Category Archives: reading

an audiobook controversy

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I am a fan.  A huge fan.

I travel a fair amount for work to exotic places like South Dakota.  (JK– I love South Dakota, but exotic it is not.)  In any case, when you pair a long car ride alone with obsessive-compulsive disorder, you get nothing but trouble.  I learned early on that if I didn’t give my mind something to chew on during those drives, then I would be submitting myself to OCD attacks.

I read Perelandra by C.S. Lewis while driving 75 MPH down I-29 from Watertown to Sioux Falls.  And when I say read, I mean read, my eyes flickering every two seconds between the page on my steering wheel and out the windshield.  I know, I know– it’s terrible, and it was so dangerous, and I could have killed myself or someone else.  Praise God I didn’t.

But in the end, my office awarded me the “FOR GOODNESS SAKES, GET A RADIO” award, and I started using audiobooks, the safer and legal version of reading while driving.  Over the years, I have collected a small library of audiobooks, which I listen to rather often since I like to re-read.

Now, here is my question, and maybe you in the blogosphere can help settle a disagreement between my co-worker and myself: is listening to an audiobook the same thing as reading?

I say YES.  Sure, it’s a different format of reading, but it’s still reading.  I think it is fair for me to listen to an audiobook and then tell a friend, “I just read such-and-such book.”  That seems obvious to me.

I cannot understand why my co-worker Josh disagrees.  He said it’s not the same thing.  I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be.  It’s still a BOOK, isn’t it?  How then would you describe your interaction with it?  “I just listened to such-and-such book”?  And if so, what is the difference between saying that and that you read it?

I fear this post is very inarticulate, but maybe one of you readers can help put my thoughts (or Josh’s) into words.  Help?

The Fault in Our Stars

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I know I’ve mentioned this book before, but it really deserves its own post.

TFiOS is a young adult novel written by John Green, and while it has characters with cancer in it, I would never classify this as a “cancer book” (cough, Lurlene McDaniels).  This book is clever, FUNNY, moving, and it has incredible characters, most especially ♥ Augustus Waters ♥.

You really ought to read it.

I will say this:

1) This book made me cry both during and after I read it.  During because I was so involved in the story and after because I was so envious of John Green’s writing abilities.  (I am not joking– I’ve told you before I struggle with writer envy!)

2) I was working on an adult novel about a woman who discovers she was adopted when she inherits her birth parents’ estate, but after I readThe Fault in Our Stars, I completely scrapped that story and started over, making my debut writing YA lit.  That was in January, and now, in July, I have a first draft of a YA story!

So TFiOS is very important to me.  In some ways, it feels as if this book birthed my own.  I hope that makes sense to you.  This book and John Green were so much my muses as I wrote my story (working title Her Truest Lamentation) that I set it in the fictional town of Green Lake to throw props to John Green.

Request it from the library or buy your own copy at Barnes and Noble andread this story.  And then let me know what you think of it.

Date a Girl Who Reads

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Date a Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent.  Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

Why I Love YA Lit

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Young adult literature is my favorite to read, regardless of how old I am.  While I in no way eschew literature written specifically for adults, YA is at the top of my list for these reasons:

1) So much drama!
I think of myself when I was in high school and college, and it’s true that I was a Drama Queen.  While I am not proud of it, I do think that drama in literature keeps things exciting!  Love triangles, deaths, adventures, secrets, fights … and that’s just at Hogwarts!

2) Incredible characters.
Teenagers are fascinating, opinionated, and passionate.  When we write about them, we end up with characters who are full of energy and who often haven’t found a rhythm or routine to life yet.  Hence, Augustus Waters, Anne Shirley, Stargirl Carraway.

3) So much life ahead of them = so many options!
Not to mention, so many lessons to learn.  I love watching young characters take on the world and grow so much from the beginning to the end of a story.  Anything is possible when you’re seventeen!  Everything is shiny and new and full of wonder, which we see as we watch Liesel Meminger learn to read or Edmund Pevensie discover who he truly is.

4) Accessible.
Don’t get me wrong; I find literary fiction to be gorgeous.  But I side with C.S. Lewis who encouraged writers to always choose the shorter word.  YA lit is like the ESV version of the Bible– dead-on accuracy but also very readable, nothing sacrificed.

And believe me, I don’t think that YA writers need to (or should) sacrifice any of the beauty or imagery or depth.  John Green is a pioneer in this, and I love that he writes for very intelligent teenagers who love to think.  They are out there, he says, and we ought not insult them.  Agreed.

Do you like YA lit?  How come?

books books books

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Just finished:
the whole Narnia series (again)

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith — it was okay, kinda sweet, didn’t knock my socks off
Mister Death’s Blue-eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn — not the best-written book ever, but especially interesting since it was based off a true event in the author’s childhood

Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, a children’s book about writing a children’s book, super cute

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan, a fascinating futuristic retelling of The Scarlet Letter, set in a society where criminals’ skin is dyed according to their crime.  It was fun to see the parallels with Hawthorne’s story.  I really liked this book except for one scene that was completely out of place and (I believe) cheaply inserted by the author to make her book trendier.

Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day, both by David Sedaris — so ridiculously funny!  I am talking literally laugh-outloud funny.  But also sometimes inappropriate.  Proceed with caution. 🙂  But I love David Sedaris, and his audiobooks are even better than the paper versions because you get to hear the stories exactly the way he intends.  I listened in my car and kept wondering what the drivers around me were thinking of the weirdo in the Stratus who was laughing like a madwoman with no one in the passenger seat.

Currently reading:
That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis — breathtaking.

The Name of this Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch — a children’s story, riveting.  The narrator is very, very intrusive, and I kind of adore it.  So good.  Would be a fascinating read for late elementary-aged students, perhaps fifth grade.

Up next:
About fifteen books (mostly novels) about synesthesia, which I will blog about on Friday!

Any suggestions for my next must-read book?