Reading Aloud - an activity for grown-ups by Deborah Swift @swiftstory

Is there anyone else out there that reads whole books out loud to their adult partner? Is it really an activity for grown-ups?

Well, my partner and I have taken to doing this, and it is a great way to share a story. The tricky part is finding something you will both enjoy and are both willing to invest the time in, as reading aloud to someone else is much slower than solo reading, and it can take more than a month to finish the book. But the rewards for a writer are that you develop a sense of hearing how the story flows, and of finding out what sort of language really triggers the imagination. You become more aware of the sound and texture of the language, and less concerned with writerly devices. You also become much more aware of how historical words or terminology, or unpronounceable names can trip you up.

Reading it yourself is much more active than listening to a "talking book" as you have to make your own decisions on tone of voice, pauses, and dramatic interpretation. It improves fluency of reading, and the ability to listen and take in a story. It is also lovely to be read to by someone you know well, to be delighted by their characterisation and to delight them in return. It gives some shared memories and shared ideas about history, and something to discuss after each 'reading.' We have fond memories of scenes from the books we have read.

Choosing books that we both fancy reading leads to interesting discussions (dare I say arguments) in bookshops, whilst we pick our next choice. We rarely read kindle books because there's something nice about handing a physical book over, at a cliffhanger, and saying, gleefully' 'Your turn.'

We have had one disaster - we read one Booker winner which had rave reviews and it started out with us both loving the language. But unfortunately it seemed to be all writing and no substance, and very repetitive and dull when it was read aloud, and we had to force ourselves through gritted teeth to read to the end. Mind you, hating something is as much a bonding experience as loving it, when it's shared.

Often we will turn to our shared book instead of TV, as it can be picked up and put down at any time that suits us, and packed in the luggage when we go away.

Much more enjoyable than the Booker nominee (which will remain nameless) were Lindsay Clarke's two books about Troy, The War at Troy and Return from Troy which, despite their weight, were gripping, readable, and fun to read out loud. Once we had read the first, then we had to have the second, and it did not disappoint - a cast of gods, heroes and ordinary mortals against the seething background of the ancient world. Jealous gods throwing thunderbolts about led to hilarious use of our rather amateur acting skills, but good writing drags you in, no matter how ham our readings might be.

What works best for us are historical novels where the history does not outweigh the plot, and books where we have a chance to employ the voices of multiple characters. (Though I must admit we always have varying pronunciations of all the names ...)  We are both a little hooked on the ancient world of Greece and Rome, and can recommend The Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault. This was superb, and had us both in emotional knots by the end of the book. So much so that we were both really sad to see the last page. The prequel to that, The King must Die is also a great read for reading aloud. This year in a similar vein we have read Stephen Fry's two books Mythos and Heroes.

Books with short sections or chapters work particularly well, so we don't wear out our voices, though of course tea or wine add to the experience.

Over the past few years we have varied our diet by reading some light-hearted reads  such as The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson and one of our other reads this year was The Order of Time which coincidentally is discussed in the previous post by Antonia Senior.

Other books we've enjoyed reading aloud, and that might appeal to history fans are books about language, such as The Story of English in 100 Words, and The History of the World in Six Glasses (which includes the history of tea, beer etc.) As well as these, we've read books on our common interests in martial arts, crafts, philosophy and poetry. We've been doing this since 2010 and our most prolific reading year was 2012 where we read 11 books together. (apart from our own other reading). In 2016 we only read three, but we will beat that paltry record this year as we've already read three and its only April. But apparently we are not the only ones doing this -  reading aloud for adults is having a resurgence, here's another article about the benefits from The Guardian.

And here on Atlas Obscura, a humorous article about testing the 19th Century's favourite dating tactic - Reading Aloud. The  couples read Modern Painters by John Ruskin and the results of the experiment are fun to read. (even if not aloud!)

