Jinjer 37: The Joys of Pregnancy

[GenerationCedarchip]

I had a housemate in law school who wasn't a reader and I remember being mystified by that. I'm a voracious reader and I grew up surrounded by readers. Some of these folks never had the chance to go to college but they were still very well-read.

[VelociRapture]

I used to love reading, but I haven’t really read anything since around the time I miscarried two years ago. Between grieving, trying to handle my next pregnancy, a preemie... I just haven’t had the interest or energy. I’m hoping that love comes back at some point. My daughter loves “reading” her books and I want to set a good example for her.

I did read “The Light Between Oceans,” recently though and I LOVED it. There’s really no one character who’s entirely good or bad and I wound up cheering for all the lead characters to find happiness. I’d highly recommend it, though I do need to warn that it does deal with pregnancy loss and there are some pretty heart wrenching details. So just be aware of that before jumping in - I wasn’t and it was a bit tough for me to read, but I’m glad I pushed through to the end.

[Four is Enough]

3 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

 Stephanie Plum novels. I had a weird block about reading them, but finally started the first one when I ran out of new books. I laughed my butt off, read it very quickly, then read the next ones just as quickly. Janet Evanovitch writes ridiculous scenarios so well!

I LOVE reading about Grandma Mazur's adventures in the funeral home viewings.

[pandora]

41 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

I used to love reading, but I haven’t really read anything since around the time I miscarried two years ago. Between grieving, trying to handle my next pregnancy, a preemie... I just haven’t had the interest or energy. I’m hoping that love comes back at some point. My daughter loves “reading” her books and I want to set a good example for her.

As a fellow reader, I hope that your love of reading comes back at some point too! You didn't ask for suggestions so please feel free to disregard, but for me one way to incorporate stories into my life when my head feels too busy to sit down and read is listening to audiobooks. I borrow eaudiobooks from my local library and like listening to one while getting ready for bed to wind down.

[lizzybee]

Do we have a book suggestions thread? As a life-long booklover, this conversation is making me want to read, but similar to @VelociRapture I've kind of lapsed since motherhood. 

[viii]

I would love a book rec thread!

[JordynDarby5]

4 hours ago, feministxtian said:

The WORST part of having an e-reader is that it's just too easy to get another book. At least electronic books are easier to "hide"! 

I have learned that the hard way. I agree its easier to hide e-readers how many books you actually bought.  No one can really see if you bought one book or five. I also agreed it is way to easy just to click and buy a new book or more then one.  Very, very easy.  Darn you Amazon for making it so easy and having so many books I want to read.   

[feministxtian]

48 minutes ago, JordynDarby5 said:

I have learned that the hard way. I agree its easier to hide e-readers how many books you actually bought.  No one can really see if you bought one book or five. I also agreed it is way to easy just to click and buy a new book or more then one.  Very, very easy.  Darn you Amazon for making it so easy and having so many books I want to read.   

fortunately I have the app for my bank account on my tablet so I can check and see how much money I do or don't have before I click the "buy now" button. 

[Nowyn]

3 hours ago, pandora said:

As a fellow reader, I hope that your love of reading comes back at some point too! You didn't ask for suggestions so please feel free to disregard, but for me one way to incorporate stories into my life when my head feels too busy to sit down and read is listening to audiobooks. I borrow eaudiobooks from my local library and like listening to one while getting ready for bed to wind down.

I recommend audiobooks too. I have been working too much and people drowning, burning and freezing on your hands somewhat affect you. So I have been mainly reading subjects that are needed in my job. But I do listen to audiobooks. It also helps falling asleep. 

[Bethella]

@lizzybee @viii It's not a recommendation thread exactly

[NachosFlandersStyle]

I love short stories, longform articles, audiobooks, etc, but reading a whole book in physical form is a huge slog for me and I usually won't remember any of what I've read anyway. I spend most of my free time reading news articles or listening to audiobooks while multi-tasking but I very rarely finish a printed book. I think there's a difference between people who don't enjoy processing written media and those of us who just can't sit still to read a novel-- or so I hope, because otherwise I'm a philistine in the eyes of most of my peers.

