Slow reader

A friend asked me the other day what I had been reading lately, and I was shocked to realise the answer: nothing. Well, not quite nothing, but close enough. A couple of throwaway mysteries, that's all. What happened to the person I used to be, forever lost in a story? Curled in a favourite chair, the light behind her shoulder, devouring book after book? Crowded into a tram on the way to work, grateful when it took longer so that she could get in a few extra pages? Reading over breakfast, at lunchtime, after dinner?

Well, she got busy, that's for sure. Three little kids, mountains of dishes and laundry, a couple of weekly volunteer jobs, and a meditative session at the gym every few days: that pretty much eliminated the bulk of my reading time.

Then my kids chat through every meal - if I'm reading, they just talk louder until I pay attention. And in the evenings, we have people over. When we don't, I'm so tired that my limbs ache - my typical day starts at 7, and finishes between 8 and 9, with a heap of kids and cleaning and food preparation in between. Don't get me wrong - I love being with my children, but the constant vigilance, discipline, negotiation and mediation, not to mention the neverending housework, can be incredibly draining. Plus my kids shriek more than I ever expected. Girls are very shrill.

I once heard of a woman who, for an hour after lunch every day, read with a face washer lying next to her. Her children were made to understand that if they came into the room their faces would be scrubbed clean. They very quickly learned to leave their mother alone.

But my children are too little to leave for any length of time. It takes only a minute's inattention for one of them to climb up something and fall off; otherwise, they squabble and screech and drive each other - and me - nuts. When they're resting, the housework beckons, as do the occasional blog and the other tasks I perform each week.

Despite this, I was sufficiently hooked on Patrick O'Brian's novels that I found ways to read them all this year. Twenty novels, devoured in chunks late at night, or nibbled away in paragraphs while standing at the coffee machine. But it took determination, planning, and stamina. I haven't come across anything since that has inspired me to squeeze my time so hard. And I feel such a sense of loss at the end of the series, as if close friends died suddenly, that I am reluctant to immerse myself in anything else for the time being.

In any case, with loss of time comes loss of browsing library shelves - ever tried doing that with automatic doors and a runaway toddler? Browsing online, even other blogs, doesn't come close. It's proving hard to find something to read.

So I'm happily dreaming of O'Brian's sailing ships and concerts in the captain's cabin, and every other story I carry with me until I stumble across something new: another book, another series, another writer which will inspire me to stay up late, or read by the coffee machine, or find other ways to get through a book. Any suggestions?

Blind Speculation

I'm looking forward to reading glasses. I figure that way, I'd look less interruptable. Someone would burst into the room, gabbling away. I'd wait a second or two, and they'd pause. I'd slowly raise my eyes and peer myopically at them through the glass. If they kept talking, I'd tilt my head, slip my specs down my nose, and glare over the top. If they still didn't let up, and it was serious enough that I had to attend, then I'd take off my glasses with a martyred sigh, fold them carefully and put them away. And we'd all know that reading time had come to an end.

Those of us without glasses get so little ceremony. We don't get to pat our lapels or walk round the house looking for them. We don't get to find them with a sigh, and open the cute little box, nor unfold the arms and slide them on. There is no flag that we have now transitioned into Reading Time, apart from the book in our hands, and somehow it doesn't communicate enough. When we are interrupted, we get no time as we turn our attention to the immediate problem. We're expected to change our focus immediately, as if it instantly moving out of a book was possible. Glasses would give us a pause, a moment's grace, to return to the here and now.

Sadly, too, those of us without glasses never look as intellectual. Someone reading with a pair of specs on appears to be deconstructing a text. We look like we've flopped down with a novel.

But I figure most of us get to wear glasses as we age. I just have to wait my turn, and then I, too, can add a little transition ceremony and a mildly intellectual air to my reading. By then, however, the kids will have grown up. I'll be trying to find my glasses to read medicine labels, and cursing the day I wrote this post.

Just call me Elle

I'm having a supermodel moment. It's not that I'm suddenly tall, slender and toned. My hair is still cropped short, my eyes are still wrinkly around the edges, my skin is still tan only in odd patches. But these days, as recommended by Elle MacPherson, I'm pretty much reading only what I have written.