So - if there is anyone out there who can recommend suitable reading aloud books, it would be great to have some more suggestions. Do comment with yours!

Find me and my books on my website www.deborahswift.com

Emile Munier - Reading Lesson

Pictures from wikipedia

The lifeline of libraries in an age of loneliness by Fay Bound Alberti

On Twitter this week, the writer Neil Gaiman responded to the debate on libraries’ decline. Rejecting claims that libraries were obsolete, he suggested that they are actually “more relevant and useful than they were 30 years ago”. He’s right, and not only because libraries lend books. 

Libraries have political, social, emotional and educational relevance. Their history is long and complex. The earliest libraries, based on cuneiform script on clay tablets, date back to 2600 BCE. They recorded mostly business transactions and inventories of goods. Over 30,000 clay tablets from the 2600 year old Library of Ashurbanipal remind us that the Middle East was, for centuries, a global centre of knowledge and education in medicine, art and culture. 

In the sixth century, the great libraries of the Mediterranean world were Constantinople and Alexandria. Egypt's Library of Alexandria is the most famous library of Classical antiquity. Dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts, the library was patronised by the Ptolemaic dynasty and a global site of scholarship from the 3rd century BC until the Roman Conquest. Filled with papyrus scrolls, the Library is most famous now for having burned down, resulting in a devastating loss of treasures. 

The Library of Alexandria

In the ancient world, libraries were a means to announce power, status, identity and civic pride; the same drive that was behind the expansion of libraries in the Enlightenment West. This so-called golden age of libraries saw many important European libraries being founded. The British Library was established in 1753 and Chetham's Library in Manchester, said to be the oldest public library in the English-speaking world, opened in 1653. The Mazarine Library and the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève were also founded in Paris and the Austrian National Library in Vienna. 

An aisle of Chetham's Library, Manchester

The principal of libraries being open to the public was increasingly commonplace, reflecting their educational and civil status. Knowledge mattered; to be seen to be knowledgable arguably mattered more. Where once libraries open to the public had chained their books to the desks, the principle of lending libraries provided a means for people to carry that learning into their own homes, providing they had enough literary, space and leisure time. 

The Public Libraries Act of 1850 gave local boroughs the power to establish lending libraries, while the Education Act of 1870 expanded literacy. These two moments connected the desire for civic pride to the equally strong desire to educate the working classes, and to encourage their leisure time to be both clean and moral. Libraries represented civility and the pursuit of knowledge for social advance, and for its own sake.

What has changed? Why are libraries no longer seen as crucial to the social fabric, and therefore not worthy of investment? Why have there been such massive cuts to library budgets since 2010? 

Leaving aside the social indifference of successive Tory governments, and the wholesale impoverishment of institutions and structures that represent collective interest (the NHS, state schools, care homes), there is no longer any definitive sense of what kind of knowledge matters. In the age of Trump there has been a movement away from intellectual reason towards primitive impulse; we might argue that this precondition allowed Trump's rise, rather than being a direct result of his presidency. 

But there are other reasons too, including a lack of financial investment and support. Part of the reason why libraries are supposedly in decline is the growth of digitisation. More resources online, it is argued, provides better access than outdated buildings, with limited books; it also eliminates the problems of access: geographical, economic, physical. But not everyone has access to reliable internet resources. Books and papers and physical objects are critically needed in countries with dodgy internet connections and limited electricity. 

Besides, libraries are not just spaces to hold books. They are filled with insightful librarians and curators, who can link you to the source that you need (and even borrow it from other libraries); perhaps not as quickly as Google, but certainly with more humanity.

As a girl growing up in rural Wales, the weekly visit across the border to Shropshire town of Oswestry and its library, gave me hope. Searching the shelves, feeling limitless as my gaze drifted from Mills and Boon to Shakespeare, from Dryden’s poetry to local history, there were options available to me. Potential and places that reached beyond the narrowness of the shelves and the chlorine smell of the nearby municipal pool.

