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| Monday, January 16, 2006 |
| Books |
Can you tell today is a day off? The kids are goofing off on the computer (i'm being a good monitoring momma, checking in to be sure they're not venturing into scary parts of the Internet. But they're mostly restricting themselves to the American Girl site, and all the games contained therein, and the Captain Underpants site, both of which may be seen as scary by some, but I am personally fine with both). They don't usually get to do this. We were going to go ice skating at the Frog Pond today, which is an outdoor rink in the Boston Commons, but it's cold. It was 18 degrees at the time we were making our decisions. we decided we don't want to be that cold today. Next weekend is scheduled for 45 degrees, according to my most reliable sources, so we've postponed the Wintry Fun for a less wintry day.
I am frustrated that I have not read more during my non-school time. I love to read. I have checked out many books from the library, but I have returned almost all of them, unread. My time still feels short, even without study obligations at night. Part of it may be that my kids don't have the world's earliest bedtimes - they often disappear to their room between 9 and 9:30.
I know I have read at least 2 books all the way through since November 28. One was margaret atwood's Penelopiad. I adore that woman. The other was The Secret Life of Bees, which may as well have been a magazine article for how challenging it was. A friend of mine and I are reading From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman, but we're going preeetttyyy slow. We're on page 80.
I wish I could read on a train, because then I'd have at least 1.5 extra hours per day to devote to the literary edification of my mind. But if I did that, i'd throw up. I used to do books on tape, but I find that I can't usually get high quality books on tape (or rather CD, which I then transfer to the iPod). There's plenty of Dean Koontz and Anne Rice ... but I have yet to find the Garbriel Garcia Marquez and Jose Saramago. Further, the times I have attempted to listen to more serious books on tape, the experience was frustrating. I want to SEE the language. I want to see how the words play together. I want to make these voices in my OWN head, I don't want someone else's voice messing with my imagination.
And I also discovered podcasts, and have gotten back into my NPR and other news commentary shows. That was something else I missed.
There truly are not enough hours in the day. I know that many people say "well, if it matters to you, you'll make time" about many things - exercise, reading, time with kids. Time with kids is there - exercise and reading have not found their place yet.
Although, I could be reading right now ..... |
posted by Zuska @ 1:19 PM   |
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| 1 Comments: |
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Yep, I found that when I got into blogging, a lot of what used to be fiction reading time somehow got sucked away.
There are a few authors, albeit perhaps not ones at the literary level you'd like, who do great audiobooks. They're the types like David Sedaris whose bookreadings are worth attending because his own voice is so funny. Clyde Edgerton (who has gotten raves in the NYTBR from Barbara Kingsolver) is also fantastic. You'll have to dig out a cassette player to hear him, but it's worth it.
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Yep, I found that when I got into blogging, a lot of what used to be fiction reading time somehow got sucked away.
There are a few authors, albeit perhaps not ones at the literary level you'd like, who do great audiobooks. They're the types like David Sedaris whose bookreadings are worth attending because his own voice is so funny. Clyde Edgerton (who has gotten raves in the NYTBR from Barbara Kingsolver) is also fantastic. You'll have to dig out a cassette player to hear him, but it's worth it.