.

[Lazarus]

I love reading and still read a lot. I do belong to a book club at the local library and it is very important to me...it is my only connection to thIs community I live in!

I have been reading Margaret Atwood's "Hag-Seed" which is a reimagining of Shapespeare's "The Tempest". It was exquisite to read. P
Linda

[Virginia]

I think everyone knows I love to read and Cat does also.

Jeanie and Vicky, I have terrible fatigue but I find that if I read long enough in a book and really get caught up in it, it helps take my mind off the fatigue.

I just finished "Bridge to Haven" by Francine Rivers. When I first started it my thought was that I was not going to care about this book at all, but later I did get interested in it and wanted to know what happened to the main character. I seldom do not finish a book.

[agate]

I don't leave them unfinished either, Virginia, though just recently I returned a book to the library that I'd given up on after getting through about a third of it. It was poorly written and the subject matter was a bit too grim even for me.

I like well-written accounts of true crimes sometimes but this one was just ghastly.

[Sunshine]

I was a voracious reader. However, since starting Baclofen I find it hard to focus well enough to read.

[SalpalSally]

Eeeeeeeeeeeek no thanks.

[Catdancer]

Yes, I'm a voracious reader. I'll read almost anything, except maybe romance novels, and some science fiction, although I've bee dabbling in some of that, lately .I have hundreds of physical books, and many more ebooks on my kindle. I probably average a book a week. One of the things I love about the kindle is the ability to increase the type size for easier reading. There is the ability to get audio books on the kindle, although I don't like that way of reading, so I haven't tried it.

The other nice feature of Amazon prime membership is the ability to borrow books from there (for the kindle) for free, keep them for as long as I want, then just with a few clicks, returning them to Amazon. No having to remember when they're due, no schlepping to/from the Library. You can also --for free-- download a sample, generally around 25-50.pages of a book to try, before you buy it.

I usually have a few books going at a time: a light read, like a murder mystery; then history, or biography, then a book of poetry, or spiritual focus, and right now a few political voices.

A few,years ago I read about, and then adopted this practice, though: if a book doesn't engage me in the first 100 pages, it's done. I have too little time left in this world to waste it on a bad book.

[jendie]

I used to be a voracious reader, my biggest problem lately is getting to and around the local library without totally exhausting myself.

[agate]

Since about 1982 I've used Talking Books for 99.9% of my reading. I didn't think I'd ever get used to hearing books read but the narrators do a great job. They seem to have a very careful system of checking and double-checking their narrators.

Nowadays they've been adding a few commercial audiobooks to the mix and sometimes there is a music background or other frills I'm not used to but these are minor problems. A narrator who tries to read every bit of dialogue in an accent he/she considers appropriate to that character can be annoying. It's not a narrative style most people can do well, IMO. But usually the narrations are straightforward. They just read what's on the page and read it well--and don't interrupt with comments or page numbers.

They omit reference notes but include content notes, often at the end of the book.

A few years ago they converted to digital cartridges, and all patrons got new, sleeker, lighter-weight players. That was a great day for me because the cassette player was much heavier.

They have a large selection of titles to choose from, with new ones coming along in a large-print catalog every couple of months. I order only the titles I want though you can ask them to send you any books in a particular genre or whatever.

You might not be able to get a very recent book but in a year or two it will be available. The catalog is huge.

One nice feature of Talking Books is that if you're lying in bed, your machine can be right by your side, plugged in or not (it runs a long time on a battery), with its handle that makes it easily portable, and you can close your eyes and just listen to the narrator read. You can reach over and press a few buttons now and then. You can fast forward or rewind, change the tone, speed, or volume. You can use headphones or earbuds.

I use earbuds at night so I won't disturb neighbors. I do exercises while listening to a book or magazine, and I press the Sleep button so the machine turns itself off after 15 minutes if I fall asleep and don't turn it off myself.

This is very convenient because if I don't press that Sleep button and fall asleep, the book keeps on playing, and in the morning I'll need to rewind it. But the material is tone indexed by chapters or articles--making rewinding much easier.

Books that depend on illustrations for their effect wouldn't work well as Talking Books but some have been recorded with the narrator describing the illustrations.

All of this is free. The playback machine is on loan. It takes a flash drive, and now you can download books and periodicals onto it.

You can keep the books for about 7 weeks, weekly magazines for 3 weeks, and monthly magazines for 7 weeks. Renewals are easy enough.

Each state has its own regional branch of this library (the NLS or National Library Service, a subdivision of the US Library of Congress), and the books get returned to that branch--by mail, sent postage-free because it's free matter for the handicapped and blind.

People with MS are often eligible for Talking Books--if not because of vision problems, then because of problems hanging onto a book or turning pages.

[Virginia]

Agate, not sure if this book comes in recorded form but a true crime book that I read and became totally glued to was "Bitter Blood". Part of my fascination could be the fact that it took place not far from where I live and so I recognized the places. Also, it involved the family of the first woman in NC to be a Supreme Court Justice - Susie Sharp (though not her). In fact the main person in the book was named after her and was her Niece. She was Susie Sharp (can't remember last name). I was riveted because I knew it to be true and so close to home. It also involved Susie Sharp's nephew. I might have questioned some of the book, but I knew it to be true.

A movie was made of this book. I think it was a TV movie and I missed it every time it was on. My sister-in-law saw it and said she intended to watch just a little one night and could not stop watching.