BTT: Have You Changed At All?

http://btt2.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/evolution/

Have your reading choices changed over the years? Or pretty much stayed the same? (And yes, from childhood to adulthood we usually read different things, but some people stick to basically the same kind of book their entire lives, so…)

Hmmm... I guess I will have to give another "yes and no" answer... Because of my tendency to still like children's books (at the age of soon-to-be-55!), and also in later years having re-read quite a few old classics, I guess I could simply say that no, it has not changed all that much. But on the other hand...

I think as a child and teenager, I had a preference for mystery, adventure, humour, romance and history, but not so much "fantasy" (even if I did have some favourites that were "more or less" that genre). In my teens I also read quite a few classics: besides Swedish and English ones also French and Russian (in translation). In my twenties, I studied English and German and history at the university; that definitely influenced my choices. I never acquired quite the same feeling for German literature as for English, though. It remains to me kind of "heavy" reading (even though the German books from my study years are really all very thin!). English classics on the other hand I have kept on exploring and re-exploring without the help of any schedules.

In my late teens I read Tolkien, and a few years later became a huge C.S. Lewis fan - not only his fiction, but also his theology and literature essays, and biographies about his life. From there I moved on to other worlds of fantasy as well.

In my twenties and thirties especially, I also read a lot of Christian books - theology, Biblical history, counselling, ethics, spirituality, mysticism and whatnot.

In my mid-forties my reading habits changed physically, because of neck-and-arm problems after an accident. I had to get used to reading more with my ears than with my eyes, i.e. listening to audio books. Borrowing most of them from the library, this led to some catching up with contemporary Swedish literature, and other books popular enough to have been both translated into our language and recorded as audio books. That means a lot of detective stories! I'd say a few too many, actually. Lately I find myself tired of them. Especially the all-too-realistic sort with super-abundance of forensic details.

But I have also had time over the past decade to delve into more fantasy worlds - like Harry Potter, and Terry Pratchett's Discworld. I have also read and re-read some classics that I had either half-forgotten or never read at all. As for none-fiction, I think "mythology" has dominated this period (trying to get behind the origin and inspiration of the modern fantasy genre). But also on and off some medical and psychological books about how to deal with pain and involontary changes in life.

To sum it all up, I'm more fond of fairy tales at the age of 55 than I was at 5, 10 or 15. I take comfort in the fact (for example) that C.S. Lewis, old bachelor and learned professor as he was, didn't write the Narnia Chronicles until he was over 50...!

The Art of Dribbling

Audio Book Review: Unseen Academicals

 

Going out for lunch yesterday with my aunt and uncle who were visiting, I came across this candle holder.

It led my thoughts back to the Discworld novel Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett, which I recently listened to as audio book. I find it a bit hard to write proper reviews of books I have only audio memories of, i.e. without being able to go back to the text and check details and quotes etc. But I thought I’d write down a few impressions anyway.

The main story in the book – I suppose – is about the Unseen University forming a football team. But, as two quotes from the book say (I found these on the internet):

The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

You're saying that football is not about football?
It's the sharing, she said. It's being part of the crowd. It's chanting together. It's all of it. the whole thing.

And this goes for the book as well. It’s about football but it’s also not about football but about sharing and being part of the crowd.

One new Discworld character in this novel is Mr Nutt, who is a candle dribbler at the Unseen University. Because at a Wizards’ University, you cannot leave an important thing like candle dribbling up to chance and wind. It is a job that takes some skill!

So that’s why Mr Nutt came to mind for me when I saw that candle holder.

Mr Nutt of course also gets involved in the football theme and team. And in the midst of it all, he makes some discoveries about himself and goes through a sort of identity crisis; as do some of the other characters, although in different ways. References to Freudian psychology will probably amuse anyone interested in that sort of thing (at least they amused me). In the book, hypnosis of origin from Überwald is used to bring out hidden secrets.

Überwald in the Discworld effectively comprises two utterly distinct societies; the dwarfs, who exist below in their cavernous cities and tunnels, and everybody else, who live above. By tradition, the laws of the surface people do not apply underground, and vice versa.
(Wikipedia article on Discworld Geography)

Actually, my Quotation of the Week in yesterday’s blog post (about mistaking oneself for somebody else) might be said to fit in quite well with Mr Nutt. Although…

No, I’m not going to reveal the details.
You’d better read the book to find out!

As usual, even though Unseen Academicals is No 37 in the Discworld series (and by now I have read them all), I don’t think this one requires you to have read any of the previous ones to be able to get some enjoyment out of it. All that is required is that you’re prepared for a fantasy world which is like and unlike our own world at the same time.

To finish off with, here’s the definition of:

Dribble (v.tr.)
1. To let flow or fall in drops or an unsteady stream.
2. Sports a. To move (a ball or puck) by repeated light bounces or kicks, as in basketball or soccer.

BTT: To Share and Discuss (Books)

http://btt2.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/discussion/

Do you have friends and family to share books with? Discuss them with? Does it matter to you?

(Deb's comment: "Personally, I almost can’t remember the last time I was able to really TALK about a book I’d read with someone else who’d read it, and haven’t really been able to since my best friend and I devoured the same books in high school. Thank God for the internet.")

