{"id":8630,"date":"2008-11-24T06:23:49","date_gmt":"2008-11-24T11:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=8630"},"modified":"2024-10-27T19:06:39","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T23:06:39","slug":"7-weird-reading-facts-about-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=8630","title":{"rendered":"7 Weird Reading Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Got this from ricki<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1. I am very sensitive to typeface. I will NOT read a book if I find the typeface grating or unfriendly. I have bad eyes, too, so a good typeface is important. Penguin Classics USED to have terrible typeface, small, cramped and smudgey – so I would never buy their books. They have now gone through a redesign – and not only do they have some of the best cover art now (their covers used to be kind of stuffy and precious – but now? Brill!!) Some examples here:<\/p>\n

\"9780140443332H.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"9780141439471H.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"9780141441627H.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"9780143105497H.jpg\"<\/p>\n

I own a couple of those already – but based only on those gorgeous covers, I want to own Penguin’s version!!<\/p>\n

So not only have they recommitted themselves to eye-catching and evocative cover but their typeface has gone through an upgrade as well. I like it much better. It flows with the eye. Vintage International has consistently great typefaces. The Modern Library collection has great typeface – especially for long dense books like Middlemarch<\/i> or Bleak House<\/i>.<\/p>\n

2. I will never leave a book open, face-down. The thought of it makes me shiver.<\/p>\n

3. I can count on one hand the times I have been stranded without a book. Actually, there was one time the other night but that was only because I had finished the book I had in my bag earlier that day so when I had an hour to kill later that night, I was reduced to fiddling around with my blackberry and answering emails as the wind whipped across Houston Street, as opposed to losing myself in a book. I ALWAYS have a book on me.<\/p>\n

4. I have certain books that are okay for my commute, others not so much. (I usually am reading multiple books at the same time). My commute involves me smashed into a tiny bus, with loud Spanish radio blaring in my ears. Strangely, I find that reading something difficult<\/i> really works for me on the commute, something engaging and perhaps way out of the realm of my own life. Like the book I read about what’s going on in Darfur. Perfect commute book. But I find that short stories or contemporary fiction is harder to get into in that environment, so it’s usually rigorous non-fiction for the commute.<\/p>\n

5. I write in pretty much every book I read. I underline passages (how do you think I can pull up quotes so easily for the blog? Because I’ve marked it for safe keeping!), keep lists of vocabulary in the back blank pages, leave exclamation points or asterisks in the margins next to passages I particularly love. It’s compulsive – I don’t feel right if I’m reading without also having a pen in my hand.<\/p>\n

6. If the book has the following words in the title, or if it even just clear that the book is ABOUT these things, I will buy it sight unseen. My shelves are lined with books I haven’t read yet which involve the following topics:
\n— ancient silk road
\n— Iran \/ Persia
\n— the Caucasus
\n— Balkans
\n— Ireland
\n— Mongolia
\n— speculative stock market bubble
\n— cults (Jonestown, Manson, Co$, The Family)
\n— Alexander Hamilton<\/p>\n

I also will buy any book written by the following people:
\n— Margaret Atwood
\n— John Irving
\n— Michael Chabon
\n— Lorrie Moore
\n— Robert Kaplan
\n— Jeanette Winterson
\n— Madeleine L’Engle (well, THAT’S done … boo hoo – but for YEARS before she died it was the case)
\n— A.S. Byatt
\n— Cormac McCarthy
\n— Elinor Lipman<\/p>\n

7. I like to read out loud to myself. I find it relaxing. But not just anything. Here are the things I always gravitate to when I feel like reading out loud for an hour or so:
\n— Nicholas Mosley’s Hopeful Monsters<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>)
\n— Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>)
\n— Nancy Lehman’s Lives of the Saints<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>)
\n— Susan Daitch’s The Colorist<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>)
\n— Madeleine L’Engle’s Ring of Endless Light<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>)
\n— Joy Williams’s State of Grace<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>)
\n— Margaret Atwood’s Life Before Man<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>)
\n— Norman Rush’s Mating<\/i> (excerpt here<\/a>)
\nThese books feel good to read out loud. I also read Shakespeare’s sonnets out loud, which almost becomes an act of meditation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Got this from ricki. 1. I am very sensitive to typeface. I will NOT read a book if I find the typeface grating or unfriendly. I have bad eyes, too, so a good typeface is important. Penguin Classics USED to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,3],"tags":[81,93,94,712,82,227,714,91,79,78,642,103,95,711,86,709,156,713],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8630"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152689,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8630\/revisions\/152689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}