Back to books and reading!

After several blogs on weightier matters, I feel like some light relief, and what better way of getting some relief but by turning to a book.

The key to all this enjoyment is of course the  wonderful skill of reading.

We use reading in so many areas of our lives: for directions, filling in forms, for following any form of written communication, including the use of the internet.

I read fiction and non-fiction, but I'm a light reader, rarely undertaking the classics, or heavier themes. When I think about it, I think the reading I most enjoy is story telling, whether factual, in the form of biographies and travel writing or as fiction.

Like most people, I read for many purposes:

• to escape when I like crime novels ( writers like Ruth Rendell, Ian Rebus, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo), or perhaps a family saga, often multigenerational.
• for enjoyment when I like what is called literary fiction (John Lanchester, Anna Funder, Nam Le), and especially what I'd call 'world' themes often written in translation, of life in many different countries.
• for education, and information when I use the dictionary, consult reference books and travel guides, and read well written but 'light' history.

I love the newspaper, and while I'll check stories on-line, nothing, for me can replace the spreading of a newspaer on the table at breakfast time and combing through it for news and opinion.

I use an e-reader when I'm travelling and occasionally at other times, and it certainly beats carrying 5 books in the luggage, but nothing can replace the smell, feel, and weight of a proper paper book, hard back or paperback.

It is hard for me to imagine not being able to read.  It feels as if my whole world would collapse.  I know one of the things an elderly friend regrets with her failing sight is the effect that has had on her reading: talking books are just not the same.  As I watched someone reading braille last night, I though what a wonderful physical act to enter the world of reading, such sensitivity of touch must be required.

When I had contact with adult migrants learning English I became aware of how many, because of poverty, war and lack of opportunity had never developed the ability to read their native language so while they might develop verbal communication skills in English, they would probably not be literate in either language.

Earlier this year, I noticed billboards about indgenous illiteracy in Australia, and wondered they were about.  Following up, I found the website of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation where I found some of the problems in communities particularly in remote areas where many issues combine to reduce the ability of children to learn even the most basic literacy skills. Like all such groups they are dependent on funding, much coming from a percentage of sales in some bookshops, and from publishers, on Indigenous Literacy Day( 5 September, 2012), and the rest from the community.  Save your book purcases until then and go to one of the listed booksellers for a painless way to help. What better gift could we give these young people than the gift of books and reading during this Australian Year of Reading?

Libraries have something for everyone!

I mentioned last time that the first thing I do when I move somewhere new is join the library.

And haven't libraries changed?  No longer places of absolute quiet, they buzz with activity.

• reading sessions for pre-schoolers, 
• the after school rush when children come in to play games, do their homework and change their books,
• people using computers, 
• in some libraries the ability to watch DVDs, 
• the quiet circle of people in armchairs reading the daily papers
• and still in the background people searching for books to read at home.

It was quite a shock some years ago when I went into the hallowed halls of the State  Library of Victoria to find the floor full of computer desks: not a book in sight!  I had to retreat upstairs to the LaTrobe Reading Room (or Domed Reading Room as I knew it) which has been magnificently restored and looks like a Victorian linbrary, though it was built in the early Twentieth Century.  here there are book shelves, wooden desks with lamps and a hush.

Information now comes in so many forms that libraries have moved with the times.  It is no wonder that computers are now central to storing and making information available.  And libraries are no longer confined to set opening hours.  I can browse the catalogue of my local library (and the SLV) at home, make my choices, order my books and be notified when they are ready.  But more than that, I can have access to an electronic library from my computer as my library subscribes to many on-line resources from encyclopedias to magazines that I can read at home.


Libraries are also changing in function.  From being a repository of books to be used and generally lent out, libraries are now involved inpromoting the skills of reading, finding sources of information and making them available to the wider community, promoting book groups which are as much about reading as about social networks, sharing information about community issues and events, hosting writers' festivals and exhibitions, and from the written word have moved into many forms of media: music, film, spoken word.  I know how wonderful the Talking Book service is to the visually impaired.  And for those whose reading skills are limited, libraries are no longer a closed space, and those who read languages other than English are no longer excluded.

In the last blog I referred to the National Year of Reading.  Among the aims of this year is to
promote a reading culture in every home; and  to establish a goal for families, of parents and caregivers sharing books with their children every day. So go to your local library, join in the activities an help achieve the goals.  And do look at the State Library website: it is a wonderful community resource (http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/).  And if you are in the city, a visit to the exhibition Love and Devotion from Persia and Beyond is a magical experience.

I was passing a school recently and there was a sign on the fence about a new buiding: the Learning Resource Centre.  I think that means a library, but is an attempt to get beyong the word which is after all derived from the Latin "liber" meaning book.  But it seems a pity to lose the connection with this origin.  It is comforting and intimate to hold a book in your hand, but an ebook is much easier when I am travelling!

I love to read...

I read the other day that it's the National Year of Reading, and thought ho, hum.  I love to read.

But then on the year website (http://www.love2read.org.au/) I was shocked to read the following:

Nearly half the population struggles without the literacy skills to meet the most basic demands of everyday life and work. There are 46% of Australians who can't read newspapers; follow a recipe; make sense of timetables, or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.

I knew that indigenous literacy is an issue but hadn't realised how widespread the problem was in the broader community.  I know many migrants, particularly older ones and those from countries were schooling is not available also have problems, but the figure 46% is staggering.

I was lucky.  Somehow I had taught myself to read by the time I started school and was soon taken by a neighbour's child to join the local library.  The 'Children's Library' that is.  Where hands were inspected for cleanliness, and where  I was permitted to borrow 2 books at a time.  A new world opened.  Most of the children's books at that time were set in England but somehow my mind seemed to skip over the differences as I entered these new realms that opened up before me.  Animal tales, adventures, school stories, fairies, witches, fantasy...books about strange places, encyclopedias containing everything about everything, dictionaries.  All stimulated my imagination, thirst to understand how and why, and provided a colourful environment that a rigid school system couldn't give.

And through the years reading has continued to give me great pleasure.  Whenever I've moved somewhere new one of my first tasks has been to locate and join the local library.  In London I even belonged to the library that then existed at Harrods!  And I've joined the electronic age with an e-reader which is wonderful when I travel, as I no longer have to carry a case full of books so have more room for shopping.  

I can't imagine a house without books and I can't imagine not having at least one book by my bed.  Sometimes I have two or three on the go at once.  These days I mostly read what could be described as literary fiction, mysteries, a bit of 'chick lit', travellers' tales and biographies.  More and more I find I'm reading about the experiences of children and women living in different countries, both novels and biographies, and often in translation.  I suspect this is a result of travel, which only touches the surface leaving me wondering about day to day life.  

I read for enjoyment, and if I can't 'get into' a book I'll give up, sometimes returning at another time.  I read for escape when life is stressed.  I read when I have spare time: flying and holidays. 

And when I've enjoyed a book, I love to pass it on, either the book itself, or if it's a library book, then the recommendation.  Many of my friends are readers, and our tastes often overlap. Not identical, but with enough in common so that we can share the enjoyment.

But to go back to that comment that 46% of Australians can't read sufficiently to meet the needs of everyday life.  Not only are they closed from a world of pleasure, the ability to gain basic information is also absent, making them dependent on others, relying on memory, being cut off from something that the other 54% of us take for granted.