Where/when/how do you read?

[scottielvr]

... With so many threads on the board about books, it's obvious that reading is an important part of life for lots of us...even a passion. So my first question is: Where do you do most of your reading? By which I mean (since I'm assuming most of us do the majority of pleasure reading at home), what room do you read in, and in what position? Fully supine in the classic couch-potato position, book balanced on your chest? The recliner? In bed? Sensibly upright in a chair with good lighting? Other? (Yes, I know, there's that bathroom thing, too... Confession is good for the soul).

When do you find time for your “serious pleasure reading?” (by me, that's not an oxymoron). Before work, after work? Only on the weekends? Only on vacation/holiday? I was thinking about this the other day: how little time I seem to have for reading any more. I used to be able to spend several hours daily reading; I'd come home from work and dive into a book. No longer; now I can only pick up a book at bedtime, and fall asleep with it. A book that once took me a couple of days to finish, now takes me weeks...(sigh).

Also...Is your choice of reading location determined by your environment? I.e., are you able to read around television or other background noise? (I can't; I need silence to enjoy a book. I've gone to great lengths to create a TV-sound-free space in my house, just so I can read there). Can you read in a moving vehicle? (I can't; it's the only thing that gives me motion sickness).

Any other reading idiosyncrasies? A co-worker recently had me in stitches when he described how his partner finds it physically impossible to read and smoke a cigarette at the same time. It's some sort of eye-hand coordination thing; he has to put the book down to smoke his cigarette, then go back to the book. And...do you read a book if you go to a restaurant by yourself? In my younger days, I used to enjoy the defiant geekiness of that. Nowadays, though, it appears that for folks out and about, the laptop has trumped the book. Comments?

[Martin Milner]

... With so many threads on the board about books, it's obvious that reading is an important part of life for lots of us...even a passion. So my first question is: Where do you do most of your reading? By which I mean (since I'm assuming most of us do the majority of pleasure reading at home), what room do you read in, and in what position? Fully supine in the classic couch-potato position, book balanced on your chest? The recliner? In bed? Sensibly upright in a chair with good lighting? Other? (Yes, I know, there's that bathroom thing, too... Confession is good for the soul).

When do you find time for your “serious pleasure reading?” (by me, that's not an oxymoron). Before work, after work? Only on the weekends? Only on vacation/holiday? I was thinking about this the other day: how little time I seem to have for reading any more. I used to be able to spend several hours daily reading; I'd come home from work and dive into a book. No longer; now I can only pick up a book at bedtime, and fall asleep with it. A book that once took me a couple of days to finish, now takes me weeks...(sigh).

Also...Is your choice of reading location determined by your environment? I.e., are you able to read around television or other background noise? (I can't; I need silence to enjoy a book. I've gone to great lengths to create a TV-sound-free space in my house, just so I can read there). Can you read in a moving vehicle? (I can't; it's the only thing that gives me motion sickness).

Any other reading idiosyncrasies? A co-worker recently had me in stitches when he described how his partner finds it physically impossible to read and smoke a cigarette at the same time. It's some sort of eye-hand coordination thing; he has to put the book down to smoke his cigarette, then go back to the book. And...do you read a book if you go to a restaurant by yourself? In my younger days, I used to enjoy the defiant geekiness of that. Nowadays, though, it appears that for folks out and about, the laptop has trumped the book. Comments?

I don't read as much as I used to, but I still buy books - so I have shelves of unread books awaiting my attention!

One problem I have is that books these days are so bulky - it's hard to find a slim paperback one can slip into a trouser pocket and read on a short journey, even paperbacks are usually first published in "Trade Paperback" size, I suppose in order to take up more shelf space in the bookshop. As a result, if I'm trying to read a bulky book, it tends to stay at home in a favoured spot, get covered with other detritus, and get replaced with soemthing closer to hand. Thus I end up with half a dozen books part-read.

[rebl_rn]

I also cannot read in front of a TV or in a car, for the same reasons you stated.

I usually read either in my recliner at home, or lying on the sofa, or lying in bed. I usually read instead of watching TV most evenings. I really feel like reading recharges me like TV cannot - right now with my dad in the hospital I haven't had as much time to read and I really miss it.

[brewerpaul]

I'm largely a bedtime reader these days too, where I start the ritual my wife calls "waving the book". I lie on my back and begin to read and as time goes on (not very long) the book starts waving back and forth as if it's in a stiff breeze. Usually, I end up dropping it on the floor as I drift off to sleep...
This can be dangerous though. My current book is "Ahab's Wife" (highly recommended), and at more than 650 pages reading it like this could be dangerous

[GaryKelly]

Where/when/how do you read?

The where and the when vary. As the to 'how', uhm... I just sort of look at the words on the page and the brain does the rest for me...

[djm]

I can relate to the stuff about not having time to read a book any longer. I too do a bit of reading just before bed. It helps me fall asleep, instead of keeping me awake for a few days of intense excitement. Part of this may be that I am reading almost all tech and science books. Maybe once a year do I read a fiction book, as opposed to thirty years ago, when I would easily plow through a hundred fiction books per year.

djm

[chas]

I'm largely a bedtime reader these days too, where I start the ritual my wife calls "waving the book". I lie on my back and begin to read and as time goes on (not very long) the book starts waving back and forth as if it's in a stiff breeze. Usually, I end up dropping it on the floor as I drift off to sleep...
This can be dangerous though. My current book is "Ahab's Wife" (highly recommended), and at more than 650 pages reading it like this could be dangerous

Same here. I used to read voraciously, but there's just too much other stuff to do now. My current book is Raffan's "Woodturning" and I'm just getting to the good part.

