SWIMMING IN BOOKS: My Life As a Reader (Part I)

      When I started thinking about this post, it was my intention to tell you what reading had meant to me as a child.  How I could still see myself at age five or six, sitting in an overstuffed chair in my family's small living room, a pile of learn-to-read books on the arm of the chair, feeling the world shift and open as I deciphered the words on the page of each new book.  How, after I had conquered the rudiments of reading and gained some prowess, I would tag along with my best friend and her mother on their weekly trip to the public library, where I would carefully select five or six books, then take them home (barely able to contain my excitement during the ride) and hole up in my room to read them.  How, when I was about eleven, another friend's mother had chided me for reading what she called an adult book--A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. (I'm still scratching my head over that one.) How reading allowed me to hide in plain sight, to slip off into another time or place while the adults around me assumed the presence of my body meant I was there in the room with them.  How in a chaotic household, presided over by an angry father, reading saved my life.

      And then I read Maria Popova's post on the subject on her Brain Pickings blog and realized that everything there is to say about reading as solace for a sad and lonely child had already been said.  So, on this subject, I will simply leave you with these words from Mary Oliver as a teaser for Popova's post: "standing . . . deep inside books. . . can re-dignify the worst-stung heart."  

     I will today write instead about the role of books in my adult life.  The sad and lonely child is long gone, but the comfort, the sheer pleasure of reading remains.  The child who could not get enough of reading has morphed into the woman who continues to anticipate each new book with excitement and to feel anxious if her pile of yet-to-be-read books is not tall enough to topple.  Adulthood with its responsibilities and distractions notwithstanding, I read 75 books last year. The year before I read 74.  And before you jump to the conclusion that I spend half of every day lounging in an easy chair, let me disabuse you of that notion.  I would guess that of the books I read last year, I read about 25 while sitting in that easy chair or at the kitchen table or in a waiting room.  The rest -- and here is the secret to being able to read so many books despite the obligations of adulthood -- the rest I listened to.  

     Yep.  Ear buds firmly in place, I listened to book after book.  I listened while walking.  While gardening. While knitting.  While cooking.  While driving.  While waiting to fall asleep.  While not sleeping in the middle of the night.  

     In short, since the advent of audio books, I have conducted my life while reading. 

     I can hear some of you asking, "But is that really reading?"  I don't know.  Is cross-country skiing really skiing?  But I take your point.  I used to be a print snob too.  And then one day about 25 years ago, a book I had ordered from the library showed up in cassette-tape form--yes, that was the audio-book delivery system at the time.  As it happens, I was home with a cold or the flu or some such life-interrupting condition, and decided to give the tapes a try. I put on my my great big headset and lay there in my weakened state, letting the words wash over me, periodically rousing myself to change the cassette.  It was wonderful.

     
      I soon discovered that I didn't have to be sick to enjoy a book in audio form.  For the most part, the readers are terrific.  Remember how lovely it was to be read to as a child? The pleasure remains.  On the rare occasion where a reader disappoints, it is easy enough to return the audio version and seek out the same book in print.  And access has gotten easier over time.  Cassette tapes long ago gave way to CDs, after which CDs gave way to library apps.  These days, I have only to order a book from my library through the Libby app, and it will appear on my phone, as if by magic.  (I am convinced that it is magic.  Should there be many people wanting the book, I can place a hold using Libby, and the book will show up on my phone when it becomes available, courtesy of the same magic.) What could be simpler?  (Ten years ago, I traveled to Europe with a friend.  We each brought one paperback book.  When I finished mine, she started tearing off chunks of her book as she finished them, and handing them to me.  Thanks to easily portable audio and ebooks, such desecration is no longer necessary.)

      I am happy to report that listening to audiobooks has led me to read a wider range of books than ever before.  My time for reading printed books is limited, so I am careful where I spend that time. Audio books are another matter.  In the early days, when I had to satisfy myself with whatever cassette tapes or CDs were available on my library's shelves, I discovered books I would not otherwise have picked up.   My willingness to try new genres in audiobook form led to my trying out mysteries.  I would never have otherwise picked up Tana French or Louise Penny or Jacqueline Winspear.  What a loss that would have been.

      And then there is this.  When reading in bed, it is much safer to listen to a fat book than to hold one.  Take Dickens, for instance.   I like to return to Bleak House every few years, but if I were to fall asleep while reading and drop the book, I might injure myself.  Instead, I simply pop in my earbuds, turn on my book, and wait for sleep to arrive.  And on those nights when sleep is elusive--well, at least I'm getting some reading done without turning on a light.  

     Of course, I still love to crack open the spine of a "real book," and to settle in for whatever is contained in its pages, and I will continue to read in this fashion for as long as my eyes and my brain hold out.  But there is no more print snobbery for me.  Thanks to a combination of print and audio books, I am able to swim through my life on a tide of reading.  Sometimes the books are life rafts and sometimes they are guides, friends, entertainers, or teachers.  But always they have been my companions.

       I believe my childhood self would approve.