Book reviews. Or tapes. Whatever.

I think I needed to take a little break from reading. Got kind of burnt out with school reading and all. I first started listening to books on tape about 20 months ago. I began with David Sedaris. I was in the beginning of the end of a relationship and had lots of trouble just getting through the day, and my school friend Jill handed me a tape and said, “here, this will help.” It did. And I was hooked. If I was so sad that I just couldn’t stand it, at least I could sit in my car and listen to David. If I just didn’t know what to do with myself, there was always some more David. I quickly finished that first tape, and Jill kept loaning me more. And soon I moved on to the library. And branched out to other authors. And sometimes even CDs.

I listen to novels. Adult fiction. Young adult fiction. (I’m not ashamed to admit: the entire Princess Diaries series, the Traveling Pants books, some Lois Lowry.) A bit of nonfiction. My one complaint with audiobooks is the lack of tangibility. When I just love a paragraph I want to read it again. But rewinding and playing it again isn’t quite the same thing. I want to see the words. I want to hold them in my sight and digest them a bit that way. After listening to Lowry’s Messenger I put the book on hold, because I need to actually read the last paragraph or two, the bit about us each finding our true purpose which when used correctly is an amazing gift to the world. I need to read it a few times. I need to copy it down and send it to a friend in a letter. This is cumbersome with tapes. Especially because I usually listen while driving. The same thing happened with Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird which I listened to earlier this week. She is one of my favorite authors. I have read all her books (except her newest, which I have already purchased and am conserving to read while I recover from surgery) at least once. But it’s been years since I last picked up Bird by Bird and it’s one of the few that I don’t own. In fact it may be the only one of her books that I don’t own. So I just listened to it on tape, and immediately had to place a hold on the book because now I need to see it in print. Once again it’s the last few paragraphs that captivated me the most. About the need to live the literary life. This thing that’s essential for some of us. Those of us who need to read and write. It was especially powerful because I’d been thinking about that recently. I’ve spent a lot of time (okay, maybe too much time) thinking about what I’ll do with my time and my body and my days after having surgery and needing to rest and not stand up much. It pretty much comes down to reading and writing and connecting with people. In fact, my whole life pretty much boils down to that. I realized that those are pretty much my bottom line. (I like to move too, walk and things like that, but I’ll be taking a break from that as I recover.) That wasn’t a new realization though. I already knew how essential those things are in my life. What I realized is that is who I am. What I realized is that we each have these things. There are plenty of people who never read and never write and don’t crave human connection. And I do every day. I need to. Like eating and sleeping and breathing – almost. They’re the essential components. And the end of Bird by Bird talks about just that. How people who are writers just need to write. Every day. Even if they never get published. Even if nobody reads their writing. They have to keep doing it because it’s their art and it’s their life. Already I’ve forgotten the rest but it was eloquent and true and I need to see it with my own eyes.

But what about books on tape? Those kind of count, too. In fact, they bring in the other piece which is human connection. I love hearing authors read their own work. I was actually surprised because I’d never heard Anne Lamott’s voice before and it’s kind of annoying. But still it was good to connect it with her work, to hear it speak her work. I listen to books on tape because it’s another way of getting it. When a kid loves airplanes she wants to read about them and draw them and talk about them and play with them and pretend to be them. And this interest in words is the same. Using them in conversation is good, reading them in books and letters from friends is good, writing in my journal and my blog and on scraps of paper is good, listening to them on tapes is also good.

Yesterday I listened to a lecture by Christiane Northrup. The tapes are called Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom but are not a reading of her so entitled book. Which I think is a bit deceptive. But fine. I highly recommend listening to this lecture. It mentioned my favorite women authors. I love it when authors talk about other authors. Especially good ones. First, her voice sounds just like Barbara Coloroso. Barbara has been my parenting idol and mentor since I was about eight and started listening to her tapes. I can still recite pieces. She talked about Anne Lamott, retelling the story from of the time Anne was at an Al-Anon meeting and someone was talking about how every day she dragged her drunk husband off the front yard into the house so people wouldn’t see and someone with a great southern accent said, “Honey, you gotta learn to leave ‘em where Jesus flung ‘em.” She talked a lot about Caroline Myss, whose work I’ve also really enjoyed on tape. And she talked about Lara Owen’s Her Blood is Gold which I’ve had on hold at the library for eight months now but the one library copy is lost and it’s out of print. The whole listening experience felt so congruent – all my interests being woven together.