It's Teen Read Week

Monday began Teen Read Week. To recognize it, I've tried to remember what I was reading as a teenager. Truthfully, apart from a few things, I'm not sure it was a whole lot different from what I'm reading now. I read Amy Tan, Anne Frank, Anne Rivers Siddons, and I liked most everything that came my way in my English classes. Somehow it seems easier to remember what I was reading when I was about 10 and younger. Wonder why that is? My guess is that I did most of my reading for class and not for fun. And, what I like to read hasn't changed much. I was reading many of the same kinds of things in my teens as what I'm still reading now.

Travel Reading

Besides Homer and Langley, I also read a large part of Frances Mayes' A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller, while I was on vacation. This is truly the perfect vacation book, either for reading while you're on vacation or while you'd like to be. Mayes is the author of Under the Tuscan Sun, which I loved, and a follow-up, Bella Tuscany, about her home in Cortona, Italy.

Mayes describes in beautiful detail the year that she and husband Ed spent traveling while renovations were underway at their Italian home. The detail and description was such that I nearly felt as though I traveled with her to the places she visited like Greece, Morocco, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, the English countryside, the Burgundy region of France, southern Italy and other places. This really was the perfect book for me to read right now, as I have most definitely been bitten by the travel bug, and am trying to think of all the ways I can both revisit London and travel to other places around the globe.

While in London, we ventured out one of our six days and took a train to Bath for the day. Mayes stopped here briefly on her travels to see the gardens of Great Britain and described it over about three pages. She, like me, noted that Jane Austen once lived here, visited the Royal Crescent (a curved row of townhouses) and saw a beautiful garden. Though I'll be covering Bath in a more detailed account later, here are a few pictures of the day spent there:

Homer and Langley

While I was away, I got to read a book I won through a Goodreads giveaway (many thanks, Random House!). Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow has just come out in paperback. I relished every word of this book about two compulsively hoarding brothers and their life inside a New York City brownstone. The best thing about this book is that I could visualize all of the items piled high inside their home. The thing that made this even better is that it was all described by Homer, the brother who was blind. The ending of the book will throw you for a loop. It left me wanting to know more about these brothers (the book is based on two real brothers), so I hope to do some more reading on them soon.

E.L. Doctorow's website has several author interviews; in the spirit of just having returned from England, I listened to the interview conducted by BBC Radio, which you can listen to here. In addition, here is the book's review from the New York Times.

London

All writing, editing, blogging, networking, freelancing and other professional endeavors came to a halt last week as I visited London for the first time with a friend. I hope you enjoyed Lori's entries during my time off.

As I do with many of my travels, I read and watched related movies ahead of my trip that relate to London in preparation. I soaked up everything I could and read a lot while I was there, so it's no surprise to me that the list of "homework" I've given myself to do now that I'm back in the States is lengthy.

Before I went, I read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and watched Tim Burton's recent movie version (I recently blogged about that here). I listened to Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest on my iPod. I watched the Hugh Grant/Emma Thompson/Kate Winslet movie version of Sense and Sensibility. I watched Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law's version of Sherlock Holmes that came out a couple years ago. I watched Great Expectations starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke (I don't recommend it). I watched PBS' recent productions of Emma and Northanger Abbey. So, as you can see, I went feeling prepared to experience Literary London.

I picked up about 10 books while I was there, found new subjects to read about, got book recommendations from my travel buddy, and listed out additional books and movies I hadn't gotten to before the trip, but that I intend to watch and read now that I'm back.

In the coming weeks I'll be blogging about my trip as it relates to literature, and reporting on my related reading. Keep checking back for more!

Revisiting My Childhood

Miss Helen was the preschool teacher for me and my three siblings. Each one of us had a special graduation note in our childhood boxes signed by Miss Helen. In this letter she talked about the world of reading - something SO great and amazing to learn in Kindergarten. She spoke of the many worlds, people, and places we would 'see' when we had the ability and love to read. I still remember how excited I was to transport myself to this world she spoke of.

My oldest daughter is now 7 and I'm able to watch her transformation as she has acquired the skill of reading. Not only can she reads, but she devours books and loves them with all her heart. Reminds me of me as a child....well, and frankly as an adult. I still get engrossed in a book and the rest of the world stands still. Now my daughter is embarking on chapter books I'm able to share with her many worlds, people, and places I went as a youngster. My short list of must-have young child chapter books:

Witches, Ronald Dahl
James & The Giant Peach, Ronald Dahl
Ramona Series, Beverly Cleary
Ralph Series, Beverly Cleary
Boxcar Children Series, Gertrude Warner
Nancy Drew Series, Edward Stratemeyer

What are your childhood favorite books?

Reading Styles

Sometime in middle school I was introduced to the idea of speed reading. By nature, I like things faster - I'd rather get my bang for my buck and stack many things into my day. Same rule applies with reading, I felt if I could get the same information from a book in less the time why not? I could read 3 books in the time it took someone to read 1! Score! Thus, for the last fifteen years or so I have consistently sped-read. There have been some books that have been entirely too difficult to read that way (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand comes to mind), but overall my reading has been on 5th gear. I generally devour a book and think about it after. Despite it's convenience I have found that I've missed out on small -yet important- information. I remember sitting in the movie theater watching "Twilight" (don't judge) and my friend leans over to me and says something about how handsome Jacob is. I reply "I always imagined him blond." She thought that was the most hilarious thing she'd heard....Somewhere along the lines I never read about his repeatedly referenced deep, thick, long black hair. Most likely because it fell within the space in the sentence you tend to skip while speed reading.

I've never understood the interest in slow, digestive reading until my daughter was old enough to read. For teach-ability sake I had to slow down and read at her pace, slowly working our way through chapter books - taking upwards of months to finish one book. We've been reading the Harry Potter books and I've found myself learning something new each chapter. Because I am forced to slow down, read each sentence carefully and take time to think about the story I am enjoying a new style of reading comprehension.

Not sure which way I enjoy best. I may have to try both styles out for bookclub over the course of the next few months. How do you read?

Introducing Lori

I'll be taking a break from blogging for the next week or so, but I've arranged a guest blogger, Lori, who will be writing about reading. She's a friend and fellow freelance writer/editor, and we're in a book club together. Months ago we started to realize how much we have in common when she and I attended a performance of The Canterbury Tales at The New American Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta. Be sure to check back to see what Lori has to say.