How do YOU read a book?
Post #338
19 October 2020
Lynda McKinney Lambert
Official Author Website
Lynda McKinney Lambert
My
One Word for 2020
~ Gifts ~
Author and visual artist, Lynda McKinney Lambert is holding a bouquet of flowers, a GIFT for her birthday.
I watched an interesting video today on the topic of MEDIA.
How do you like to read a book?
Do you listen via your phone?
Do you read on-line such as an e-book?
Do you listen through cassettes on CD?
Do you purchase the print book and read it page by page?
Here is How I READ BOOKS.
Due to profound sight loss, I receive books from the
National Library Services at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, PA.
The books I read are FREE for me because of this disability. I order books I want to read. Those books arrive on a digital cartridge that I insert into a particular audio player. I listen to books in this way.
I’ve been reading with my
EARS
since October 2007.
Do I like it? NO!
However, I deeply appreciate that I do have the ability to read in a different way than I did before sight loss. In fact, my book, Walking by Inner Vision: Stories & Poems, is available on Amazon as an Audible book. Listen to a remarkable reading by Lillian Yves as she takes you on a journey through the year in poems and stories. Chek it out here!
My book is also available through the NLS BARD program for FREE, by n excellent reader, Polly Slavet. Ask for DBC11608, Her reading voice is delightful.
Yes, it was tough to get used to listening to a book! I felt a disconnect between what I was hearing and the experiences I had known during my years of reading from an actual physical print book.
Fortunately, I am able to get the NLS services.
I am grateful for this way of reading books.
However, I do miss reading with my eyes.
_I miss the SIGHT of the book. I loved to see the cover, read the text, and see the pictures, the binding, and the pages’ thickness.
_I miss the TOUCH of the book in my hands. It is something that nothing else can duplicate – at the special touch of fabric, glossy papers, edges of pages as I turned them one by one.
_I miss the SMELL of the book – the unique and subtle aroma that surrounded me when I opened the book to begin reading.
_I miss the HEFT of the book in my hands. It is like a work of art – it’s physical and has weight.
_I miss the IMAGINATION heightened as I looked at the words on the pages – and silently allowed the ideas to flow into my mind and take me on a journey. Listening to someone read the book will never be the presence I experienced when I read the book with my eyes and mind working together in tandem.
Podcasts can be interesting for another option through media.
In a limited way, a podcast feels like sitting through a lecture but never feeling the emotion and energy that is present when a person is there with you – within touching distance.
Zoom meetings and podcasts can help us gain information quickly without doing any of the hard work of research investigating a topic in depth.
I’d much rather walk into a real physical brick and mortar community library. I’d much rather walk through the stacks and touch the books that catch my attention. I’d much rather make aesthetic visual choices through a process of selection. One sense can never replace another one that is lost. Media matters.
Let’s talk about the MEDIUM
*