Another true story about reading

[kellyrfineman]

Since I appear to have spontaneously started a week-long series of true stories about reading, I figured I'd keep it going. Today's post is about the places I've been known to read.

These days, I read in what I expect are fairly common places:in bed

Comments

[gracious_anne]

All the usual places you've listed I've done.
My copy of the Lord of the Rings dropped in the bath once. (My mom did that not me, I've learned my lesson since then).

The oddest place I've read a book is in the part of my dad's workshop where he stored some of the winter hay for the animals. I remember reading Terry Brook's novelization of Star Wars: Episode 1 and The Westing Game (loved it) over and over again up in the hay, with the cats. It was the only place I could read and be outside without getting eaten up by bugs or skin cancer.

[kellyrfineman]

In the hay with the cats sounds lovely. I'm terribly sorry to hear about your copy of LOTR. (It was my favorite novel when I was 12, and I've read it more than 2 dozen times - most of them as a teen, but I still read it every few years as an adult.)

[gracious_anne]

This is probably cliche beyond cliche, but LOTR changed the way I saw the world. And is a huge part of why I'm a writer.

Fortunately, I have other copies of it. (I don't have multiple copies of any other books come to think of it).

[kellyrfineman]

I am glad to hear I'm not the only one. Also? I need a much better LOTR icon.

tanita says...

[anonymous]

My Mom worked at a childcare center for a church, and when I was in the fifth grade I used to go into the chapel... curl up on the floor behind the podium... and read where I couldn't be found.

:) That was awesome. And cozy. And possibly just a little weird. Oh, well. God was cool with it.

Re: tanita says...

[gracious_anne]

That's an awesome spot.

Re: tanita says...

[kellyrfineman]

My dad was a minister, so I totally read in churches, either at times when I was hanging out there on a weekday when he was working, or (occasionally) at times when I wasn't technically supposed to be reading. Like during Sunday School, or church services.

Re: tanita says...

[anonymous]

:tsk!: Reading in church?? For shame.
Yeah, I did a lot of that, too. But, because we were required to sit with Teh Parentes, I didn't manage reading BOOKS, just magazines. Oh, well.

I haven't ever dropped a book into the bathtub, but I live in terror of that day... I have an elaborate towel-toilet lid-stool-next-to-tub thing that I do, too, but I'm sure it'll eventually fail... hopefully not with a library book...

[jamarattigan]

No, I do not read on the toilet! And never in the bath. When I read, I like to devote full concentration to my book, so I've never really multi-tasked by reading while folding the laundry, or brushing my teeth, etc. And I get sick if I try to read in a moving car. I'm thinking of how Stephen King reads while walking. No, I wouldn't do that either :).

[kellyrfineman]

You are a Highly Organized Person. And in general, multitasking is not a good idea. But when in the middle of a good book, I forget this quite easily.

[dotificus]

What? No reading at the table while you're eating? That's one of my FAVES.

I guess the most unusual place I've read is in the Rocky mountains, while camping.

I read at my kids' schools, too, while waiting for concerts or assemblies or what have you to begin.

[kellyrfineman]

I had "at the table (when I'm alone)" on the list. I try not to read while eating if there are other people there, so we can make feeble attempts at conversation instead.

[dotificus]

D'oh! I guess I didn't see it because you didn't mention EATING.

Mmmm, eating and reading . . . ::drools::

[mostly_irish]

Most recently: on a whale watch.

I also read voraciously while nursing my kidlets. Sitting in bed, on the couch, in the glider in the nursery, wherever. I didn't think this was weird until I mentioned it to a friend who looked at me like I was nuts.

Oh! And if a book is super-compelling, I tote it around with me EVERYWHERE, like a kid with a security blanket, keeping my finger in the page at all times. When I was reading Deathly Hallows, I must have looked like I had a book-shaped growth growing on the end of my arm. ;)

[kellyrfineman]

Reading while nursing is not weird. Or if it is, then I am in the weirdos club with you. I almost always read while nursing when my kids were babies. I tote a super-compelling book everywhere as well (hence the "sentences read during a traffic light" remark).

When I was reading Deathly Hallows, I dropped everything. And I mean it. We own three copies at my house (one each for M & S, who were 12 & 14 respectively, one for me) and we all holed up and read. I got through it in a day because I am super-speedy, but the girls took longer - and M completely looked as if she had a book-shaped growth.

[wordsrmylife]

I certainly read while nursing. What else are you going to do, as much as you love that adorable baby? I was reading a PD James mystery and it features prominently in many photos of the first three or four days of BDs life. (May have something to do with why she's an avid reader too.)

[kellyrfineman]

Also? Reading while on a whale watch is extremely badass, if you don't mind my saying so. Hubby and I went whale watching in the Pacific once, and it was outrageously rough, but even if it hadn't have been, I wouldn't have managed to read while there. I bow to your awesomeness!