Easy Reader
AKA: Why I can’t join a book club.
Although I’ve never been a bookworm, I’ve read my share of books, many of which have acted as developmental and cultural milestones in my life.
In elementary school I was the kind of kid who would clip the smallest newspaper story I could find for current events class. I wasn’t interested in reading the longer ones that I usually didn’t understand. Although my father frequently had a paperback in his hand on the weekends, my mother was so busy raising nine kids that I don’t remember ever seeing her with a book back then. I was shocked by the number of books that my girlfriend Laura’s mother would regularly check out of the library. When Laura started reading the Nancy Drew series, I followed suit, but I never read as many as she did.
Although Shakespeare wasn’t considered cool by my peer group, I secretly loved reading it aloud in class. I thought John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men was boring in comparison, but I was still happy to be reading it rather than doing what I considered to be real school work.
As a young adult, I turned to science fiction, reading most everything that Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut and others wrote. After science fiction I became interested in non-fiction. I have a photo that a boyfriend took of me at the age of twenty-one asleep on a bed in England with I Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee spread out across my chest.
Then it was onto spirituality and new thought: Edgar Cayce, The Aquarian Conspiracy, books about childrearing, home schooling, homesteading, self-help, how to, and all things Irish.
When I moved to Floyd and became part of a women’s community, it was as if we were all taking the same life course. The Mists of Avalon got dog-eared as it was passed around between women, so did the Clan of the Cave Bear series and all the Medicine Woman books (a woman’s version of Carlos Castaneda-like adventures).
I read all those books while raising two sons as a single parent. My sons are adults now, but it seems harder to find time to read. I acquire many books but I only read a fraction of them. At one time I looked into taking a speed reading so that I could read without such an investment of time. And I’ve always admired the Star Trek character Spock because he could hold a book up to his head and get it telepathically. But I also know the feeling of reading the end of a good book slowly because I don’t want the story to end, and I know I will miss the characters when they’re gone.
One reason I don’t read as much as others I know is because, for me, reading leads to writing. I write much more than I read these days. And writing leads to research, which brings me to the following tidbit I found while writing this piece. I wanted to know why a book is called a book: From an etymological perspective, book and beech are branches of the same tree. The Germanic root of both words is *bōk-, ultimately from an Indo-European root meaning “beech tree.” The Old English form of book is bōc, from Germanic *bōk-ō, “written document, book.” The Old English form of beech is bēce, from Germanic *bōk-jōn, “beech tree,” because the early Germanic peoples used strips of beech wood to write on. A similar semantic development occurred in Latin. The Latin word for book is liber, whence library. Liber, however, originally meant “bark”—that is, the smooth inner bark of a tree, which the early Romans likewise used to write on.
Post Notes: The photo is a segment of a larger collage that fellow Floyd Writer’s Circle member, Rosemary, did of me and other writers for the Hotel Floyd Writer’s Room. See the photo she transformed HERE. More on my favorite books HERE.
September 26th, 2007 10:46 am
passages of reading how very true..Sigh
September 26th, 2007 11:08 am
i find my amount of book reading goes in cycles, too. i have hardly picked up any since my son was born, although i used to be a voracious reader. that was one thing i loved about being home-schooled in my teen years…. i would be done with my work by lunchtime, and could lock myself in my room for the afternoon with jane austen or emily bronte. 🙂
September 26th, 2007 11:16 am
I didn’t know you were home schooled (or I forgot). My sons were too for a few years when they were young.
My favorite line about reading was one I used in a past 13 Thursday:
“As someone who is 5 foot and 1 inch, I sometimes wonder what I might have done with all the time I’ve spent hemming pants and skirts if I didn’t have to do it. Maybe if I was taller, I would have read more of the classics.”
There’s still time!
September 26th, 2007 11:41 am
Oh I just loved Nancy Drew.
That sure is a blast from the past.
