What are your reading and book buying habits?

How’s your reading coming along?

I have been slowly making my way through the large and varied collection of books I have accumulated over the years. I got into the habit of obtaining a book and not taking the time to read it yet, so now I have a great amount of catching up to do. To make matters ‘worse’ – or rather, more complicated – I keep gaining books. I am either buying them or winning them, but either way my bookcase is getting stuffed with new books. And I love it! (You can see most of my books listed on Library Thing – link in right sidebar, if you want to take a peek.)

Want to know what my newest classic addition is?

War and Peace.

Yes, you read that right. I bought a copy of the newly revised War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. You may ask, why did you do that, Lynn? Wellll .. I’m not really sure except that it is on the BBC’s 2009 list of 100 books that people should read – and I hadn’t read it yet. War and Peace is number 24 on that list, as you will see in my January 13’10 post: https://lynnadavidson.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/have-you-read-these-100-books/ Also, I had heard people talk about this book that is long to read, but not much about it otherwise. Curiosity got the best of me, I want to be able to say I read it, so now I have eliminated one excuse. 🙂

Have you read War and Peace?

If you check the above link you will find that number 18 is Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger. Such a little book which I bought last year and have yet to read. I’ve heard mixed reviews of that one so I’m interested in finding out if it makes any sense to me.

So much to devour, so little time free to do it! But I am trying to read, read, read, while not totally forgetting the writing. Not that I’ve been doing any writing, what with all the changes happening in our lives right now, but I haven’t forgotten about it. 😉

So, what are your reading habits? And what are your book buying habits?

Do you buy and read one book at a time? Or do you buy the book when it comes out and then file it away to read at a later date? Or do you have another method? I’m very interested in hearing from you on this.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

This post has been scheduled, so I look forward to early next week, if not before, when I can enjoy your comments and reply to them.

Have you come full circle yet?

Do you ever feel that life is taking off without you? That you can’t keep up with all that is in your line of vision? It is times like those that I realize I could not hold up without the strength the Lord gives me.

I am delighted that our youngest daughter moved home in March, and so is her little dog – as much as a dog can be delighted. 🙂 Now she is job searching so that she can get herself established again. Having her home will be helpful.

What is upcoming for us as a family is that we have come full circle, my husband and I. Several years ago, my sister and I lived with our parents again for the last month of our mother’s life when she was dying of cancer. We each moved back into our old rooms which allowed us to be there to spend time with Mum and minister to her however we could, and to support our father. (My sister’s husband would bring their baby some days, and each evening I would go home to have supper with my family and put our youngest to bed before going back to my parents’.) This month my sister and I will be starting a rotation of living with Dad, alternating weeks for as long as is manageable. We will be companions to Dad more than caregivers in the way it is most understood. This time it is a sacrifice that will affect our own households for an indefinite length of time, but it is the only right decision at this time as he needs someone there with him. We don’t live far from him anyway, but it is time to do this. And Dad won’t be overwhelmed by us — 🙂 — because we won’t both be there all the time, but taking turns week by week.

To be honest with you, in considering all this it is something that I want to do and do not want to do. Even though I want to be there for my elderly father, I know it is going to change my own life, marriage, home. I will do this, though, because my family supports me in it and I love my dad – otherwise it would be nearly impossible. Do you know the feeling? It will be a good challenge, very important to our relationship and with fun potential. 🙂

During our quiet evenings, since Dad is still able to enjoy his own reading time, I plan to read more books, prepare more book reviews, and finish writing my novel and picture books. Then the weeks I am home I can post to my blog and catch up wherever else I have fallen behind.

Yes, that is the plan. A good plan. A reasonable plan. I’ll soon find out how well it works.

Have you come full circle yet, becoming the caregiver for the one who cared for you?

Maybe you are caregiver for someone else you love, or are available to give someone else a break? (Being a caregiver can be very stressful and exhausting, so if you are considering helping someone who does this, I’m sure they would appreciate a few hours for themselves each week.)

I’m very interested in hearing your stories.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Do you enjoy the quiet … or are you afraid of it?

