Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Where do you like to read? Sitting in a chair? Lying in bed? Riding a plane?
My father visited us in Seattle once and announced if he had a ferry to ride to work each day, he would get a lot of reading done. “It’s wonderful how you can sit and read during your commute!”
I thought of him this weekend, as we rode the London Underground, and I saw so many people engrossed in books. A lot were listening to i-pods, too, but between newspapers and books, probably a third of the subway car was not staring back at me!
Local London newspapers make this easier since they’re given away free at the entrance to the Underground, but many soft- and hard-covered books also came out of satchels as soon as the doors slid shut. Chick lit, Harry Potter, thrillers, and several Bibles made appearances and captured their owners as we clattered down the tracks. The young woman sitting beside me for eighteen stops to Heathrow never looked up from her Stieg Larsson until we arrived.
This can present a challenge to the author, and may be an indicator of the genre most likely to be read while the reader travels. You want the reader to get lost in your story, but not to the exclusion of their stop. (I once rode the Washington D. C. subway past my station all the way to Reagan Airport while reading a new genealogy find. It took me half an hour to backtrack!) Dense language, compound sentences, complex ideas and nineteenth-century handwriting probably don’t lend themselves well to commuter entertainment unless you’re a genealogy buff like me.
I’ve described Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency as a perfect airplane read because the chapters are short and they don’t tax your brain too much. Larsson’s books, taut thrillers filled with erotic scenes, also are quick page turners.
The Bible provides a different satisfaction. Broken up into manageable chapters that give the reader plenty to think about, it can be read in short spurts or long periods–it’s good anywhere!
I settled in last Monday with Anita Shreve’s latest book, A Change in Altitude, and read three and a half hours straight as we flew over the Atlantic Ocean. Immersed in Africa, I scarcely looked out the window until we were over Iceland. It had been a long time since I wallowed in a book without interruption. I liked it.
What do you like to read when you travel and why? Does your location make a difference in the type of book you choose? How much reading would you get done if you could ride the Underground to work every day?
I hadn’t thought of location as a factor before. I’d have said my choices were seasonal–thrillers in the summer, historicals in cooler weather.
Now you have me wondering if that’s because I like audiobook thrillers to keep me awake while I’m in the car on summer travels. Maybe I gravitate to historicals in the winter because they’re perfect for slower gray days and a cozy recliner by the fire.
I wished I had more time to read. After reading and writing technical manuals all day, my eyes are shot. However when I do read, L like to read in bed or at my kitchen table with a nice cup of hot tea. Usually, I’m reading the paper or a magazine article when I do this now. I have a really nice den but I don’t read there that much.
I love listening to audiobooks going back and forth to work or when I drive to or from my mother’s condo. I have large collection of books on CD. Most of them are recent titles. I also loan them to friends and they in return loan me stuff. I think I have more non-fiction than fiction.
At home I read in my recliner while hubby watches TV. But my best reading gets done on long airplane trips either in the air or waiting on connections at the airport. It’s the reason I love my Sony Reader so much. Depending on the length of the trip, I can read five or six books (especially if it’s not a tour-intensive adventure). The down side of e-readers though is that you can’t tell what people are reading and I hate to interrupt and ask.
Fun post! I love mysteries when I travel, especially those by Elizabeth Peters. Amelia Peabody is the perfect traveling companion. 🙂
In college (1970ish) I read about newspaper strikes in NY and other cities during the early 1950s. Subway riders were left uncomfortably without newspapers to hide behind during their commutes. It turns out one of the reasons people read on the subway is to avoid having to make eye contact with strangers. That thought so intrigued me that I researched it and wrote a fairly long poem about it.
For myself, as I get older, it gets harder for me to read without falling asleep. I still enjoy reading, but serious reading needs to be done when I’m fresh.