Oswestry Library

As a lonely child with a difficult family life, I treasured those moments of escape. I loved everything about the routine: the piling up of six books - SIX! - with their tattered and grubby plastic covers, cherry-picked from a dozen different shelves; queuing for the librarian; smiling as she expressed interest (or sometimes shock) in what I was choosing; watching as she flicked through the pages to find the sweet spot and oh the muffled clunk of the date stamp, those were physical moments of bliss. 

Carrying that stack home, holding it on my lap as a shield that protected me from the inevitable arguments of the car that backfired, squirrelling it up in my room where I could smell the pages and look at all the different people who had borrowed each book before me - or the joy of being the one single stamp of newness - was a special kind of bliss. I belonged to a community of readers who stretched beyond the narrow, sad confines of my bedroom. 

And for me that is the point. Libraries are far more than buildings to hold books. They are pivots of connections between individuals and the world outside; not only in the date stamps that nestle aside one another, but also in a more literal, physical way. Libraries are spaces where anyone can go, to browse, to sit, to read the newspapers they can't afford to buy, to keep warm, to think, to meet other people. And in an age of loneliness this collective, free-to-use space is crucially important, and critically endangered. 

Books bring people together, literally, figuratively, physically. When we imagine that libraries aren’t needed, and we allow governments to shut them down on the basis they aren’t viable, or God forbid necessary, we toe a line of individualism that weakens society as a whole. 

I don’t use libraries like I did when I was a child, though half the adult population do. I did try, when my own children were younger, and the weekly run to the library to perform those rituals of choosing, carrying, stamping (and inevitably mislaying) are treasured moments of motherhood for me. The moments of drawn out time are a distant memory for me - and no doubt for many, caught up in our technologically driven, imperative age where every second counts, and Amazon Prime has a same day delivery option. 

The depressing thing about libraries closing down is that lack of use becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; an ideological sleight of hand by which cut backs appear justified. Deprive public libraries of millions of pounds to buy resources, to fund decent opening hours and enough staff, and people inevitably spend less time there. Create a narrative of decline and obsolescence and libraries become - especially the local, public libraries that sustained me as a child, redefined as an unnecessary and unsustainable expense. 

Communities need libraries. Like they need hospitals and schools and roads and utilities. Libraries are spaces of learning and information, yes, but they are also spaces of acceptance and belonging and engagement in ways that are neglected in the 21st century. Many libraries are changing to adapt to the needs of their users; some have knitting circles and board game groups, tea mornings and yoga alongside Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice. And adaptation may be key to this survival. But don't let people say libraries don't matter. They have never mattered more. 

My new book, A Biography of Loneliness will be published in Spring 2019 by Oxford University Press. 

You can follow my blog and website for updates: 

www.fayboundalberti.com

A Historical Fiction Writer's Reading Week

by Deborah Swift

Like most writers I'm a prolific reader. This week I took a look at my reading pattern to see what I read, and how much I read, and whether this has changed over the last few years.

When I had my first book published in 2010 nearly all my reading was in paperback or hardback. At the Historical Novelists Conference in that same year, someone showed me the Kindle. Fascinated, yet also baffled, by this new technology I bought one. I still have the same ancient model and do most of my digital reading on that machine. I often use it when travelling on public transport or when on holiday, and I use it to carry some research books I can't do without.

Digital -- Kindle

This week on the Kindle I have been reading a historical novel recommended to me by a friend of a friend. The book had been self-published for a short while but failed to find an audience, and the author had withdrawn it from sale. What did I think? Would I read it and give an opinion? My heart sank. I get many of these requests and although the friend said it was a 'brilliant' book, I'd been burnt by this before and found myself spending precious reading time wading through a book that should be confined to a bottom drawer.