Poetessxxx
September 26th, 2007 11:53 am
My favorite line about speedreading came from Woody Allen, who said he’d taken a speedreading course and read War & Peace in 20 minutes! (pause)…It’s about Russia.
September 26th, 2007 11:57 am
What a lovely reminiscence, Colleen.
I used to read very much, but recently, time constraints have very much taken that away from me. Still, whenever I have some free minutes, I’m torn between reading and writing, and I cannot go to sleep at night without reading a few pages.
Speed reading – hmmm, sounds interesting in the speeding world of today, but it only allows you to accumulate information and not feelings. (Sometimes, tears come up to my eyes when I finish a book that I deeply liked.)
Science-fiction! Wow, I’m impressed! I love it, always have and always will! 🙂
September 26th, 2007 2:36 pm
Are you trying to tell me something? Hmmm? Keep watching the action, anyway.
September 26th, 2007 2:42 pm
I can’t keep up with you, Bonnie! But I will watch and listen from the sidelines. I didn’t write this for you, but I did think of you as I added the AKA subtitle.
September 26th, 2007 3:31 pm
Suddenly, I’m 63, and I read so much that I have to have an eye exam and bumped up prescriptions for the lenses every 18 months. I have armloads of books, piles by my bed, on my desk, in the bathroom, in the car. I carry something in my purse….books I wanted to read in the ’70s (when I was raising my son) and in the ’80s (desperately trying to support him) and in the ’90s (what the hell did I do in the ’90s?) …history, politics, the classics, modern poetry, literary fiction,contemporary sociology and psychology; Vonnegut, Stephen Spender, David Halberstam, Jose Saramago. I read about someone, something, and I buy a used copy on the ‘net. I have mountains of magazines I’m constantly passing off to friends ( and leaving in beauty shops and gyms).
Oh, and I’ve re-read some of my childhood favorites, too. Heidi. The Secret Garden.
My point is: There will be time…for a hundred visions and revisions…as Eliot wrote. Somehow, suddenly, it just comes, and while our bodies begin to betray us, our minds embrace the world.
September 26th, 2007 4:02 pm
Well said and Bravo, Wendy!
September 26th, 2007 6:10 pm
Ah reading…I always have a book going. Right now I’m almost finished with MJ Rose’s brand new one, “The Reincarnationist”….it’s fantastic!
Boy, you brought back memories of Edgar Cayce. I couldn’t read enough of his stuff when I was in my early 20’s.
September 26th, 2007 11:51 pm
We have Nancy Drew, Clan of the Cave Bear series and Edgar Cayce in common!
September 27th, 2007 12:34 am
It is interesting to read about your “Reading” journey….And the fact that you read so much less now….I feel there are similarities Colleen…I read much much more as a younger person and now, I barely read any books…Oh I read some, but not the way I did…..And there just doesn’t seem to be the time or maybe is in the interest and concentration needed….I seem to warch more television…things that have replaced books, in a way, I’m ashamed to say….And if I do read a book, I want to read an autibiography or a biography….Oh Dear….it is depressing! (lol)
I think you are right about yhat being a moth…But I just don’t know…I must try to Google Moths and see if I can pin this down….And yes, I think it is the same one each day….I wasn’t out there today and I may not be tomorrow either….Well, I will see—-maybe on Friday, depending on the state of the flowers, too….
September 27th, 2007 2:20 am
I think I’m like Wendy, reading more now because I can. Wendy said, “…and while our bodies begin to betray us, our minds embrace the world.” I agree! I do feel wiser now than when I was younger. Because I’m wiser, I read deeper and put more things together that make sense to me.
Colleen, you can’t keep up with me? Hey, it’s the other way around. You do so many fun things with your poetry readings and writing group … I don’t think I could keep up with you!
September 27th, 2007 1:10 pm
I’ve never been a bookworm either and most of the reading I do is others’ blogs. I should balance that out more. I’m having trouble getting around as regularly as I used to so don’t be offended if I’m not here as much! It’s a full time job looking after my body!