The other day as I was driving home from my class in Suttons Bay I heard an interview with a guy who has become a huge fan of the Kindle. The Kindle is an electronic way of reading. I'm not totally sure, but I think it's sort of like a visual ipod. You can download books, magazines, newspapers, etc. and then read them on a screen. He said, I think, that a Kindle can hold something like 1500 full books.
I have often seen the Kindle when I'm ordering something on Amazon, and never given it a second thought. I'm a huge reader, of course, but I'm one of those people who likes to hold the book in my hand, smell that new book smell, flip back to check on details I may have forgotten, have that whole sensory experience. So the thought of reading a book on a screen has always sounded completely unappealing. I don't even like reading my email on the screen.
Still, something about what this guy was saying really did catch my interest. First, he started by explaining that he, too, is a book lover and even a book collector. He's not a total techie. So this gave him some credibility. Second, he explained that one advantage of the Kindle is that if, say, you were out at a party or at bookclub or wherever and someone mentioned a book they really liked, you could right then and there order it up on your Kindle. For $9.99, you could have the whole book downloaded into your Kindle in minutes. (How, I'm not sure, but it seemed similar to getting a song off of i-tunes.) Similarly, you could get certain magazines also automatically downloaded and have them right there at your fingertips. The third thing that caught my interest is that instead of lugging a bunch of heavy books around on vacation, you could just carry along your little Kindle. Also, the savings on paper is huge. Additionally, my house wouldn't keep getting more and more cluttered with books like it is already. These are all good things.
So, am I going to go out and order one right now? No. But I'm definitely more engaged by the idea than I ever thought I could be. And I'm seeing more and more advantages. What do you all think? Would you be more likely to read if you had an electronic device to which you could download reading material or do you see this as a total turnoff? Why? Let me know; I'm curious to hear others' reactions. :-)
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Reading with Others: The Book Club
A year and a half ago, a friend of mine invited me to join her book club. I was thrilled. The book club was made up of twelve or so women, most of whom are teachers at the high school in town. Of these teachers, most are English teachers. This makes us a sort of weird book club. Most book clubs consist of readers and friends who get together and chat about books they've chosen together to read. This is exactly what we do, too. Most other clubs, however, consist of people who read for a hobby on the side. These are people who read when they are NOT working. My book club is made up mostly of people who read for a living. I don't think this makes us a "better" book club by any stretch, but it does make us particularly intense. We talk about foreshadowing, symbolism, Hamlet allusions, and other English teacher-y things. We totally geek out on the little stuff in the books that maybe non-English teachers would miss or not get that excited about.
At the same time, though, our book club is much more about women getting together and socializing than it is about reading. Say we meet for three hours. We spend probably two-thirds of that time just chatting, hanging out and eating appetizers and dinner. Only the last part of the gathering is devoted to the book. Depending on the book, these conversations can be very long, loud and passionate or shorter and more low-key. The conversations also depend on how many of the members were able to finish the book in time. Because most everyone has the same work schedule, however, we can schedule our meetings in such a way that we don't have a meeting right after final exams when everyone is grading furiously. Or we try to schedule meetings for after spring break or shortly after Christmas break so we have time to read on vacation (although this month we're meeting before spring break--yikes!).
There are three things I really love about my book club: first, because each person chooses the book for the month she is hosting, we read a variety of books many of which I maybe wouldn't pick up (or even know about) on my own. I end up very much enjoying these choices though and I feel they help me stay connected to a wide range of books out there. Second, I love the socialization aspect of the meetings. Some of these women I have known for years and have other connections to, and some I only see at book club. All of them, however, are interesting, insightful and fun to be with. Finally, I love the chance to read and talk about reading. As you know by now, my favorite thing to do is lie on the couch and read, so the book club gives me a great excuse to do that.
In fact, my book club is meeting this Thursday, and I have some reading still to finish up. We're reading The Lace Reader, a book I'd never heard of but that I'm really enjoying. I'm only about half way through, though, and I really want to finish it by Thursday, so I'd better get cracking!
--Kristen
At the same time, though, our book club is much more about women getting together and socializing than it is about reading. Say we meet for three hours. We spend probably two-thirds of that time just chatting, hanging out and eating appetizers and dinner. Only the last part of the gathering is devoted to the book. Depending on the book, these conversations can be very long, loud and passionate or shorter and more low-key. The conversations also depend on how many of the members were able to finish the book in time. Because most everyone has the same work schedule, however, we can schedule our meetings in such a way that we don't have a meeting right after final exams when everyone is grading furiously. Or we try to schedule meetings for after spring break or shortly after Christmas break so we have time to read on vacation (although this month we're meeting before spring break--yikes!).
There are three things I really love about my book club: first, because each person chooses the book for the month she is hosting, we read a variety of books many of which I maybe wouldn't pick up (or even know about) on my own. I end up very much enjoying these choices though and I feel they help me stay connected to a wide range of books out there. Second, I love the socialization aspect of the meetings. Some of these women I have known for years and have other connections to, and some I only see at book club. All of them, however, are interesting, insightful and fun to be with. Finally, I love the chance to read and talk about reading. As you know by now, my favorite thing to do is lie on the couch and read, so the book club gives me a great excuse to do that.