But joy of joys! This was a gem. Well-written; unusual history, set in a little-known time and location. I found myself burning with enthusiasm for the book and wondering how on earth I could get it better known. Then realising; I can't even get my own books better known, let alone someone else's. Still, I'm working on it, and can at least send word out to everyone I know. The Lacemaker by Sukey Hughes, if anyone out there is listening.

Also read on the Kindle this week, 'The Illumination of Ursula Flight' by Anna-Marie Crowhurst. I'm writing a book about Mary Knepp, an actress in Restoration London, and this book sounded worryingly close to what I was writing. Curious, and slightly aggrieved at someone poaching my territory (I know, that's ridiculous) I dived in. Phew. Not like my book at all, but great to see the world I was writing about through another writer's eyes. I constantly find myself veering between wanting to read things set in 'my own era' and being terrified of being influenced by them. And I am constantly humbled by other people's writing skills. A highly recommended read.

The other book I've been reading on Kindle this week is my own. I often send my own books to Kindle as then I can spot errors more easily, and read it as a digital reader might. The book sits differently on the page in kindle format. I'm aware that many readers have abandoned paper altogether and read on their phones, but I'm not one of them. And this is something people often forget, that reading your own work takes just as long as reading someone else's  -- that as well as writing the darned things, we have to actually read them too. If I become engrossed in my own book and forget to take notes, then that's a good sign. Historical fiction never seems to be short, does it? All three of these books amounted to over 1000 pages!

Digital -- The PC
I read a lot of research documents on the PC -- Gutenberg Library Texts, papers from various universities, and relevant passages from Google book searches. I can't pretend I don't use Wikipedia - it's excellent for getting a quick overview of what I need to know.  Last week I was reading Broken Boundaries; Women and Feminism in Restoration Drama from the University of Kentucky. I am a great Googler and search for relevant papers that might help my current novel - at the moment it's papers on Restoration Drama and The Fire of London; I'm researching these for the third in my trilogy about Pepys' Women.

Hardback
My research books are in hardback if I can get them. Here's the current pile of books I'm dipping in and out of.  Over the last few years in what I'm calling my 'Pepys Period' I've used them so much that most of them have been read cover to cover. Of course there are paperbacks in there too, but I hate research books on Kindle; they're just too difficult to bookmark or navigate, and real books are much easier to find on my desk. Also there's something very satisfying about research in solid form. I've read quite a few excerpts from these books in the past week whilst fact-checking my novel. I occasionally buy fiction in hardback, but only as a gift for someone else. My groaning shelves wouldn't support it! One of my most interesting research books this week was "And So To Bed" A Comedy by J B Fagan, a play first published in 1926 about Samuel Pepys and his wife, and featuring Charles II.  A very enjoyable light-hearted romp. My edition was from AbeBooks, who do out of print editions by post.

Paperback
I love Twitter and it has persuaded me to buy quite a few books, many by indie writers. Some authors I see frequently online are never in bookstores, and some authors I see frequently in bookstores have no online presence. I only have a few paperbacks by indie authors, because most I buy on Kindle. I still buy full-price paperback fiction from bookshops because I enjoy to browse there. The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine came from my local bookshop, Carnforth Books, and it attracted me because it's set in The Outer Hebrides in Scotland, a wild and nartural place, and the title appealed to me. It's a Victorian/present day dual narrative, and I'm nearly at the end of it, and really enjoying the atmosphere the writer creates. This has been my bedtime reading. I had never heard of the author, but I'm glad I took the risk as the book is gripping and well-written. The local bookshop does a good job of curating the stock so that there are big-name authors but also debut novelists on the shelves.

Coffee time reading
I love my Historical Novel Society Magazine and often read it cover to cover. Mine arrived a couple of days ago, and it helps to keep me in touch with the industry, with what other people are writing, and with what is 'hot' in historical fiction. I spotted a couple of books in there that will be on my reading list for the near future. I also get various other industry magazines such as The Society of Authors Magazine, and of course I read blog posts of authors who I know or have read, (like this blog) and articles from BBC History and Historia Magazines online.

