kadyellebee

1. Do you read often? How many books would you say you read in a year? Do you read magazines? In the last couple years (since college), I’ve not had the time to read really, and so I mostly stopped. But for all of the rest of my life, I was always reading something. I worked at the library as a volunteer for 2 1/2 years, just cuz I liked working with the books. I would get piles so big of books to read that I could barely carry them. And I read all of them. In the last few years, I did keep up on several magazines, but that’s about it.
   
   Usually, if I really like a book, I reread it before I put it away or give it back. This is particularly true of non-fiction—I want to glean as much info as I can from the book!
2. When you read, what type of books do you read? What type of magazines? What are some of your favorite books or magazines? Well, I’m a pretty well-rounded reader. I like non-fiction informative books almost as much as I like fiction. Christian Historical fiction started my love for historicals, and now I tend to read the longer romance novels with historical elements. I’m a skimmer—I read these type of books quickly but not necessarily to catch every detail. I love learning about new things, so books on CFIDS and Personality and Web design have all been on my list lately. Basically, if I hear good things about a book, I read it and then see what else I can find in that genre until I exhaust that line of options
   
   Magazinewise, I’ve read a lot. Ladies Home Journal, Teen Beat, PC Magazine, Glamour... the full spectrum! Although I like entertainment gossip online, I’m not currently getting any magazines like that right now—I’ve had Entertainment Weekly and Soap Opera Digest subscriptions off and on forever.
   
   I think that one of the most positive things for me as a child was that my Grandma bought us subscriptions to magazines every year. I started out with Your Big Backyard and Ranger Rick, and then later on, moved onto Brio. She really allowed us kids to see a variety of magazines between us (with so many of us!) and that was really cool. Eventually when I was in college, I had Entertainment Weekly and Soap Opera Digest, and an array of other good deal magazines! Currently, I have a subscription to Real Simple. It is a perfect magazine for me—and I *love* when it comes so I can see what wonderful things they have this month—I don’t just casually skim it, I lay in bed and soak in it! And then we get Quick Cooking and Taste of Home, which are great for cooking ideas.
3. If you read, why do you think you read? If you don’t, why not? (i.e. "I was an only child and reading was an escape." NOT "I read because it’s fun." I’m looking for the deeper reasoning behind it.) When I was little (5ish), I knew that my mom had a pile of books waiting in the extra room for me to be able to read. I was so excited and couldn’t wait. I read the phone book and dictionary just so I could learn to sound out the letters. Once I started going, I learned fast... and so I was an early reader, reading everything in sight. Including the signs on the road—I made it my goal when we were in the car to read every sign outloud When my mom bought me my first longer books (think Bobbsey twin size), she was amazed to find out that I had read the first one in ONE day. So she made me save the 2nd one for reading in smaller chunks :giggle: After that, we found out where the bookmobile came right near our house and then I had more books as options. I think that part of the reason that I loved to read was because it was something I could do on my own... with my parents starting a large family, I didn’t have so many things that were just *mine*, but my reading time was. And being homeschooled really fostered that love for me well. I think that the worst time in my life was when Megan and Leonard did something SO bad that we were all told we couldn’t leave the house unless it was important, and they lost the privledge to go to the library, and so I did too I was a sad few months, let me tell you! I reread everything in the house!! And that’s the thing, I liked rereading. My mom got me a fabulous book for our trip to England when I was 8—from the Mandie series. I think I read it 6 times while we were on our 2 week trip
4. Did you read a lot as a child? What are some of your favorite books from childhood? Oh yes, I read a lot. As much as I could get! I entered summer reading contests when I was 9 and 10—I was 3rd place at age 9, and the summer I was 10, I read 104 books and won hugely! I still have the bookbag I got for a prize Then I worked at the library once we moved out here, so that exposed me to some new stuff—I credit myself for requesting so many Christian fiction kids books that the Fort Vancouver Library had to buy them and there are TONS from that time period even still :giggle:
   
   Favorite books? Well, the book my mom got me for our England trip was the first of the Mandie series, and I loved that series and bought them whenever I could. That was when I found how much I loved serieses, and so I looked for those. My bookmobile librarian suggested and requested a lot of things for me, including Betsy, Tacy, and Tib and more from that author. And then when I worked at the library, I litterally read the entire kids section, and then had to move onto non-fiction and adult christian fiction to have other things to read!!!
5. When do you read? Do you read in specific places? (If so, where?) Now I tend to read in bed. I’ll wake up in the morning, and get breakfast, and then realize how worn out I am and climb into bed again. That works well because then when my eyes get tired, I just fall asleep.
   
   And then I always have a book in the bathroom (right now, its a Jude Deveraux I’m rerereading). I did that as a kid too, and end up reading the back of the toilet paper wrapper or the conditioner sitting there if I don’t have a book.
   
   And finally, a lot of my reading is done online. I read a wide variety of stuff and news and can’t discount that completly out of my reading time.
6. Last question: How do you choose books to read? Well, Amazon actually has been a good place for me to check out lately. I look for something interesting, and then read things recommended for people who like them. Then I get on the FVRLibrary webpage and order them. They will ship them to me and then E can return them. I read such a wide array of stuff that friends recommendations usually don’t factor in, unless I know that they are the same kind of wide-array reader as me.

And one last thought. The sad fact of short-term memory loss with CFIDS has made me learn to appreciate the book WHILE I’m reading it instead of trying to come away from the book remembering every little fact. Its an escape for the moment, and if I really want to remember something, I bring my notebook and purple pen to bed with me so I can take notes (like the personality book). Just because I don’t remember the storyline forever doesn’t mean I’m a bad reader (reemphasizing for myself). I like reading, and I’m not about to let this illness change that. I may take longer reading something just because I need to rest my eyes more frequently, but that’s okay too.

I bet you didn’t know how big a part of my life Reading is, did you? I guess I’ve hidden it quite a bit since the internet has been a big part of my reading time since college. But I’m working on turning that around