[RainbowSky]

5 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

I LOVE reading about Grandma Mazur's adventures in the funeral home viewings.

I started reading these when the 10th one came out. I read all 10 in less than a week! I was sad that was it!

They're so bad but they're funny lol

[Scrabblemaster]

I did not read much during the last couple of weeks because I had so much to do during the day, that in the evening I had not enough energy left to concentrate on a book. And while I am reading here, I realise this makes me sad. I am a reader! I love books! I have a library membership since I could read! And yesterday...just yesterday I gave two books back to the library I did not even read. Damn! I still have Dan Brown's Origin lying around since Christmas - unread. That's not typical for me. Life has been busy the last couple of months. 

But it's not as if I am not reading anything. I am reading here on FJ and you guys are more interesting than Dan Brown or Wolfgang Hohlbein. Way more interesting, the recaps are pure gold, the thread drifts are great, I learned so much about religion, fundamentalism, the world, other countries, cooking, humor, sarcasm, music, literature, history...the list could go on and on ... and most important about myself. 

Maybe I need different authors and different books to start reading books again. Isn't Grandma Mazur the grandmother of Stephanie Plum? Are there books about grandma Mazur? If that's true I have my next book. 

[Karma]

I used to read a lot, but as I commented last time this discussion came up, FJ takes up a lot of my previous reading time.  I’ve started downloading audiobooks though - they’re great for when I’m on the train, or ironing, or like this weekend when I drove by myself three hours each day.  I’m listening to a Nicci French thriller at the moment, but I just finished listening to the Handmaid’s Tale and before that a novel set in colonial Australia which I really enjoyed (Sarah Thornhill if anyone wants to read an Australian book).  

[SapphireSlytherin]

10 hours ago, pandora said:

but for me one way to incorporate stories into my life when my head feels too busy to sit down and read is listening to audiobooks.

I can't "follow" audiobooks. My mind wanders. I listen to a couple of podcasts (and was even INTERVIEWED on one of the Harry Potter podcast I follow) and even those are a challenge to hold my attention.

 

 

[TheMustardCardigan]

I really like podcasts for my drive to work! Audiobooks might be good too.

[SapphireSlytherin]

41 minutes ago, TheMustardCardigan said:

I really like podcasts for my drive to work! Audiobooks might be good too.

That's the ONLY time I listen to them, but when I get to work I realize I've missed several key points because I was totally concentrating on my driving. I've always been that way, with driving - it's such an important task. I do nothing else while I'm driving - no phone, no text, no Internet, rarely even drinking coffee/water. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

17 hours ago, Nowyn said:

Fascinating! It is rare that person is very gifted in science but doesn't really read. At least in my experience. Thank you for answering!

Not really, there is a reason so many people take their ignorance/non reading as a badge of honor.  Arrogant people like what I'm seeing here who take reading as a sign of superiority.  Reading isn't a sign of genius. My coworker is a voracious reader, she is also one of the dumbest people I've ever met.  She's always reading a book, she goes though 3 or 4 a week. It isn't that you are reading it is what you are reading. 95% of what she reads is Harlequin romance novels, pure schlock, the other 5% was YA fiction. Now I don't knock YA fiction, so of it is very good, but it isn't normally a challenging read. She comments that it takes me 2 weeks or a moth or longer to read a book, what she doesn't realize is that i generally read 2 or 3 books at a time, with ADD reading one book at t time is nearly impossible, and the books I read are usually more than 200 odd pages so it takes longer to read 600 pages than 200 pages.

I also read insane amounts of news, I get 99% of my news from online print, just because I'm not reading books doesn't mean I'm not reading. My daughter hates to read books, but she's smart as hell, she's also a student so she's reading all day long for school.  She's going to University in the fall and was accepted as a pre dental student, on the track for dental school, so she is no slouch. 

