Reading

I used to lack passion in my life. I started off life with very little emotions. Mostly I spent every waking moment reading and listening to music. Books were an escape for me. I would travel the world; interact with people that weren’t going to hurt me. I had friends that I knew how they were going to react to situations because I had already read this book before. I reread books all the time. I don’t retain very well when I read. I read at an ungodly rate and so I’m constantly skimming books and still enjoying them, just at a fast pace. So I can read a book and a month or so later, reread it and be surprised by something I had forgotten. And then there are some books that I will just reread for the rest of my life because I enjoy them so much. There are a couple Stephen King books like that. A Chic-Lit book by Jennifer Cruise. Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, etc.

When I was younger, I loved going to the library. On average I would check out 6 -8 books every two weeks and all of them would be read. Now I tend to go once a week, sometimes once every two weeks and I will check out 4 - 5, and read all of them. There was one time where my folks took us on a ski trip in Wisconsin. I had no desire to ski so I took 14 books with me. I read every single one in that week or so vacation. I know I spent a good portion of my life with my nose in a book. But I regret nothing. I truly love to read.


I used to just read certain authors. Never branching out to other genre’s even. But I made a promise to myself in 2009 that I wouldn’t read one Stephen King or Dean Koontz book all year. I bought a bunch of classic novels from Borders. They did this campaign of offering a whole mess of classics as a promotion. I bought a bunch of them and slowly read my way through a few of them and then just quit. I told myself I would do that again this year but I got sidetracked by a whole new genre. I had never really read a lot of Sci Fi but I am in love with Peter F Hamilton. I’ve read several of his books and have really enjoyed them. Another is Anne Bishop. WOW….love anything she has written. Neither of these are Stephen King or Dean Koontz. I’m branching out more. And I’m enjoying it. I use the hell out of the library because I can find a book that I like and then go to the library and check out all of them. I’ve also started going to the library and just looking at books that look interesting on the shelf. My library is a seriously sorry repository so I tend to just reserve on-line and pick up in person. Occasionally they’ll have a few books on display that are new and I’ll maybe pick one up. But I’m still pretty picky about what I read.


I do not read a lot of murder mystery books. I tend to guess the outcome pretty early on and I get bored. But I have to finish a book. I very rarely give up on a book. It’s this constant need I have to just KNOW EVERYTHING…I will go to great lengths to find out the truth on something. And a surprise? Forget about it…I’ll drag it out of you faster than chili goes through someone. I’m a bully and really good about manipulating things. And I’ve improved on that character defect in the last 2 ½ years but I still will try to squeeze every little thing out of a surprise or story.


Since I tend to skim books, I have about 3 or 4 going at the same time. I have one in my purse or computer bag, one or two in my bedroom and one or two downstairs in the living room. This means I have a lot of variety to choose from. Right now I have Burned from Ellen Hopkins and The Reality Dysfunction by Peter Hamilton in my bedroom. I have the Up and Down life by Paul E. Jones (nonfiction book about bipolar) and Shalador’s Lady by Anne Bishop in my living room. I have the Catcher In the Rye in my purse. And I can tell you what is happening in each of those books right now. I used to be able to not use a bookmark because I could remember what page I was on (in each of the books I was reading at one time) but I’m getting older and it’s harder to do that. So I have a bunch of receipts or used post–it notes for bookmarks. I don’t think I actually own a real bookmark. I guess I don’t need something with a little fuzzy string hanging off it.


Many of my books are a couple hundred pages. The Peter Hamilton one I’m reading now is over 630 pages. And I can’t read fast enough. I will read for hours without coming up for breath. I get so involved in the story that I begin to think it’s my reality sometimes. I come out from a book and I still have these people with their personalities and situations in my head and I have to literally come to my senses. I have to remember that I have to go to church or that I need to walk the dogs. Each time I leave a story I’m surprised about the time or the things I need to do and time is running out. I get so wrapped up in the story that I just want it to go on forever.


What about these Nooks or Kindle’s? I’m not interested in them. Not to mention they are insanely expensive and not worth it in my book but I love the touch of the book covers. The smell of the pages. The sound that pages make when you flip through them. I guess I have to have that sensory interaction along with the story. I just love to have a book in my hand. Reading them on a small computer screen would be hard for me. And I have a problem listening to books on CD too. Mostly because my mind tends to wonder and I lose the story.


And books made into movies? For the most part, I enjoy them because I don’t remember the details. An example of this is the Harry Potter books. I honestly don’t remember the specific details in the book like my practice husband. He had those books practically memorized. And the movies pissed him off because there were little things like the color of a rode or curtain that was wrong in the movie or some stupid thing like that. Shit he wouldn’t get over! Now, the glaringly wrong in a movie pisses me off because typically it’s a huge part of the book that they missed or just messed up. And if I love a book that becomes a movie (I’m thinking the Twilight Series) I always go in with these high expectations and ultimately (really every time) it is crap…I’m hurt. Like that author sold out and was lying to me. I mean, I see the people in the books and I see the interactions between them and how a room looked. All this in my head and when I see the movie it’s never what I had in my head and then I feel like they tried to pull one over on me. I don’t know that there is one movie that is from a book I read that I kind of liked. But each time I go in with high expectations and am really disappointed. You would think I would learn but I keep thinking this one will be different.


I have to admit that I know how to handle people in books. I can just shut the book and not think about how that is going to affect me. But I have to learn how to handle real people. I have to remember that people aren’t like people in books. I don’t know what people are thinking because there is not a running dialog for me to read. But books and stories have given me the ability to learn how to handle situations. Of course books and their stories are not always close to reality but I still think I can learn things in books. Not just self help books either. Just reading dialog gives me ideas of what to say or do.

And I have to admit that I love a good story...not necessarily a love story (I'm really REALLY not into romance or even most Chic Lit) but the good story of interaction or victory. I love how good wins over evil (although I love the evil part of the story). I want to stay in the moment of the book that has me so wrapped up in it that I forget my own problems. That is a sign of a good book...get so lost in it that I forget myself.

Anyone have good suggestions?