Category: Booking through Thursday

What is Reading, Fundamentally?

Published on by Margaret15 Comments

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Suggested by: Thisisnotabookclub

What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks ‘” which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be ‘œreading’ ‘” why? If something isn’™t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’™t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.

(Two weeks late for Reading is Fundamental week, but, well’¦)

To me these are all forms of reading, even audiobooks where the words come into your head through the ears rather than the eyes, as I hear the words in my head when I read with my eyes. I also picture the images the words evoke, so pictorial images such as comics, graphic novels and manga are all reading too. The difficulty in this line of thought is that I don’t count watching films and TV  as “reading”. Watching is a passive activity, whereas reading is active and involves using your imagination and working out your own interpretation.

Audiobooks are good because you can listen whilst doing something like ironing (watching TV and ironing is a bit tricky, although I do that too), using the exercise bike, which I find immensely boring, and listening in the car. They must be a godsend if you’re blind (going blind is one of my worst nightmares).

I used to enjoy reading comics as a child as much as reading books. I haven’t actually read a graphic novel, but going off other people’s recommendations they seem to be worth trying at least. The format doesn’t stop me from reading them – I just haven’t picked one up to look at it as there are so many other books that I want to read. I don’t often buy a newspaper but I read on-line and I only read magazines now and then, apart from the Radio Times which I read every week. I used to read lots of magazines but the number of adverts made me think they weren’t worth buying and as they cost as much as a book, I prefer to buy a book.

I prefer reading physical books to reading e-books, partly because it’s less tiring on the eyes, but also because I enjoy the physical sensations of reading a book – the weight, the feel of the paper, its smell, its actual presence and ease of use. This may be because I’ve enjoyed reading books from an early age, and I’m used to it. Although I hope I would cope if e-books were the only form of books available, I would be very upset if physical books ceased to be published. I think reading newspapers on-line is not the same as the articles are shorter and I can cope with that. So it follows from this that the format doesn’t stop me from reading but it may lessen my enjoyment .

Books versus Movies – Booking Through Thursday

Published on by Margaret25 Comments

 

 

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is:

Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’™s the difference between a book and a movie?

I’ve come to the conclusion that you cannot compare books and films. They are different things entirely. I’ve been disappointed many times when a film of a book just hasn’t met my expectations or matched my vision of the characters. It would be impossible for any film to do that of course, except that Ian McKellen was just perfect as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings films – the rest of the cast had varying degrees of success as far as I was concerned and beautiful as the locations were Lothlorien was nowhere near my vision of it from reading the book.

It depends too, for me, on the impact the book had on me, or how much of it I remember. I read Atonement a few years ago now and I think that if I saw the film I could judge it on its own merits. I’m hesitating though about seeing it as I did enjoy the book so much. Once I’ve seen a film it is those actors’ faces that stick in my mind over-riding my own imagination and I don’t like that.

Usually it’s OK if I’ve seen a film first and then read the book. The exception to that was Tenko, which was  a TV drama series in the 1980s, with Ann Bell, Stephanie Cole and Bert Kwouk. The drama was good and the book was terrible.

I enjoy both books and films – both can transport me to another time and place and see things through someone else’s eyes, but I think books are more personal. Books are what the reader makes them, each person can read something different into the text, regardless of the author’s intentions, whereas films are someone else’s vision and interpretation.

Booking Through Thursday – More Work?

Published on by Margaret15 Comments

This week’s BTT question is Manual Labor Redux

Following up last week’™s question about reading writing/grammar guides, this week, we’™re expanding the question’¦.

Scenario: You’™ve just bought some complicated gadget home . . . do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?

Do you ever read manuals?

How-to books?

Self-help guides?

Anything at all?

I don’t like manuals, usually I can’t understand them anyway. I haven’t read the ones for my phone or camera and I just use them – or I ask my husband, who also never, ever reads instructions.

I can’t think of any How-to books right now that I’ve read; years ago I tried some of the “Teach Yourself” books but they never helped me learn much.

I do like to read Self-help guides, but never do any of the things they suggest.

Booking Through Thursday – Manual Labour (Labor)

Published on by Margaret12 Comments


This week’s Booking Through Thursday’s question is:

Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries’“if any’“do you have in your library?

My English teacher at school, Miss Orr, would be pleased and amazed if she could read this now – I like books on grammar and punctuation! I love dictionaries and writing guides.

