I have become totally hooked on "reading" via my iPod. As a retired librarian, I have to say that it has taken me awhile to feel okay about having books read to me rather than reading them myself.

Reading has always been a favorite pastime of mine. As a kid, growing up in northern New Jersey, going to the library once a week and checking out books was something I always looked forward to. Reading remained a true pleasure all the way through school and during the years when my daughter was growing up. But, after I started working full time reading became a chore. Each day at work presented a ton of material I had to read or write, so, by the end of the day the last thing I wanted to do was read.

Before we left California I worked as a substitute for the library system from which I had just retired. I never knew where I'd be working but almost all the places to which I was regularly sent involved rather long drives. To make the drives more enjoyable, my husband got me an MP3 player and signed me up for Audible.com's downloadable books. It was great company while driving back and forth.

I figured that after we moved and I truly retired I would enjoy sitting down and reading again. Well, that probably would be true except that I have all these other things I enjoy doing which are more fun than holding a book and giving it all my attention. Spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing and painting are special and relaxing.

Eventually the MP3 player was replaced by an iPod and now there is no turning back. Not to say that I don't read, I do, but, most of that reading is nonfiction and usually it involves learning something about an area of interest to me.

What I find I love most about having a book read to me is that I hear it all. When I read, I often skipped the parts that didn't grab me and I probably missed a lot of details about the story that would have made it more meaningful. If you purchase only unabridged books, and I do, you will hear every word. I suppose you could fast forward through those parts that bore you but that would be more work than just listening to the book. I also read many more books than I would have if I were doing the reading myself. And I buy many more books than I ever did before. Granted I do not have a tangible volume I can hold in my hand but I do have a library of books on Audible that I can go back to and read again if I want to.

Right now I'm listening to a book call Up From Orchard Street by Eleanor Widmer. It is about a Jewish family living on the lower eastside of New York City. I grew up across the George Washington bridge in New Jersey but many members of my father's family still lived in Brooklyn at that time. I don't remember much about it except scattered memories of trips across the river to see relatives on holidays and the tales my Dad told of growing up there. Listening to Eleanor Widmer's book reminds me so much of those days and those people.

New York was a huge city but for my Dad and the people in Widmer's book, their world was their neighborhood and their relatives. Family was extremely important in the era covered in this book and it was the same for my Dad. His parents and aunts and uncles were first and second generation Irish and Scot who had traveled from their home countries to the USA and stayed where they landed, New York City. They struggled and saved and all bought brownstones next door to each other in Brooklyn. Decisions about marriage and just about everything else, according to my Dad, were arrived at through family discussions. Parents worked hard to see that their children had more than they had. My father and his brother were the first in the family to finish high school and go on to college. My uncle became a dentist and my Dad finished medical school but ultimately got a PhD in biochemistry and became a college professor. It was a noble goal, seeing that ones children had a better life and more opportunities, but it also brought an end to those strong family ties. My Dad's degrees took him far from home to places like Virginia, Oklahoma and finally West Virginia.

I remember when we left the New York area it was only going to be for awhile until my Dad finished his education and then we'd move back to the city. Didn't work out that way. By the end of the 1950's the old guard had died and the rest of the family had begun to leave the area. By the 1970's they had all departed.

In listening to Up From Orchard Street I recognize the pull of family loyalties and the strength of the connection to that group. The characters in her book, while Jewish, not Irish or Scot, were living very similar lives to my Dad's family.

This book, like so many others, has given me great enjoyment, brought back memories and even been educational.

My Dad used to say that he got to be a very fast runner because he had to cross through a neighborhood that wasn't too fond of the Irish. Each day, going to and from the Catholic School he attend, he said he had to crouch around the corner on the edge of enemy territory and wait until just the right moment and then run for his life until he got to his neighborhood. At one point in her story, Ms Widmer relates a scary adventure in which the children of the family, in trying to get home during a snow storm, get lost and find themselves in an area of the city where they were not welcome. They had to run for quite a distance being pursued all the way back to friendly territory. I thought immediately of my Dad running for his life.

What does all this rambling on mean? Well, Audible is a great resource. It's okay to listen to books instead of reading them, this librarian said so. You aren't cheating by doing so and you may actually get more out of the book by listening to it. And, there is more about us all that is the same than is different. It may not seem so on the surface but it is so. Reading has taught me that.

Happy reading.





The pictures in this post are all of places I love in West Virginia. I would have posted some New York or Brooklyn pictures but I don't have any handy.