In fact, my book club is meeting this Thursday, and I have some reading still to finish up. We're reading The Lace Reader, a book I'd never heard of but that I'm really enjoying. I'm only about half way through, though, and I really want to finish it by Thursday, so I'd better get cracking!
--Kristen
Friday, March 13, 2009
My Favorite Books
People often ask me what my favorite books are. This is a tough question. In some ways it's easy because I do have two that I usually say, but there are so many others that I love. So I think it's best if I break my answer down into different categories.
Best overall books as an English-teaching adult: I have two here. The first is Beloved by Toni Morrison. This American author has already won the Nobel Prize for literature so she's very well-recognized for the stud writer that she is. In Beloved, she writes about a woman who has escaped slavery but has suffered so much before and after her escape. What I love about this book is the language. It's just beautiful and haunting and intense. I also feel like reading this book is the closest I could ever come to understanding what it must have been like living under slavery.
My second favorite adult book is Plainsong by Kent Haruf. This is a simple book and a simple story, but it, too, is beautiful. It's the characters in this book that I really love, especially the two old farmer brothers who take in a pregnant teen who has been thrown out of her house.
The next category for favorite books is books from my childhood that I read over and over. The leaders in this category are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, The Great Brain books by John D. Fitzgerald, and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I remember one car trip to Florida when I ran out of books; I think I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory three times on that trip alone.
My final category is books that I have loved reading with my children. In this category would fall Where the Wild Things Are, How I Became a Pirate, Chica Chica Boom Boom, Jam Berry, and Stranger in the Woods. We've spent a lot of time together with these books. My husband has also read them all seven books in the Harry Potter series (this is thousands of pages--he's a trooper!). I had already read all of these books and my husband hadn't, so he claimed the right to read these outloud with them. If I'd read them to the kids, though, I would include all of these on my list, too.
So what makes a book a favorite? For me, the book needs most importantly to have good characters. I want to totally fall into these people's lives and live there with them. Of course, this can be depressing or scary, but that's the experience I want. I also judge a book on its language. One book I read, for example, used the word "phantasmagoric" three times! This is ridiculous. It's as if the author learned a new word and so had to use it as often as she could. I prefer language that is subtle but beautiful. It can be beautiful in its stark simplicity (like Plainsong) or beautiful in its richness and complexity (like Beloved). Ultimately, I think the combination of characters and language needs to change me. The book needs to stick with me and help me understand something new either about myself or about humanity or about a historical event or whatever else it's focusing on.
Reading back over this post, I realize I'm only talking about fiction here. Hmmm. I guess that reveals my bias. I have read some non-fiction, but it's not what I love. So, sorry about the narrowness of my favorites here. If I had to choose a non-fiction work that I really liked, I think I would choose Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. This is the story of Lewis and Clark and their search for a water route across North America. It's an amazing story! I'd love to follow their actual journey some summer! (I'd take the car, though, and forgo paddling/hauling a canoe upriver all the way!)
So what do you think? What are your favorite books? What do you think makes a book your favorite? I'd like to get input from others! :-)
--Kristen
Best overall books as an English-teaching adult: I have two here. The first is Beloved by Toni Morrison. This American author has already won the Nobel Prize for literature so she's very well-recognized for the stud writer that she is. In Beloved, she writes about a woman who has escaped slavery but has suffered so much before and after her escape. What I love about this book is the language. It's just beautiful and haunting and intense. I also feel like reading this book is the closest I could ever come to understanding what it must have been like living under slavery.
My second favorite adult book is Plainsong by Kent Haruf. This is a simple book and a simple story, but it, too, is beautiful. It's the characters in this book that I really love, especially the two old farmer brothers who take in a pregnant teen who has been thrown out of her house.
The next category for favorite books is books from my childhood that I read over and over. The leaders in this category are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, The Great Brain books by John D. Fitzgerald, and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I remember one car trip to Florida when I ran out of books; I think I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory three times on that trip alone.
My final category is books that I have loved reading with my children. In this category would fall Where the Wild Things Are, How I Became a Pirate, Chica Chica Boom Boom, Jam Berry, and Stranger in the Woods. We've spent a lot of time together with these books. My husband has also read them all seven books in the Harry Potter series (this is thousands of pages--he's a trooper!). I had already read all of these books and my husband hadn't, so he claimed the right to read these outloud with them. If I'd read them to the kids, though, I would include all of these on my list, too.