[The Weekenders]

You can roughly divide the Weekender's state of health into two sections, one in which no books are being read and when there are. Because I read at night, in bed, a gripping page-turner means I am sleep-deprived the next day.

I just got through 18 volumes of the Dudley Pope Ramage series of sea-faring novels. So I was tired for the last few weeks or so. Having finished them over the weekend, I may actually get the required seven or eight hours, who knows.... until the next gripping series comes along. I already did Master and Commander series. I just love those naval yarns.

The rest of the day is so tightly scheduled that nightime is the only time I get to read and it drives me nuts.

[dwinterfield]

I read on the train to and from work each day - 2 hrs+. 10 hrs on planes this week too. Also in bed before going to sleep - 10 min max.

Always paperbacks. I'm not lugging hard bound books on the train. That usually means I'm 6-12 months behind being current. That's okay. I've been waiting for the DaVinci Code in paperback. Maybe next year.

Almost entirely crime fiction - Peter Robinson, Ken Bruen, John Connolly.

Also read magzines while watching tv and get a lot of news from the net as well as newspapers and tv.

I check C&F several times a day. That can eat up a lot of time too.

[peeplj]

I read primarily before going to sleep, these days. Also sometimes on weekends I'll sneak in a half hour or so with a good book.

I usually read lying on the bed. Have also been known to read while eating, having a fork in one hand and the book in the other. For this to work it requires that my wife also have a book she's caught up in...either both can read with dinner, or neither.

I am sad to say that there are actually whole months that go by now when I'm not in a book. This is far different from when I was younger and would read a book every couple of days and usually had 2 or 3 going at once. There's just not time to allow that, anymore. These days it takes me about two weeks to read a medium-sized paperback novel.

How's that old song go? "There's never enough time to do the things you want to do, once you find them."

--James

[Congratulations]

How's that old song go? "There's never enough time to do the things you want to do, once you find them."

Jim Croce.

Being in school (and an English major, at that), I do a great deal of reading. I don't get to read much for pleasure, but that doesn't stop me trying. Pleasure reading is always right before bed, normally between midnight and one o'clock, if I can last that long. I do my school reading typically just after dinner, around seven.

[Redwolf]

Everywhere! I usually have multiple books going...one in each of the bathrooms (where I am likely to read either sitting on the John or soaking in the tub), one on the dining table (where I may read during any pause in my daily routine, or in the evening) and one by the bed, where I usually read for a bit before going to sleep.

Redwolf

[hyldemoer]

Since my retirement I've returned to school. The grand bulk of what I read is textbooks and even that is not without a struggle as I have the beginnings of cataracts in both eyes.
They haven't progressed enough that they justify surgery (I've been told) but they do cloud my vision field a bit and cause my vision correction to shift every couple months (necessitating new lenses in my glasses).

Since reading with this handicap can be a tedious process I've found I not only tend to sight read music a lot less, I also find myself memorizing with less resistance any music (or what's in the textbooks) I do read.
The grand bulk of learning music has shifted to more aural for me.

The joke of the whole matter is, just as one's vision starts to fail, so might one's hearing. I still hear volume and pitch but some of the consonants of spoken word are indistinguishable. Extrapolating this to music, my ears tend to hear the melody of a tune as long as chords are not played behind it.

[Charlene]

Where: Bathroom, dining room, living room, lunchroom at work.

When: Anytime I can, but usually while eating.

I can read against the TV or radio or records. My husband can't, though, so if he's reading it's usually quiet. I don't like reading outside because the wind blows the pages and the sun glares off the paper. And I can't read in a car or I'll get carsick, I suppose that goes for boats, trains, and airplanes also, although I don't travel on boats, trains, or airplanes.

DaVinci Code is now out in paperback - just in time for the movie. I've read the hardback but we didn't keep it - it was one that someone traded in at my husband's used book store, so we just read it and put it up for sale.

I prefer fantasy, next is si-fi, then historical fiction, then biography, then action adventure, then history, then mystery, then suspense, then horror, then westerns, then general fiction. I don't like romance novels, although I will read them if I am absolutely bored to tears or if I just want some light fluff. I've tried some of the novels that Oprah recommends and usually wonder why I've wasted my time.

[Innocent Bystander]

Bedroom, bathroom, living room.
I used to read books on the train. Now I only read music on the train, and that only on the train home. Reading anything other than the newspaper on the way into work and my head is addled for the day.

My wife's book-group furnishes me with books if I run short. In reality it doesn't happen. But I've just finished XinRan's "Sky Burial". I only read it after they had their discussion on it, so I had no input for them. My wife found it utterly alien to her. I'm familiar with the Chinese way of thinking and the Tibetan way of thinking, so it was cosy for me. And XinRan writes occasional columns for my daily newspaper so I know her style.

Most recent books read were "A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian", "The Spanish Bawd" and "Treasure Island"(for the fifteenth time), and I'm in the middle of "Shadowmancer". After that it's a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

I was ill while I read "The Da Vinci Code". That was a book which got thrown against the wall with distressing frequency. I don't think I would have finished it had I been in good health.

If I get stuck with no novels to read, I go back to reading poetry.