Laura Tremain has a new podcast—10 Things to Tell You. Every week she gives a prompt and then answers the prompt herself on the podcast. The first prompt (a couple weeks ago already) was, “When do you read? How do you read? What do you read?” Today is the first of a three part series about reading.
I get up every morning at 5 o’clock to read. It’s quiet. I have the house to myself. I turn on the light, drink a tall glass of water, and sit down to read. Often the night before I got too sleepy to finish the chapter I’m on so in the morning, that’s where I start. My current bedtime reading is rereads of favorite books—at the moment, Little Women, Prince Caspian and Alice in Wonderland.
Monday through Thursday early mornings are reserved for reading for school. I used to spend this time reading ahead, but increasingly more and more of this time is spent reading along with my kids. Next week we begin a new term so I’ll have a new stack of books. I’ll be reading Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (one chapter daily), Francis Parkman’s The Oregon Trail alternating with The Scarlett Letter (one chapter daily for two chapters per week in each), Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (one chapter every two weeks) and continuing through William Zinsser’s On Writing Well at about one chapter per week. If I have time, I’ll finish reading William Lee Miller’s Arguing About Slavery which I’m about halfway through but didn’t have time for in the term we just finished.
I like doing my heavy reading first thing in the morning when it’s quiet and I’m fresh and alert. A chai tea latte also helps which I get around to making about 5:30. Steve comes out to make breakfast around 6:40, which is when I head back to get dressed and make the bed. Once he leaves for work, I put in my earbuds and listen to audiobooks while I make breakfast.
Joey listens to a lot of audiobooks so this is when I read books I’m reading along with him. Beginning next week I’ll be reading Susan Wise Bauer’s History of the Ancient World (one chapter per day) followed by a chapter from one of the following: C. Silvester Home’s David Livingstone, Jules Verne 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Neil deGasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. I haven’t read any of these before, but they come from good sources so I’m not worried about anything “inappropriate” (I’m pretty laid back in that respect anyway—I just skim over things and assume it goes over my kid’s heads just like Three’s Company did when I was a kid). It usually takes me about 20 minutes to make breakfast and eat, so the second audiobook is generally read over on the couch while knitting.
What are the kids doing during this time that I can leisurely listen to audiobooks in the morning? Well, one lingers in bed, one reads in bed, and one is up making breakfast and listening to his own audiobooks. I have taught my children well.
At 8 AM we begin school. I read aloud for a half hour from lighter books and then we do more serious stuff like Shakespeare and Plutarch together. Those who haven’t eaten are welcome to eat breakfast quietly while listening. Our current read-alouds are MJ Auch’s Wing Nut and Hilda von Stockum’s The Winged Watchman. The latter is a free read for school and the former is a book we’ll be discussing at the library. Generally I have running one prize winner and one free read for school. Those are followed by a short nature read as I believe hearing someone else describe nature helps you be a better observer yourself—at the moment we’re slowly making our way through John Muir’s Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf.
At this point, around 9 AM, everyone disappears to work on their independent school work while I have my own projects or do more reading for school. I like the idea of reading aloud at lunch, but that seems to only happen about once a week. In the afternoon, I meet with the kids one-on-one. I listen to their narrations, read poetry aloud with them (I read one poem aloud and then they read aloud the poem I read aloud the previous day—poems are short and rich in vocabulary so it’s a great reading exercise even in the upper grades), and then I read or listen to their hardest reading selection with them: currently Frederick Marryat’s Children of the New Forest for Caroline and Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur with Joey.
By 3 PM school is done. I like to spend the next hour relaxing with something I’m reading for myself before gearing up for a busy evening. Sometimes I knit, sometimes I go for a walk while listening to an audiobook. At this point, either the kids are busy finishing up their assignments for the day or they are outside so once again, the house is quiet and primed for reading.
Once Steve comes home, there is no time for reading. Steve and I are catching up on our day, the kids are bouncing off the walls, I am making supper, and there is general chaos, to put it mildly. We do not have a tv upstairs, so thankfully that isn’t there to add to it all. We did have one upstairs in our old house—when we moved I saw to it that there wasn’t anywhere to put one in the main living area, and I haven’t looked back, though Steve occasionally complains of not being able to watch part of a game while we eat supper.
Outside activities take up most of our evenings so there is not much time for reading. If we are at home for the evening, I take a shower while the kids do dishes so I don’t have to listen to their arguing or fight the temptation to intervene; I also don’t want to waste precious quiet time later taking a shower once everyone has settled down. We have a table downstairs for playing games and, of course, the tv. There is a certain disadvantage a reader has when being around those who don’t want to read: my reading doesn’t interrupt their banter, but their banter makes difficult any reading. My husband complains there is always too much chaos for him to read. If we all read, though, it would be quiet and we all could read. In reality, if they do all go downstairs to watch tv, I do get to do some reading. But considering how early I rise, I generally tend to fade around 8:30 or 9, so not a lot of reading happens during evenings.
On the weekends, I still rise early, but I read for my own pleasure. I once again read more challenging books in the morning, saving the lighter stuff for later in the day. This week two of my kids have the week off school between terms (they did three weeks of school during July while the oldest was working) so I’ve been enjoying ‘weekend reading’ all week. This morning I read from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography Leadership: In Turbulent Times, a chapter in Sigrid Undset’s Catherine of Sienna (another biography) and a chapter from Madeline L’Engle’s Walking on Water (nonfiction on faith and art). If it were a weekend morning and I could have read longer (often until 8:00), I likely would have also read from Wallace Stegner’s Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (history) and Thomas Merton’s memoir Seven Storey Mountain. A half hour per book during my morning reading seems to work well—long enough to immerse myself in something but enough variety to keep things fresh.
Even with all that reading, I keep lighter stuff going for random reading opportunities that pop up. Sometimes I know which books will be lighter, but that often changes once I get into them. This month my lighter reads include Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang and Desert Solitaire, Luis Alberto Urrea’s Devil’s Highway and Sandra Day O’Connors memoir Lazy B. I also have two book club selections I haven’t yet started but will likely read before the month is out: The Wife by Meg Wolitzer (for PBS/Now Read This—I’ve seen the movie so didn’t start the book right away until the discussion made me decide it might be worth it) and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (just announced today by the Guardian).
Laura Tremain spoke of taking herself on lunch reading dates. I can raise my hand and say “guilty” to that. I have a weakness for Starbucks but I love the atmosphere as much as I love the drinks and food, so I’ve made a rule that I cannot go to Starbucks unless I have time to go in and leisurely enjoy my drink (vs consuming it on the go). So perhaps once a week, I spend an hour at Starbucks, sipping a tall chai tea latte while I read.
Check back soon for part 2 of this series: How do I read?