Essays/Articles on Reading

Reading with a Baby

Published on August 10, 2012 | 2 Responses

Now that my baby, five-month-old Strawberry Shortcake, is sleeping through the night, I find myself embracing a bedtime storytime, something my older child and I had ceased to make a regular bedtime habit. I hadn’t realized how much I’ve missed it.

Raisin and I have continued to read picture books every day, even though he is well into reading early chapter books by himself (more on that soon). But when Raisin, Strawberry, and I are all gathered together on the couch for our after-lunch storytime, our reading time becomes lots of “don’t hit your sister” mini-lectures and carefully choreographed page turns to get the pages out of Strawberry’s reach (she’s in to grabbing things right now). When she’s not with us, Raisin likes to take a turn reading a page or a story to me.

Reading with a baby is so very different.

I found our copy of Goodnight Moon, a book I simply loved reading to Raisin when he was an infant and one of the only ones we had in his early babyhood. I sat in the rocking chair, with Strawberry cradled on my side. The pages were just out her reach. She was fed, dressed for bed and obviously tired. But as I began reading and pointing to the objects as we bid them goodnight, she turned her face away from the book and gazed steadily at me. I pointed again at the book and repeated the next page, but she didn’t turn her gaze. Her eyes were delighted and a soft smile settled on her face. She wanted to watch me reading to her. She loved it.

I finished the last line: ‘Goodnight noises everywhere.” Then I turned the book over and read it again. Her smile never wavered, but this time she turned toward the book and gazed steadily at it. I finished the story the second time and closed it, bidding goodnight to the familiar objects in her bedroom as we rose from the chair. As I placed her in her crib, she gave me a last smile and searched for her thumb, closing her eyes in peaceful contentment.

I know that in the coming months we’ll reach the storytime milestones of baby trying to rip the book, turn the pages herself, eat the book, squirm off my lap, and otherwise sabotage the sweet, close special moment I so enjoy about bedtime storytime. But for right now, I’m going to savor the peaceful moment. Reading with my baby is a highlight of our new bedtime routine.

Reading Reflections: New Eras and Miracles

Published on July 6, 2011 | 12 Responses

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.¹

When I was home with my newborn baby (after previously working full time), I began to crave something mentally enriching. I started reading compulsively, whatever I found at the library. I never felt full. And then I saw my husband reading East of Eden and so I picked it up too. I loved it. It was beautiful, it was sweeping and epic, it was thought-provoking, and yet it was still entertaining. I sought out other books like it, and I stumbled upon the world of book blogging. I wanted to share my thoughts on the epic novel with others, and so my reading circle widened as I opened up Rebecca Reads.

Reading East of Eden opened a new era in my reading. I found myself reading more classic novels, more nonfiction, and plenty of literary books, rather than the not-so-literary books I’d been consumed with before. (I’d enjoyed them, but as I said, I never felt satiated, even as I read a lot of books.) And of course, East of Eden and the subsequent events brought me into the world of book blogging which has broadened my personal sphere immensely.²

And then, shortly after that, I read The Old Man and the Sea, which for some reason reminded me of the childbirth I’d recently struggled through. As I read of the old man’s struggle with a giant fish, I couldn’t help (internally) rooting for him to make it. “You can do it!”

I felt, as a new mother, that my struggle was now a universal one. Reading Hemingway’s novella helped explain the miracle in my life: that of childbirth. It gave me confidence in myself as I reflected on that miracle.

What books have opened up new eras in your reading life?

What books have explained the miracles of your personal life or revealed new miracles to you?

from “Reading at Walden” by Henry David Thoreau, quoted in Reading in Bed: Personal Essays on the Glories of Reading, edited by Steven Gilbar. There are some more controversial things in this essay too, but this quote really resonated with me. ↩
That sounds so trite. What I mean is, you all rock. Thanks for reading. ↩

Bookish Magazines?

Published on April 7, 2011 | 8 Responses

I recently received a free copy of The Horn Book Magazine. The day it came in the mail I was quite excited: here was my magazine about books!

Although I don’t often read modern fiction, The Horn Book Magazine is by children’s book authors and publishers, and it’s about the processes involved in writing for children. I really have enjoyed reading it, and I was especially excited since I cannot get it through my local libraries. (The librarians have a subscription, but it does not circulate). Given that it comes every two months and I have not yet paid for a subscription, I am trying to not read it all at once. I’m keeping the rest for a day when I’m craving some kid lit criticism and thoughts.

Because I”m not sure I even want to pay the high price for the subscription, and because I don’t know what else is out there, I was wondering: what other magazines about books do you read?

I know most of them will be about modern fiction and therefore not interest me all that much. But please do tell me what else you read. I’m curious to know what magazine makes your day.

Reading Reflections (Reading Old Books) + Reading Journal (31 March)

Published on March 31, 2010 | 16 Responses

I have more confidence in the dead than in the living.
—William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt was a contemporary of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, not to mention Jane Austen. He was considered one of the most important critics and essayists of the English language, although he is little read today (see Wikipedia).

I love his sentiments on reading old books, for I feel similarly. He comments that with contemporary authors, we’re distracted by their life and opinions, and they can be either for good or ill. With dead authors, if you want to know about them “you have only to look into their works.” When I read, I don’t want to interview an author and learn about their inspiration. Normally, I just want to read their books.

I also take issue with much modern literature, simply because I don’t like read about sex in books. It has to be really tastefully done for me not be annoyed. The sex in The Masterpiece was thus tastefully done. The sex in (the abandoned) Norwegian Wood – not so much.

At any rate, this quote from Hazlitt rang true to me this week:

The dust and smoke and noise of modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of immortality.

Does a modern author’s life influence your read of their books? What about a dead author’s life? Which do you prefer: the old or the new? I do like modern books, I’m just picky about which ones.

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Reading Reflections: A Book Kingdom

Published on February 22, 2010 | 15 Responses

The figure of my study is round, and has no more bare wall than what is taken up by my table and chair; so that the remaining parts of the circle present me a view of all my books at once, set upon five rows of shelves round about me. … ’Tis there that I am in my kingdom, and there I endeavor to make myself an absolute monarch, and to sequester this one corner from all society. …

Michel de Montaigne*

Where is your book-kingdom? What is your dream book-kingdom if you don’t have it yet?

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