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When the Sony Walkman arrived in the early 80s, it felt like a miracle. Walking to work with The Smiths or Big Country in my ears was heaven on earth, and the perfect preparation for the fray that awaited me: entitled solicitors on one side, recalcitrant civil servants on the other.
It also got me running on a treadmill at the gym—something I’d never done pre-Walkman and never did again after a guy approached me one day to announce that he, along with the rest of the men in the gym, had been staring at my arse through a hole in my leggings as I ran. I fled home, inspected the leggings, and found no such hole, at least without the aid of a magnifying glass. How closely had that guy been studying my rear end? I was gorgeous, of course. So who could blame him?
Anyway, enough about my posterior and back to the matter at hand. I did try listening to a few “books on tape,” as we called them back then, but the pace was slow and my mind wandered. I much prefer the physical object, bought not on line but in a bookshop. I love the ritual of choosing, holding the books, reading the blurb. You don’t get that experience with audio books.
My parents ran a secondhand bookshop for a time so I was always a big reader. Although I once read a great deal of philosophy and ethics, these days my tastes are far more lowbrow: murder mysteries and thrillers. Here’s my current to-read pile.
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Living in the sticks as I do, when I make it to a bookshop I tend to stock up enough to last me a while. And, it is a truth universally acknowledged that one can never have too many admirers or too many books.
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Posted in response to galenkp's weekend experience
prompt asking ' Would you rather read a book or listen to one as an audio book and why?
Images are mine
You read actual hardcopy?! Who does that?!
Thanks for the reading list. I'm now reading, from a box I found in a very old house, 19th century and early 20th century literature. I am now more like you were back in the day. I ordered a few to take on my trip (there is not a single bookshop near me), one Henry Miller, and another I can't remember what, but it is supposed to have a lot of homeopathy in it. Perfect air travel reading.
I was thinking "I cannot believe there was a hole in her leggings" as I read your post.
Hahaha.I think it was all in the guy's imagination.
I have 2 thrillers packed for the trip. I hope they're thrilling!
See you soon.
I talk faster than anyone I know (although with age I've noticed a more deliberate pace). I certainly can read faster than anyone can talk. It's my biggest issue with podcasts and documentaries. They take so long to say something that could be expressed in a fraction of the time.
Funny story about your leggings. It had nothing to do with the leggings I think. He was just an oaf.
It's my belief that the world is divided into fast and slow people. If you talk fast, you invariably walk fast, read fast and think fast. Part of my interview process was to get applicants to climb the stairs. If they ran up, they had a good chance of being hired. The walkers, alas, had none.
You're right! I do everything fast. My motor runs at hyperspeed :)) Although, as I mentioned, that seems to be slowing down with age.
I like physical books as well. Never been a big audio book or electronic book fan. There is something special about standing in a bookstore and leafing through the books. Smelling the pages, reading the introduction blurbs on the dust covers. We don't hardly have any bookstores around our immediate area. One chain bookstore, but no small mom & pop ones that I know of. I miss those.
I gave up smelling the pages, I was getting too many funny looks:)
I also buy them on a phisical store, I think I never bought a book online!
Good for you! There aren't too many bookshops left. We need to treasure the ones we still have.
Small book shops are all gone, only big labels remain but better than nothing
I'm lucky to have a secondhand bookshop 30km away in the nearest town...but for how long?
Ah, I'm with you. I think it's people of a certain age that will feel the same way (although maybe won't be thinking about your behind, or I might now if I find myself with a crime fiction) unless they were raised by parents who instilled in them a love of books. When we die, what happens to this part of human history?
I’d wager that the art of reading will go the way of mental arithmetic—why bother when there’s a machine to do it for you?
This outcome makes me sad. There will always be stories to tell and new ways to tell them, but the printed word is one of the very best.
Me too. If we can’t read, write, or do mental arithmetic anymore, and the tech gives up the ghost, where does that leave us? Sometimes, I’m glad to be old.
There is definitely something lost with audiobooks and digital readers.
You're not wrong.
#hive #posh
Yeah, that was me. I was there, to stop and stare...
Then have a snack.
Ok... I made that up.
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But this is how I picture it in my mind.
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