So what makes a book a favorite? For me, the book needs most importantly to have good characters. I want to totally fall into these people's lives and live there with them. Of course, this can be depressing or scary, but that's the experience I want. I also judge a book on its language. One book I read, for example, used the word "phantasmagoric" three times! This is ridiculous. It's as if the author learned a new word and so had to use it as often as she could. I prefer language that is subtle but beautiful. It can be beautiful in its stark simplicity (like Plainsong) or beautiful in its richness and complexity (like Beloved). Ultimately, I think the combination of characters and language needs to change me. The book needs to stick with me and help me understand something new either about myself or about humanity or about a historical event or whatever else it's focusing on.
Reading back over this post, I realize I'm only talking about fiction here. Hmmm. I guess that reveals my bias. I have read some non-fiction, but it's not what I love. So, sorry about the narrowness of my favorites here. If I had to choose a non-fiction work that I really liked, I think I would choose Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. This is the story of Lewis and Clark and their search for a water route across North America. It's an amazing story! I'd love to follow their actual journey some summer! (I'd take the car, though, and forgo paddling/hauling a canoe upriver all the way!)
So what do you think? What are your favorite books? What do you think makes a book your favorite? I'd like to get input from others! :-)
--Kristen
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Kids and Reading
This past weekend I went to Chicago and spent the weekend with my friend Erin, her husband and their two small children. While I was there, I saw some of my favorite children's books and was reminded of all the happy hours I spent reading to my kids. As you know, reading is my favorite thing to do, so needless to say, it was my favorite thing to do with my kids. When I couldn't play another game of Chutes and Ladders or my daughter's favorite imaginary game, "pretend preschool," I would declare it reading time.
For sometimes an hour or more, my kiddies and I would sit on the couch cuddled up under a blanket and read book after book. I really like reading out loud (and fancy myself rather good at reading kids' books--How I Became a Pirate and Chica Chica Boom Boom are my specialties!) and the kids miraculously would sit enraptured by the sounds and the pictures. Of course, they had their favorites and I was not above hiding books I couldn't bear to read one more time. When my daughter was really little (around two) her absolute favorite was this big book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. They are classics and I enjoyed the book, but it got to the point where I just couldn't read the book the twenty five times a day she wanted with her favorites repeated even more times than that. So one day she came to me asking for it. I knew it was on the floor at my feet in front of the couch, so before she could notice, I slid it right under the couch with my foot. It stayed "lost" for about two weeks while I regained my sanity and she got a little less obsessed.
On a side note, another time after we had not read that book for a while, she asked if we could read the book with, in her words, "Little Bo Muffet" and "Little Bit Poop." We still joke about that! :-)
Not only did my husband and I read with the kids all the time, but we both also read on our own all the time and our house overflows with books, newspapers and magazines. People always ask what we did with our kids to get them to be such early and voracious readers ("flash cards?" they ask, or "Hooked on Phonics?") We tell them quite honestly that we did nothing except read with them. We've never had enforced reading time or rewards for reading or done any special program. Instead, we just live in a reading household.
That, I think, is the best way to get kids to read. Have lots of books around so they always have something interesting to pick up. Do lots of reading yourself so they see how fun and "normal" it is. Read with them as kids--help them see how books open and close and how writing goes from left to right, see the front and back of the book, see the pictures and the words, and most importantly see the pure entertainment value of a good story. Turning kids into readers doesn't require any special knowledge or program. It just requires a library card and carving out lots of time for reading. Something I am always up for! :-)
For sometimes an hour or more, my kiddies and I would sit on the couch cuddled up under a blanket and read book after book. I really like reading out loud (and fancy myself rather good at reading kids' books--How I Became a Pirate and Chica Chica Boom Boom are my specialties!) and the kids miraculously would sit enraptured by the sounds and the pictures. Of course, they had their favorites and I was not above hiding books I couldn't bear to read one more time. When my daughter was really little (around two) her absolute favorite was this big book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. They are classics and I enjoyed the book, but it got to the point where I just couldn't read the book the twenty five times a day she wanted with her favorites repeated even more times than that. So one day she came to me asking for it. I knew it was on the floor at my feet in front of the couch, so before she could notice, I slid it right under the couch with my foot. It stayed "lost" for about two weeks while I regained my sanity and she got a little less obsessed.
On a side note, another time after we had not read that book for a while, she asked if we could read the book with, in her words, "Little Bo Muffet" and "Little Bit Poop." We still joke about that! :-)
Not only did my husband and I read with the kids all the time, but we both also read on our own all the time and our house overflows with books, newspapers and magazines. People always ask what we did with our kids to get them to be such early and voracious readers ("flash cards?" they ask, or "Hooked on Phonics?") We tell them quite honestly that we did nothing except read with them. We've never had enforced reading time or rewards for reading or done any special program. Instead, we just live in a reading household.
That, I think, is the best way to get kids to read. Have lots of books around so they always have something interesting to pick up. Do lots of reading yourself so they see how fun and "normal" it is. Read with them as kids--help them see how books open and close and how writing goes from left to right, see the front and back of the book, see the pictures and the words, and most importantly see the pure entertainment value of a good story. Turning kids into readers doesn't require any special knowledge or program. It just requires a library card and carving out lots of time for reading. Something I am always up for! :-)
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