Today has been very quiet here. Because my husband had to work all weekend – not his usual – and I had no way to church today, I sat at home and read my Bible for four hours in a quiet house. No radio, no TV, no music playing — only quiet. Delectable! 🙂

It is my habit to have the radio turned on most of the day – to listen to interviews and such once in a while, but mostly I listen to teachings and music on the Christian station. Once today I turned it on, but only for a few minutes while I cooked and ate my breakfast, then off it went again. And no TV at all today. Not even set on a music station for ‘background’. I didn’t even turn on my computer until the afternoon! Now that is a biggie!

Do you know how tempting it was to turn on the radio while I was doing the dishes? or later while having lunch or supper? I resisted. Why? You know, I’m not even sure why I did that today. It just was so peaceful here when I got up this morning, and since it is Sunday I decided to read for a few hours with no distractions. Well, none except the little dog needing to go outside a couple of times, and wind and hail beating on the windows – which is a wholly different distraction. Nothing major or constant, though. Then I was enjoying the tranquility so much I stuck with it. All day.
ALL DAY!

Have you ever done that? Have you ever lived in a day of ‘quiet’ by choice?

I wonder why we think we have to always have noise going on around us – music, or constant talking, or something mindless .. as if we can’t stand our own company. Are we afraid of the ‘aloneness’? Do we avoid the quiet? How does God get through to us when we aren’t allowing ourselves to listen? And what about our own thoughts? Do we even have any quality thinking time of our own?

Maybe reading is much the same thing except it is not coming at us in the form of noise from the outside. But reading expands our minds, doesn’t it? We do have to form our own images, they aren’t coming at us ready-made. Hopefully we’re choosing good things to store in our brains because I believe it all blends together in there and comes out somehow sometime. Maybe in the form of a bestseller! 😉

So, what do you think about all of the above? And do you enjoy the quiet … or are you afraid of it?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings. 🙂

PS – at the time of writing this it was still Sunday but it will be just past midnight, so into Monday at time of posting.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Did you make resolutions?

Wow! It is 2011 already! HAPPY NEW YEAR to you!

First, thank you for your support in reading my ramblings here. I appreciate you very much. 🙂

I had intended to post here for Christmas and the New Year, but I got overwhelmed with life and ‘stuff’ and couldn’t fit everything in. I was busy with all the usual things, but since this is the season I fight depression I had a bit of a struggle right around Christmas. Same as last year our two youngest daughters did not get home, and our two oldest daughters didn’t come out either but met us at my dad’s in early afternoon for our combined family dinner – only ten of us this year. It was very quiet here all morning with just my husband and our daughter’s little dog. Very unusual … the first time in all our years together that it has been just the two of us for Christmas. I missed our girls.

A sad time for us was that my aunt (Dad’s sister) was dying, and she passed away December 28, her funeral being January 1. That made for a rather rough end of 2010 and beginning of 2011 for my family. Not much unlike thirteen years ago when Mum passed away December 30, her funeral being January 2. Some years I get through the ‘anniversary’ just fine, but this year was not as easy. I think much of it was that I felt sorrow for my cousins, and it brought everything back more intensely for me.

How was the Christmas season for you? How did you celebrate the ‘holidays’?

On a lighter note … much to-do is made over New Year’s resolutions. Several years ago I gave up making them officially, but each new year I plan and hope to “do better”. This time I determined to ‘go through’ my house one room at a time to ‘fine tune’ things, and I have done one room so far. I also have business goals to achieve, writing aspirations to focus on, continued publishing of Christian newsletter Valley Sunshine and members’ correspondence to answer.

Last year I did resolve to read more, which you know by the page I set up here – My “have read” book list (Dec 1’09 – Dec 31’10) – where I kept track of my progress. Since that fun thing went quite well I set up a page for this year, too. I will finish reading the books of the Bible and add to my list as many more books as I possibly can. For some I will write reviews and I plan to interview authors as well.

All these are things that interest me that I want to do. But — I have to remember not to stress myself out when I can’t keep up. Right?

How is your reading coming along? Have you been inspired to read anything you have seen mentioned here? If so, I would love to know about it. 🙂

So, have you made any New Year’s resolutions/set any goals for 2011?

I wish for you a happy, healthy, accomplished 2011.

