Reading: who, what, where, when, how

CW did an interesting meme and I am copying her.

She says:

Spotted this some time ago on John Dupuis’s blog - an interesting post about reading material categorised by when and where it’s read. (John’s inspiration came from this blog.)

The breakfast table read: The newspaper. I usually get the world section first because DH grabs the main section before me. I also get the Viva first. On Saturday, he gets the Canvas first.

The to-go read: This is the sort of thing you'd read in a waiting room. I tend to go for the mags like Next, or some other sort of read with a bit of substance. Or, I'll just wait and people watch instead. When I stop for coffee beans at Atomic I sometimes read the Organics NZ magazine.

The bathroom read: I no longer have this luxury! With little people barging in to see what I'm doing, offering me toilet paper and playing with the toilet brush, this is not a good time to read for me. No - we don't have a lock on the door at present because the kids might lock themselves in.

The read-aloud: Uh... kids books mainly. Occasionally I'll read stuff from my fiction book to DH if I think he'd be interested. Sometimes I read him stuff from the Songs of Solomon - you know the stuff... "my beloved is a graceful hind" etc etc. He reads me the bits about eyes like the "pools of Heshbon" and the booby bits. Heh heh.

The main read: It has to be fiction I must say. I do read non-fiction though. My non-fiction choices tend to be things about food, crafts and arty stuff, the occasional travel book. But fiction is my main choice because I read to relax and escape. My taste has changed a bit since I was a teenager and I tend to go through phases where I read more of one genre than another. I used to read a lot of fantasy but mostly I don't these days. I do still read crime and mystery which is a genre I consistently have read since I was young. Many of my choices will include historical fiction, romance, and saga type stories.

I also like to read food magazines.

The work read: I echo CW's comment here that it is a common mis-conception that librarian's have time to read while at work. My professional reading is sadly lacking at this point. I read the NZ Libraries journal because that comes to my letter box as I'm a member of the library association who produce it. The rest of my reading is library blogs, and even then I'm pretty slack at looking at them right now. I know if I was employed it would be a different story.

When I was at work, there was a benefit of being able to read the new journals before they got put out on the shelf. I would flick through the journals in my subject liaison area because you get a feel for the subject doing this. Also you can sometimes find stuff that your "people" are interested in or have published. At MFPOW we also subscribed to a number of main stream periodicals like NZ House & Garden and Listener, plus some other arty/design journals that I liked to read at lunchtime. I also liked to read the Organics NZ magazine and some of the other horticultural journals.

The travel read: I tend to take popular novels that don't require any deep thinking with me. Things that I don't mind if I lose or if it gets dirty. I can't read in the car or on a plane so any reading gets done at night.

The comfort read: I don't often read when I'm sick. If it's major sickie I never feel like reading. I did listen to a talking book when I had the chicken pox though. If it's something minor like a cold... well, I no longer have the luxury of staying in bed for that - too much to do with 2 kids.
However, if it's PMT time then the good old soppy romance comes out with the chocolate and I can lose myself in that for a while.
If I'm feeling down, then I tend to read easy, happy ending stuff.

Reading I avoid: (my category) I think it's the stage I'm at but I find it very hard to read about bad things happening to kids so I avoid reading both fiction and non-fiction that has that as it's focus.