My answer: Some books, sometimes! My brother like me likes to listen to audio books in English and when he finds something he thinks I might like, he lends it on to me (or makes copies). We don't always share exactly the same favourites but we do both have a certain preference for fantasy, British humour and classical mysteries.

In the past, I sometimes talked about books with my mother, but during the last few years of her life she did not read much. She preferred realistic novels. She and her sister used to talk about books too; now my aunt and I occasionally share some reading tips.

I also have a couple of old friends that I sometimes talk to about books. Or write to, with one of them.

Between the 6th and 7th Harry Potter books, I took part in discussions in a Harry Potter internet forum - The Leaky Lounge - and especially the subforum Academic Analysis: Obscurous Books - which was a new experience to me, and I enjoyed it immensely. The discussions often went way beyond HP and it revived my interest in book discussions generally, and inspired me to read classics I'd never got round to before, and to reread some that I hadn't read since my college days. It made me aware how much I had missed that kind of discussions.

Six months or so after the last HP book... I began to feel that perhaps it was time to move on (not to get stuck in the wizarding world forever)... That's when I entered the blog world. In the beginning I probably focused more on books and book reviews in my blogging - not really knowing what else to write about... (I also started a special HP blog Through My Spectrespecs to collect some of my thoughts from those discussions; I haven't been updating it very frequently though.) Then photography took over, and some other more personal stuff. But I have also found some blogging friends along the way that I enjoy sharing occasional book reviews and opinions with. Like Rae @ Us In Tejas (hi). And a few months back I found these Booking Through Thursday questions, which I have since enjoyed participating in.

Does it matter to me? Yes, it does! Discussions with old and new friends challenge and inspire me to find out more about all kinds of things I might otherwise not have bothered to give a second thought. This goes for both books and all kinds of random blogging topics.

Quotation of the Week (31/09) - Heidi

Last week I listened to the classic Heidi by Johanna Spyri which I downloaded from Free Classic Audio Books (cf. this post of mine from June).

A disadvantage when you listen to a book is that it is harder to bookmark a good quote. However, Heidi is also available as e-text at Project Gutenberg. So I went there to look up the following passage, which made me smile when I first listened to it, because it seemed to fit right into my own procrastination pattern lately.

Not that I run very quickly in and out of the house these days. And there's definitely no leaping and jumping! Actually, I'm also quite happy to live in town and on flat ground. (While living in town made little Heidi miserable, and homesick for the mountains.) But if you read my post last week about recharging or procrastinating, maybe you get my drift anyway... What I like about this quotation from Heidi is how it conveys that state of mind where you have certain things you ought to do, and that have to be done - and other things that you much prefer doing.

Heidi began her daily work as usual, but she did not get on with it very fast. It was so lovely out of doors today, and every minute something happened to interrupt her in her work. Now it was a bright beam of sun shining cheerfully through the open window, and seeming to say, "Come out, Heidi, come out!" Heidi felt she could not stay indoors, and she ran out in answer to the call. The sunlight lay sparkling on everything around the hut and on all the mountains and far away along the valley, and the grass slope looked so golden and inviting that she was obliged to sit down for a few minutes and look about her. Then she suddenly remembered that her stool was left standing in the middle of the floor and that the table had not been rubbed, and she jumped up and ran inside again. But it was not long before the fir trees began their old song; Heidi felt it in all her limbs, and again the desire to run outside was irresistible, and she was off to play and leap to the tune of the waving branches.

Johanna Spyri, Heidi, Ch XIV (A Visitor)

Listen To A Book

I listen to a lot of audio books. I'm not sure whether their popularity is equal in all countries, but in Sweden more and more people seem to enjoy them, and they are also popular at the libraries. Back in the 90's, I used to listen while I did something else, for example in the kitchen. Later, when I got problems with my neck and had to spend a lot of time just lying flat on my back, the alternative to listen to books, without having to hold them and turn the pages, became even more valuable to me, and it still is.

I love a good "bedtime story", and audio books have taken me through many a night when I have had trouble sleeping because of pain problems. If I fall asleep while listening, that's just good. And if I can't sleep, at least I get something else than my own problems to think about! I listen to CD's or tapes, or MP3 with a timer, so that they turn themselves off after 30-60 minutes. At night, I usually prefer to listen to a good book I already know, so that I don't have to concentrate too hard. With audio books, it is not only the content of the book that is important, though, but also that you like the voice.

Those of you who sometimes read my margin or my weekly quotations won't be surprised that some of my bedtime favourites are children's books like Winnie-the-Pooh, the Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter. Other books/tapes that I have listened to more times than I've ever bothered to count are Three Men in a Boat by J.K. Jerome, and some stories by P.G. Wodehouse. (I do have a strong preference for British English...) Recently, I've been re-listening to some Swedish classics by authors like August Strindberg and Hjalmar Bergman (late 19th - early 20th c) which I have on tape.

Quite recently, I found this website: Free Classic Audio Books, where you can download some free classics as either MP3 or MB4 for iPod. Good place to start if you can't afford to buy, or just want to try out what it feels like to listen to a book, if you're not already used to this way of reading. Enjoy! :)