What I've Been Listening To

I've loved reading since I was little. I remember the first "novel" I read. I was laying on my parents bed in the evening and the book was called "Star." It was about a girl named Star and that's all I remember.

The first books I read in school were about Buffy and Mack and the sun being up. Did you read those too in first grade?

"The sun was up. Buffy was up. Mack was up."

I read all the time when I was younger. It must have been when I started college that I stopped reading so much. During this time, I would go on binges of reading, once I started I had a hard time putting the book down. I love fiction, and I started to feel like fiction wasn't much better than TV. I should be learning something! I should be productive.

Recently, I've decided that reading is just fine, even if it's fiction. I'm learning about writing. I'm learning about myself. I'm using my visualization skills. I'm expanding my imagination and mind. I'm learning about the minds and imagination of others. And if I want to spend hours on the couch absorbed in a book, that is a-okay.

One way I have gotten around this obsession to be productive but still satisfy my reading "tooth" is listening to books on cd (or, as I can't help saying, cd's on tape). I spent much of last month on my love seat wrapped in a blanket crocheting hand warmers and listening books on cd from the library. It was wonderful.

Audio cds are awesome because you can multi-task: you can take them with you, "read" while doing tasks you need eyes for, your hands are freed to do things like dishes, and you don't have to sit still if you don't want to (although I find it hard to fully absorb a book while doing too many things at once). The unexpected benefit I found with audio cds is the reader's interpretation of characters. These are wonderful!

The books I have been listening or reading to really resonate with me and the current state of my life. I find this especially interested because I picked them out somewhat at random (is there true randomness?) by visiting the library and seeing what was on the audio book shelf. Perhaps I am especially sensitive to the parts that relate to my life, or maybe...there is a magic fairy world I can find if I crawl around on my hands and knees at Forest Park looking for the opening! The audio book shelf at my neighborhood library is awesome because it's relatively small (so not overwhelming) and changes frequently.

I've been listening to:

Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami

This was a great book. It's about a man who's girl friend suddenly leaves with out a trace. He spends six months in his apartment alone without speaking to anyone. His cat dies, and then he reenters the world. He realizes the woman is calling him in his dreams from the hotel she left him in. He searches for her and is taken through a strange world and connects with interesting people.

The first winter/early spring I lived in Portland I read The Wind Up Bird Chronicles by the same author. It was a great time, and a great book. I drank mate in a lawn chair in our grassy yard, obsessively read, and at lunch time I rode my bike to the house Wyatt was working on to bring him lunch, which we ate in the alley together. This was totally fulfilling. I remember making soup and biscuits. I dreamed of being a housewife.

Both books resonated with where I was in my life at the time.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

This was an excellent book, and a serious tear jerker. There were so many incredible quotes that I reserved the book at the library (a book is one of those paper things with printed words and you have to read it) so I could write them out. I'll share them here.

The book is about the author's experience with grief caused by the sudden death of her husband. She talks about the full experience of grief and love in a poetic and succinct way. It is an incredibly useful book. I especially loved balance between scientific research and personal experience.

Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera

The book is so much better than the movie. I remember the movie as good, but the book has so much more depth. It is very different on many levels from the storyline of the movie. The book talks about Maori legends, sexism, racism, and the threat to indigenous existence. I loved that the reader had a Maori accent. It made me miss the islands, want to visit New Zealand, and throw my lot in with the Maori.

The reader makes all the difference. I love hearing them impersonate different characters. In this book, I especially loved his reading of the character "Nanny Flowers", the grandmother. When I am old and grandmotherly, please call me Nanny Flowers!

various books by Judith Orloff

Some of the books on cd I've heard are read by Judith. I like these the best because she has such a great, warm, grounding way of speaking. She seems very genuine. She's great. I wrote about her in a previous post.

Next I'll tell you what I've been reading with my eyes (instead of my ears), cuz I've been doing some of that too.