Thanks for reading, and .. Creative Musings! 🙂

Day 23: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Tuesday, Day 23 of NaNoWriMo looks better than the past several days. I managed to write 1768 words but I started a little earlier this evening, too. I don’t know why I end up writing in detail what seems like tangents to the story, you know … added story lines that don’t seem to have much at all to do with the main story. But, this is going to work out, right? It’s all going to come together and make sense. (Trying to convince myself.)

My total word count for NaNo is now 29,329, which means that in the remaining 7 days I have to write 20,671 words! Yikes! Let’s see … that makes an average of … 2953 words a day. Oh drat, I’ve not written that many in one day through this whole challenge — yet. Looks as if that is going to have to change! The fun thing is that I have completed 59% of the 50,000 words!

PiBoIdMo is still looking good. I came up with two more ideas today for that challenge. Granted, they aren’t very good ones and would need a lot of work, but .. they still count. I now have 35 ideas for PiBo.

Today I also worked on Valley Sunshine. I finally have this issue completed and next have to print it all off on my duplicating machine, get the copies all put together and stapled .. and then into the mail they go! Yay! Hoping I can do all that tomorrow and then have my evening to write, write, write for NaNo!

When I get all this writing done – this phase of it – I am really looking forward to getting back into reading. I have such an accumulation of books waiting for me. And I have some to write reviews for as well.

What are you reading? Are you finding any quality time for that?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Is the book as we know it disappearing?

I have been observing. There is a lot of discussion in all arenas about the traditional book eventually disappearing from use. This is mainly because of e-books – those online electronic books you can download to read, and whatever else technology will – and has already – come up with to simplify things for us. Just to let you know … I am not educated in that because I love books as they are and have been for centuries! Well, the scroll was a little difficult to handle and pack around, maybe, but .. you get my point.

I am not interested in reading a book on a hand-held device, nor am I excited about sitting at the computer to read one on the screen. I am all for holding a made-from-paper-and-ink writing, turning those pages and flipping back and forth as I need to, underlining or highlighting (did I hear a gasp?) when the occasion calls for it – which is rarely because I also use bookmarks and sticky tabs. I fill my bookcases with old favourites (some saved from my childhood), and soon-to-be-loved stories. I have books all over the place, a few in the living room and our bedroom, many in my publishing room, my ‘computer room’, the main room downstairs, and even packed away in boxes in our storage room. My husband, not a voracious reader, also has a few titles on hand.

Most of my children’s storybooks I have kept, and my grandson now enjoys those. I have books that made me laugh out loud, made me cry (and hide behind), pulled me in so deep I didn’t hear anything going on around me. I have books the Lord used to teach me something important. And there are many volumes in my collection which I have yet to cuddle up with and appreciate their written pages. Somehow, I doubt very much that I could enjoy an electronic book the same way, it would even be annoying to me.

I don’t get to the library much at all anymore. There was a time when I would take my daughters there to pick out books for their extra reading, and that was fun for us. I borrowed several for myself when I was taking a writing course and wanted to read the ones mentioned in it. But I prefer to own the books I read, I like to gather them and add them to my own personal collection. Would I feel the same way about having them filed in a little electronic device? I doubt it! It is NOT the same thing!

So, is the way of the traditional book one of antiquity? Is it disappearing? Will my great-grandchildren not even know what it is to own a printed-on-paper book, to smell its ‘bookness’, to experience the thrill of a page-turning story on paper filled with bright pictures and powerful words?

Now I ask you …. what do you think?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Are you an information gatherer?

It is a beautiful but very cold wintry morning here in NS, but I don’t mind much since I’ll be inside most of the day. 🙂 It’s a great day for writing or reading, so I will get some of that done later today (I hope!) as I am not one to play in the snow anymore. BRRRRRRRRR

I continue to post on my page called My ‘have read’ list, adding to it as I finish a book. I’ve added to it twice this month. Eventually, there will be books added that I finish reading this year but started months ago. Often I will take a book with me to read while waiting for my turn in the doctor’s office or some such place. Because of that it takes longer to finish those ones. Do you do that or do you just hope you will find interesting magazines on hand when you get there?

Are you one who prefers to make conversation with the people around you? I did that last week, talked with the lady I sat next to in a waiting room, and it was quite interesting.

Are you a watcher and listener? Do you get story ideas that way?

What are you reading these days? Or what are you brainstorming about now? Or what is it that are you listening for, searching for, gathering tidbits for? Do tell!

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