I regularly use The Chambers Dictionary, which boldy says on its cover “the largest, bestselling and most comprehensive single-volume English dictionary” and also “the richest range of English language from Shakespeare to the present day”. It’s more than a dictionary as it also has lists in the back – first names, phrases and quotations in Latin and Greek and modern foreigh languages, books of the Bible, plays of Shakespeare, chemical elements and so on and so forth. It’s the meaning that I’m looking for because you have to have some idea of how a word is spelled to look it up. I do use on-line dictionaries but really prefer my “real” dictionary, somehow it’s more satisfying. I just opened it now to check the word “labour” (that’s how I would spell it not “labor” – I’m not too bothered about spelling) to see if my idea of using writing guides etc is covered by that word. “Labour” means, among other definitions “physical or mental toil; work, especially when done for money, or other gain, pain, a task requiring hard work”. So no, using these books is not all laborious for me.

I also have The Oxford Library of English Usage which I really ought to read more than I do. It’s a box set of 3 volumes – Grammar, Spelling and A Dictionary of Modern Usage. I bought the set some years ago when I realised that my memory of English Grammar from school was fading fast (sorry Miss Orr).

More recently I bought Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, which I think makes grammar so much more interesting. I love her examples and the wrong use of the apostraphe in “its/it’s” infuriates me, although not quite as as much as it does her:

“No matter if you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, “Good food at it’s best”, you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.”

My typing is not always up to much and I cringe when I see I’ve typed “it’s” instead of its”.

I’m really good at reading writing guides in hope of improving my writing or to give me inspiration to actually write something creative, but I never do what they say. I have a few books on Creative Writing – my favourite is Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer. I’m encouraged by her analysis of the difficulties of writing, her practical approach to the business of writing and this sentence in particular strikes a chord:

“Writing calls on unused muscles and invloves solitude and immobility.”

Although not a writing guide in the usual sense I also love Margaret Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. She writes about what is a writer and how she became one; the drawbacks of being a female writer; and asks question such as, “For whom does the writer write?” and “Is there a self-identity for the writer that combines responsibility with artistic integrity? If there is, where might it be?” She quotes many other author, enticing me to read yet more and more books.

Mayday! – Booking Through Thursday

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

This week’s BTT question:

Quick! It’™s an emergency! You just got an urgent call about a family emergency and had to rush to the airport with barely time to grab your wallet and your passport. But now, you’™re stuck at the airport with nothing to read. What do you do??

And, no, you did NOT have time to grab your bookbag, or the book next to your bed. You were . . . grocery shopping when you got the call and have nothing with you but your wallet and your passport (which you fortuitously brought with you in case they asked for ID in the ethnic food aisle). This is hypothetical, remember’¦.

I rarely go anywhere without a book, so it’s most likely that I’d have a book in the car. But if I didn’t I’d buy one at the airport, or at least a magazine or newspaper, maybe a book of codewords or something.

I’d want to read something but I probably wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything as I’d be so nervous about catching the plane on time, worrying about the emergency and goodness knows what else …

Spring – Booking Through Thursday

Published on by Margaret10 Comments


For this week’s Booking through Thursday Deb writes:

“Well, here where I live, Spring is sprung’“weeks early, even. Our lilac bush looks like it will have flowers by this time next week instead of in the middle of May as usual. The dogwood trees, the magnolia trees’“all the flowering trees are flowering. The daffodils and crocuses are, if anything, starting to fade. It may only be April 24th but it is very definitely Spring and, allergies notwithstanding, I’™m happy to welcome the change of season. What I want to know, is:

Do your reading habits change in the Spring? Do you read gardening books? Even if you don’™t have a garden? More light fiction than during the Winter? Less? Travel books? Light paperbacks you can stick in a knapsack?

Or do you pretty much read the same kinds of things in the Spring as you do the rest of the year?”

Spring is here too; everywhere is looking much greener, the trees are sprouting leaves, the primroses are still flowering, the daffodils are past their best but the tulips are still standing proudly. We’re going for a walk through the bluebell woods on Sunday so I hope they’re still in bloom.I’m wondering if I’ve got hay fever, or is it just a cold.

As for reading I don’t really change my reading habits. Maybe I’m out in the garden more – the grass has to be mown and the weeds dug out – I’m not a natural gardener. I do consult my gardening books each year to try to see what I should be doing in the garden, for help with pruning and how to stop the slugs and snails from making their homes in the plants. Now I think about it I do like gardening books; they’re so full of beautiful photos of lovely well-kept gardens and then I wonder what I’m not doing because our garden doesn’t look the same. Of course I do know the answer – I haven’t got green fingers, although I suspect that it’s really because I don’t spend as much time gardening as I do reading. And that’s not going to change.

I also like to read about places we’re thinking of visiting or planning a holiday, so yes travel books are on the menu, but I find the internet can be better for looking up places than books. I don’t think my reading habits change much with the seasons. Light (as in weight) paperbacks are always good, whatever the season to pop into a bag or leave in the car just in case there’s an opportunity to read.