Ways we read Archives - Bob on Books

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Thanks to everyone who stopped by to read the first Weekly Wrap and were so encouraging in your comments. I think we’ll try this for another week!

I have been absorbed this week in Kristin Hannah’s The Women, an account of the experience of combat nurses in Vietnam. I have a former colleague who did this. She never spoke about her experience. Reading Hannah’s book helps me understand as she describes the horrific things that happened to soldiers, the terrible reception anyone who served in Vietnam received when they came home, the lack of recognition combat nurses received until many years later, of their services and of the skills they acquired. Like other of Hannah’s books, I carry this one around in my head even when I’m not reading it.

Don’t you just love writers who write with such skill and power?

Five Articles Worth Reading

If you follow this blog, you know I review a number of books. I don’t get paid, other than in free books, for doing it. I do it for the sheer love of reading and the fun of connecting books and people who want to read them. There was so much I resonated with in Christine Smallwood’s A Reviewer’s Life, and I’m glad I have a day job, as her comments on the pay freelance reviewers receive portrays a challenging way to make a living.

For those who enjoy audiobooks, Audible has published its list of Top Audiobooks of 2024 So Far, which Bookriot picked up. I’m not an audiobook listener, but this list tempts me…. The Bookriot article also offers links to other “Best of” lists and recent articles.

I went through a season of reading a number of the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the most creative science fiction/fantasy writers of her time. She passed away in 2018. This week, her family announced (AP News Story) that her Portland home, built on plans from a Sears catalog with a view of Mt. St. Helen’s, will become the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency. Aspiring writers will have the opportunity to write where she wrote some of her most famous books.

I would love to see this in every city. Publisher’s Weekly ran a story this week, “Free Children’s Bookstore Opens in Pittsburgh.” Children may select up to three books they may take home and read.

I’ve been struck that we are witnessing the emergence of an incredible array of talented women writers. One of these, Rachel Cusk, has just published a new novel, Parade. I found this Guardian article, “Where to Start With: Rachel Cusk” a good introduction to her work.

Quote of the Week

Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery writer, playwright, essayist, and translator of Dante was born June 13, 1893. I like this quote from her, apropos of our time.

“The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’ve been reading a book that explores the reading and writing practices in ancient times, which spurred me to think of all the ways we “read” in our day. I wrote about it on Friday at the blog, “The Ways We Read.”

I’ve loved the stories of George MacDonald since I was a college student. But I’ve never come across someone who wrote in ways reminiscent of him until a young Australian writer, Peter Kostoglou, reached out to me asking me to review a little collection of seven short stories, Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles. I found them exquisite, and wrote about them on Thursday.

I thought with Peter Jackson’s productions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, we had seen the definitive film works. I learned that Jackson is at it again with “The Hunt for Gollum” and that an animated production of “The War of the Rohirrim” is also in production. Of course, Christopher Tolkien has carried on his father’s legacy, mining his notes for other stories. I’m reading Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth which delves (a dwarfish word!) into the background of things alluded to in Tolkien’s most familiar work. What amazes me is how J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t just write a long story, but conceived a whole history behind it, as well as numerous languages. No wonder Tolkien has been a source for so much creative rendering of his work. There is actually far more to tell than we’ve seen thus far. The only thing I would ask for is a few less Orc battles!

Well, that’s a wrap!

Picture of a young girl sitting cross-legged on a table reading a book. — Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I’ve been thinking lately about the ways we read. Ways? Most of us think reading is sitting in your favorite spot, a physical book in hand, our favorite drink at our side, and under good light.

But readers are far more versatile than that. The book could be an e-reader or tablet. Or an app on our phone, used on a bus, or train, or tram, or sitting at an airplane gate.

Or we may be “reading” by listening to someone read a book. While we drive. Or walk. Or exercise. Or cook.

Of course we don’t just read books. There are magazines, newspapers, instruction books, employee and student handbooks. even cereal boxes!

But we don’t just read silently. or alone. Even when it appears we are, we really are in conversation with the author, a communion of minds and thoughts.

We read aloud. As children called on in class. When we want to hear the sound, the rhythm of words in a poem. I read aloud when I edit an article. Sometimes I read dense writing aloud, phrase by phrase, aurally unpacking closely written ideas.

We read aloud to others. In church or synagogue, reading lectionaries or sacred texts. Sometimes one reader. Sometimes responsively or antiphonally. Sometimes in unison, joining our voices together. Some of us gather in small groups to study the Bible, and often before discussing a text, it will be read aloud.

Authors give readings of their works. We sometimes read favorite passages to each other. Lovers read poetry to each other…or at least once did.

Before audiobooks, my wife and I read to each other on long car trips. And we cherished family read aloud times at our son’s bedtime, sometimes all snuggled up on a sofa, as when we read through the Little House books.

We read to those unable to read. I taped textbook readings for a sight-impaired student. I shudder to think of the hours he spent listening to my voice! I wish I had thought to throw in a few jokes!

We read to the infirm who cannot read. We read to those seriously ill, even nearing death, words of comfort from Psalms, poetry, perhaps an author favored by us both.

We read aloud on holidays, texts appropriate to the day. “I Have A Dream” on Martin Luther King Day, the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, “The Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve, the Seven Last Words on Good Friday.

All this is amazing for a learned skill, acquired with varying degrees of difficulty. As I look at all the ways we read, I’m struck with how much reading is part of the warp and woof of our lives. It’s a cultural good worth preserving, a way of preserving richness and imagination against the forces of banality and entropy that would wear away at us.

All the ways we read.