Books and Time
When I added up my reading for this week, it seemed enormous. And this is a typical week. I read far more than I did before I was a writer, and I used to be a bookworm then. Whenever I'm not writing I seem to be reading, and now we are so wired up to our digital machines, I'm reading more or less constantly. The digital world has broadened my reading in one way, but also made some of my reading feel rushed. I try not to skim, but I'm aware that I often do, and that this doesn't give time and attention to the person who has devoted time to writing it. We are all drowning in content, but it is only really with a novel that I can savour the content and immerse myself in what I'm reading.

As a historical fiction writer I find I am actually spending far more time reading than actually writing. Reading used to be something where I had to set aside a quiet time and space and buy or borrow a physical book. Now I have several documents open on my PC all the time and can flip from one to the other. And it's delicious, to someone who loves reading, to have unlimited access to so much stuff -- and so much of it with free access. But I also feel its dangerous side, that it could become an addiction.

I remember complaining to my mother, 'I've nothing to read!' and having to save my pocket money for my next book. Those hard choices, are gone. Those spaces, where the mind is free of a book, are also precious. I'm learning to build those spaces in, to clear the palate.

How do you read? What do you read? Are you a Kindle fan or a paperback reader? How do you prioritise your reading time?

Do feel free to find me on Twitter @swiftstory or on my website www.deborahswift.com 

A SHAMEFUL REVELATION by Eleanor Updale

Interesting, but uncomfortable

I've developed an eye problem that makes reading difficult, and it's set me off wondering about the mechanics of handling books.  As I labour to make out words which look to me (and me alone) as if they have been produced on a printer running low on ink, I can’t help but admire the generations who slaved over early texts in dimly-lit libraries, devoured Dickens by candlelight, or even coped with early postwar paperbacks in the glow of a 40 watt bulb.

Reading is not just an ocular occupation, though.  It takes a lot of muscular co ordination in the hands, arms, back and neck. It requires a reasonable ability to balance. Am I the only person who has reached an advanced age without finding a really comfortable way of reading in bed?

One way of doing it

and another

Reading on a high-speed train is hard enough, but can you imagine succeeding in an unlit horse-drawn carriage, bumping across ruts in the road?  And What must it have been like for eighteenth and nineteenth century ladies, perched on hard settees with closely-printed books?


How did they do it?


 Perhaps I should risk a confession here.  I have never dared say this before - and for an author it may be a fatal revelation - but what the heck. Here it is:
Though I have always loved stories and research, and adore books and manuscripts as objects, even when my eyes were working properly, I never much liked reading as a physical occupation. For me, it has always been a rather uncomfortable means to an end.
When children tell me they don't like reading, I encourage then to persevere, and wax lyrical about how books will open doors for them (which is true) but secretly I sympathise.  I have never cracked how and where to sit. Does anyone else find some books just difficult to hold? No wonder the gentlemen's clubs of yesteryear commissioned all sorts of reading stands to attach to those wonderful winged armchairs. a friend of mine reads in the bath.  I'm too shy to ask to see how she does it.  my books just get wet.

It's not just the fatal mix of fat books and small hands. These days paper-saving narrow margins and tight gutters can make it a struggle to catch the beginnings and ends of lines. Bindings can be too tight, or too cheap and weak.  A couple of months ago I was sent a brand new book by an author I was to interview at a festival.  As soon as I opened it, all the pages fell onto the floor.  A few days later, I was looking at a 300 year-old text almost as tightly sewn and robust as the day it was bound.