Here on the desk in front of me, not quite obscuring the monitor, is a pile of books waiting. There, on my bedhead, is another. They are studded with bookmarks, but only a few pages in. Week after week I took one book to the physio, clumsily holding it with my left hand and trying to turn the pages as my damaged right hand was zapped by a machine. Nowhere near finishing, after a while I took a different book in just so the physio had something new to ask about.

Because my life is all about 'or'. I have short times without children, and in them I can either read or write; read or exercise; read or talk with my husband or friends. And time and again, I am choosing to write, because I have a desperate need to express myself; choosing to exercise, because without a good run I get foully grumpy; choosing to chat, because I have family and friends who love to drop round. I am grateful for the time to write, the chance to run, the comfortable chats, and yet...

And yet. I haven't read a whole book for a month or two. Just a few pages here, a short poem there. Kids' books galore, of course. And the words I have written.

Just for an hour, just for a day, I would love to be free from the 'or'. I want a few 'and's in my life. I want to read AND write AND run AND talk with friends AND have time to sit in a cafe and look at people. I want a life of leisure, with a nanny AND a housekeeper AND a chauffeur AND a cook AND a gardener. I will sit in my spire, curled in a shabby old armchair, far far from the cries of children. I will pause between pages and gaze at the clouds, or muse on a spiderweb catching the sun. I will think Deep Thoughts, and idly scratch notes in a battered old notebook.

And then, with a shattering roar, my children erupt into my fantasy. The baby smells of poo. The three year old is hungry. Miss Five is huffing and puffing because life is so unfair. As I reach for the baby wipes, plan a sandwich, smooth a ferocious brow, I remember some of the wonderful books I have read. And instead of resenting how little I can read now, I find myself grateful that I carry such stories with me, constant companions through the extraordinary demands and storms and loneliness of motherhood.

Notes on reading

What’s this blog about? Well, I’m a fussy reader. I’m opinionated. And I often tell people what I think they should be reading. So friends of mine told me to start a blog of book reviews. They would follow it, and maybe other people might find it interesting too. So here goes.

First thoughts, on finding time to read. Reading makes me introverted. I have three young children, so this is a problem. If I don’t read, I get grumpy. If I do read and then have to be attentive to their needs, I get grumpy. What’s the balance?

Books in the toilet: hmmm. Gross in theory, useful in practice if you really want to snatch in a few extra pages. I once knew a guy who had two kids and no time at all to himself. He put up a bookshelf in his toilet, put all his textbooks there, and did all his study sitting on the loo. It was the only place in the house his kids wouldn’t bother him. But my kids hammer on the wall and then laugh themselves sick, so that doesn’t really work at our house.

Books by the coffee machine? No! Although I can snatch a couple of pages while the machine heats up, the kids interrupt and I get testy. Who wants a testy mum? I mostly hide my books away when the kids are awake so I’m not tempted to pick them up. Thus I don’t get interrupted, and stay cheerful! (Attic of the dolls’ house, in case you’re wondering.)

Books on the train? Aha! Anytime someone else has the kids, I catch public transport to get where I’m headed. Then I can sit back in comfort (or stand in squashy discomfort) and read. Train cancelled? Terrific, I’ll get another chapter in. Missed my connection? Such a pity! I’ll just have to stand here and read.

Doctor’s waiting rooms? I found myself a doctor who always runs late. I get someone else to mind the kids (‘I’m seeing the doctor about, you know, women’s business - don’t really want the kids there…’), and arrive on time. Then I can read in the waiting room. When I finally see her, the doctor’s always terribly apologetic about the wait, and I can give her my most understanding smile.

Television substitute? Well, der. I made it hard to turn on the television. Television is mostly boring; even so, I can still switch it on and watch it regardless. But when it’s hard to turn on, then I find it easier to pick up a book – and end the evening feeling satisfied, enthralled, even slightly virtuous. So our television is switched off at the set and the wall, and kept in a cupboard.

Siesta time? I need sleep too! I have a baby after all. But if I do stay awake, I read a short story, so when my older kids get up I’m not half way through something. There are enough reasons to be a grumpy mum without adding book, interrupted to them.

So there you go. I read late at night, on public transport, and in waiting rooms. My reading time is limited, and my taste is narrow. Posts will be about books old and new, adult, junior and picture books. Just good books, and I’ll tell you why I think you should read them. Because who has time to finish a crap book? Not me, that’s for sure!