Reading aloud

Unfortunately these days I don’t spend a lot of time reading for pleasure. I’ve discovered that most of the litertature/fiction/non-work material that I take in is through audiobooks or briefly in a magazine. Jeremy and I had a conversation last night about books and he mentioned that he saw Pillars of the Earth in Borders the other day and thought it would be something that I might enjoy. Oddly enough I’m almost finished with the book, but I’m listening to it on audio as I commute to work or ride on the train. I was a little embarrassed to try and explain that I was only a couple of chapters from the end, but that really means I’m an hour or so from listening to the end.

You see, I have a long history of listening to stories in audio format. Back when I was four or five I would pop in the 8 track (don’t even say it…) and listen to Chicken Little, Peter Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh…I loved it. So as I began to read on my own I loved to read aloud to my parents. In first grade we had a contest to see who could read the most books in two weeks, but the catch was that you had to read them aloud to a parent. One of my friends matched me book for book and we read about eighty books aloud and practically went hoarse in the process. I think my parents had enough Dick and Jane in those two weeks to last them a lifetime. I read to them when they were getting ready in the morning, when mom was cooking dinner and any other chance I could find. It was ridiculous.

Flash forward about 15 years to when Suzy and I first got married. We used to read books aloud to each other almost every night. I think we started with Chronicles of Narnia, then Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and so on. It’s been a while since we’ve done this on a regular basis and I hope we can pick it back up again. These days our reading aloud consists of board books and golden books, but hopefully as Oscar gets a little older we’ll be able to have some family reading nights instead of movie nights. This story in the Times offers a similar perspective and got the creative juices flowing (two posts in as many days!). Happy reading…