I’ve written much about John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University of late, perhaps because it is such heavy wading but also has some interesting ideas for those of us who spend time around universities. For this post, on a Sunday afternoon, I thought I’d focus on an unusual experience in trying to read him, and that was that I found my comprehension of Newman increased when I read him aloud. In fact, I found that his long sentences with numerous subordinate clauses actually made more sense when I read them as he might have spoken them–this book is the text of his lectures. At least one question this prompts for me is whether one ought do this with other forms of writing that are meant for oral presentation–sermons, poems, political discourse and more? (Provided you find a private context where you will not be thought a little nutty!)

In the past, I’ve thought of reading aloud as primarily something I did when my son was young, something my wife and I do occasionally on long trips, or something done on audiobooks–which I have rarely listened to. I do have wonderful memories of books read aloud, particularly ones where it seems the author wrote with the view of his or her work being read aloud.  I think here of Tolkien, particularly some of his songs and poems, or Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon, one of our favorite children’s stories, or the marvelous Winnie the Pooh stories that I was introduced to at InterVarsity’s Cedar Campus retreat center by Keith Hunt, its first director. “Pooh readings” were a tradition for many of our ‘camps’–as much loved by students and adults as the little children among us!

What are your experiences of reading aloud?  Do you have books you would especially recommend that are good to read aloud?  And do you ever read aloud to yourself?