St  Jerome doesn't seem to be having much fun

Alas, I may be reading less in future. It's simply not much fun any more. But I'm lucky to have my eye trouble now.  There have never been more electronic and mechanical aids to reading (and writing), not to mention the glory of audiobooks (and here I must recommend Dan Stevens' wonderful reading of My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, by History Girl Louisa Young ). Even if my sight doesn't improve, thanks to modern science it will be a while before I can't read at all, and that may never happen. In the meantime, does anyone out there know of studies of how people read in the past: of where and how they sat, how/whether they held or balanced their books, of reading machines, and so on?  Did anyone grumble about the sheer physical awkwardness of reading?  Or is it just me? I would love to know.

www.eleanorupdale.comwww.eleanorupdale.com

pictures from Wikimedia Commons

AND THE BOOKER GOES TO… posted by Dianne Hofmeyr

This is a cheat. I’m only going back in history as far as 1969 – the year the Booker Prize was instituted. Do you remember what you were doing in 1969? Probably half of you reading this post weren’t even born. Do you remember the winner? I didn’t. I glanced through the Man Booker booklet and found it was P.H. Newby for his novel Something to Answer For.

1969 was a year when I wore skirts shorter than any I’ve ever worn and will ever wear, and my bikini was smaller than any I’ve ever worn and certainly will ever wear! Dr Chris Barnard had only just performed the first heart transplant. I’d seen Francois Hardy perform live in Cape Town. I’d heard Neil Armstrong speak from the moon. The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin and the Beatles were all doing their thing and Woodstock took place on a New York farm.

In 1969 my days were defined by reading on the beach, dancing the nights away and earning a paltry salary as an art teacher, dreaming of saving enough money for a ticket on the mail-ship to Southampton so I could get to London where it was all happening! I lived in a wooden cottage above one of the most famous and beautiful beaches in the world – Clifton, where surfers were still using longboards and where across the water, Nelson Mandela was chipping stone in a quarry on Robin Island.

I hadn’t heard of the Booker. I was reading Ayn Rand, Leon Uris, Robert Ruark, Doris Lessing and a few Dostoevsky’s thrown in. The first Booker I ever read was 5 years later in 1974 when Nadine Gordimer won with The Conservationist. A discomforting book about a capitalist who believes he has won privilege through hard work and not birth, which jabbed at my conscience. After that it was easy jump to other South African writers… Andre Brink’s An Instant in the Wind (the story still haunts me) won in 1976 and his Rumours of Rain short-listed in 1978 when Iris Murdoch’s The Sea The Sea won, and J M Coetzee’s 1983 winner Life and Times of Michael K. I didn’t read Thomas Keneally’s Shindler’s Ark which preceded Michael K but I did read Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac which won the next year. I’m sure I pass Anita Brookner on the Fulham Road. She seems to be getting more fragile and like the characters in her books, seems rather alone.

Right now I’ve just read Carol Birch’s Jamrach’s Menagerie and have started Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English. But what I most wish is that (like Adele Geras and Linda Newbery and I’m sure many others too) I’d kept a detailed list of all the books I’d ever read. It would be interesting to know what I thought as a 20 year old, a 30 year old and a 40 year old and how the history of the day impacted on me as a reader.

If you were to choose your best Booker ever over the last 43 years since 1969, what would it be? Would it be Salman Rushie’s Midnight’ Children which won the overall 40 year winner by popular online vote, or would it be:

Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall

Hollinghurst’s Line of Beauty

Yann Martel’s Life of Pi

Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day

And if you could include books from the short list too:

Emma Donoghue’s Room

Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room

Tim Winton’s Dirt Music

Ian McEwan’s Atonement

Carol Shield’s The Stone Diaries

A S Byatt’s Possession or The Children’s Book

Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda.

Or something from Rose Tremain? Beryl Bainbridge? Graham Swift? Margaret Atwood? Anne Enright? Iris Murdoch? My list might become very long.

What overall winner would you choose since 1969? And if not one overall winner, what short-list would you have for the past 43 years?

And what book would you choose for one that never made it? Mine would be Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950) which I haven’t read for years but which still resonates with me. But perhaps like Julian Barnes’s narrator in The Sense of an Ending… ‘What you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.’

www.diannehofmeyr.com