Grace used to read for pleasure, but at some point in her past she’d stopped. Do you think that’s a common experience? Have you ever paused your reading for an extended period of time?
Yes! When my kids were little, I don’t think I read a book for years. For me, and I think for Grace, it wasn’t a conscious decision to stop reading but a matter of circumstance. I think readers always come back to books at some level so it was natural for Grace to pick it back up.
I have never not read, not when I worked full time, was in school or raising a family. But my tastes have changed, I no longer read romances, but still love mysteries and thrillers, plus book club reads. And sometimes if stressed I will read light, quirky books like the Finlay Donovan series or the ones by Rita Mae Brown.
I don’t think I ever stopped reading for pleasure. But over time, during different periods of my life, my reading has varied both with amount and type. Before retiring, I read more professional books and more children’s books since I was an educator wanting to share in student reading. As a parent, I also read many of the books my children were reading. Now that I have more time to read, I find I read a wider variety of books - I choose not only what I am interested, in but also books my friends and family have talked about or shared with me. I don’t hesitate to put down a book I’m not interested in. But I also am delighted when I try a recommended book that I didn’t think I’d especially like and become fully engaged in it!
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Yes, when I was working full time and traveling for work there wasn’t much time left for reading other than things related to work. However, now that I am retired, one of my most favorite things to do is to read and participate in several book groups.
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I paused reading during chemo. The treatment gave me such brain fog that I just couldn’t concentrate to read.
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I feel like there were times when I took a break - mostly during high stress periods of great change. Happy to have the time to concentrate on my reading now that I’m retired!
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I don’t think there has ever been a significant period in my life when I have not found time to read for pleasure. The types of books I read have varied through the years sometimes reflecting on what I was thinking or feeling at the time.
I have never paused I my reading. In fact, if I don’t have a good book or three going I am completely out of sorts. When my daughter was born I read my books outloud to her so I could continue reading, as she grew I read in the carpool line, getting there an hour early just so I could have that time to read ( I read Doris Kearns Godwin’s A Team Of Rivals , on of my favorite books in car pool line). I do know many people who, due to life’s complexities have lost touch with their bookish self. It always is a very sad experience , for I think we lose a piece of ourselves when we are readers and no longer read.
I found my love of reading when my Grandmother gave me a Nancy Drew book. It was hard to do much reading when my children were young and I was a full time teacher but I’m retired now and can’t read enough. Winter days are my favorite or on my deck in the summer.
Me too! Brain fog is the worst!
Grace let obligations to her family and work pull her away from reading. I”m an avid reader but recently was too busy to read a book for almost a month. That’s unheard of for me because I can read two books a week when I have time. I absolutely hated not being able to read a book for that amount of time. I think it actually affected my mood because I didn’t have time for that wonderful escape to another world through my books.
I have always loved to read but there were stages in my life when I didn’t have time such as when my children were young and I was so busy with them. By the time they went to bed I was too exhausted to read. When I joined a book club several years ago it inspired me to start reading every night before I went to bed.
I do think it is a common experience for most people to stop reading at a period in their lives. I would guess this usually happens when they have young children to care for. Since I never had kids, I’ve just kept reading from the age of five until my current age of eighty. For me, a day without reading is a day without sunshine.
After my husband died I didn’t read for several months. I missed reading but my brain fog kept me from being able to concentrate on reading.
I have always had a book close by, starting when I was a child – sometimes even a book of which my mother did not approve! When I went to college to become a teacher, my reading was mostly of professional and educator books. I became rather obsessed with children’s books and authors and chose to go for a Master’s in Reading and became a Reading teacher in elementary schools. The last few years before I retired, my job was to go into classrooms to introduce children’s books and authors with activities to go with them, so I often attended classes and Teacher conventions and workshops to find new books. (I loved that job!.) During that time my adult fiction reading was limited, but after I retired 25 years ago I returned. Now I am the leader of our book club and still looking for books that our group might enjoy.
I actually only increased my time reading after I retired. There were to many conflicting things to do. Now I have several book on my table waiting to be read.
Pleasure changes for people as they change. I’ll generally get involved with one genre or author then change interests.
I went through a period of deep grief when my husband died where I kept flitting from book to book and couldn’t get into them. Aside from that, I have always been addicted to reading.
I’ve always been a reader, but the amount of books I read varies according to how busy I am. I know both of my sisters stopped reading after their husbands passed away because they couldn’t concentrate.