My husband doesn't read books, but he also reads news and reads research online, he's always got his nose in his phone or tablet reading about this or that.  

TL;DR: Don't be so quick to judge people who don't read books, many of them read a ton of other stuff, they just aren't interested in physical books. 

[Scrabblemaster]

I like to listen to audiobooks. Mr. Scrabblemaster and I listened to many audiobooks I borrowed from the library, but I have one problem with them: We mostly hear them in the evening when we are already lying in bed...I fall asleep in about ten minutes. So the next evening Mr. S. has to listen the cd again, and yes, maybe the following evening again. The positiv aspect of this is, if I have problems to fall asleep I will select a ??? audio-cd and start sleeping right away. It's perfect. 

I could never listen to audiobooks while driving. 

Edit : My favourite audiobooks are the Harry Potter series, but it doesn't make sense to recommend them to you, because I only listened to the german version. They were read by a german actor and he did an absolutely brilliant job. 

[Nowyn]

21 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

Not really, there is a reason so many people take their ignorance/non reading as a badge of honor.  Arrogant people like what I'm seeing here who take reading as a sign of superiority.  Reading isn't a sign of genius. My coworker is a voracious reader, she is also one of the dumbest people I've ever met.  She's always reading a book, she goes though 3 or 4 a week. It isn't that you are reading it is what you are reading. 95% of what she reads is Harlequin romance novels, pure schlock, the other 5% was YA fiction. Now I don't knock YA fiction, so of it is very good, but it isn't normally a challenging read. She comments that it takes me 2 weeks or a moth or longer to read a book, what she doesn't realize is that i generally read 2 or 3 books at a time, with ADD reading one book at t time is nearly impossible, and the books I read are usually more than 200 odd pages so it takes longer to read 600 pages than 200 pages.

I also read insane amounts of news, I get 99% of my news from online print, just because I'm not reading books doesn't mean I'm not reading. My daughter hates to read books, but she's smart as hell, she's also a student so she's reading all day long for school.  She's going to University in the fall and was accepted as a pre dental student, on the track for dental school, so she is no slouch. 

My husband doesn't read books, but he also reads news and reads research online, he's always got his nose in his phone or tablet reading about this or that.  

TL;DR: Don't be so quick to judge people who don't read books, many of them read a ton of other stuff, they just aren't interested in physical books. 

I hope it isn't purely arrogance. I truly am surprised when people don't read. I do think intelligence does come to play but not reading doesn't make one stupid. In my experience, it is hard to find someone very gifted in some science who doesn't read because to become competent in it you usually have to read copious amounts. I also never mentioned books. I'm talking about reading. Articles, studies, reports, and fact all apply just to name a few. 

But mainly, for me, reading is integral. And it is so for most people I know very closely. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

@Nowyn I was just pointing out that reading is more than just books for a lot of people. Like my husband he is always reading, just never a book. But he is reading, news stories, magazine articles, product reviews. 

I have 3 friends who are PhD's, they read research papers and periodicals, but not a lot of books, because the information they need to stay on top of their field isn't in books, they need current information that is published frequently, like magazines and periodicals that come out weekly/monthly vs books that can take 6 months to a year to reach bookshelves. 

[SapphireSlytherin]

I have friends who refuse to read fiction, on the grounds that fiction is a "waste" of reading. To me, THAT is arrogance.

[Nowyn]

27 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

@Nowyn I was just pointing out that reading is more than just books for a lot of people. Like my husband he is always reading, just never a book. But he is reading, news stories, magazine articles, product reviews. 

I have 3 friends who are PhD's, they read research papers and periodicals, but not a lot of books, because the information they need to stay on top of their field isn't in books, they need current information that is published frequently, like magazines and periodicals that come out weekly/monthly vs books that can take 6 months to a year to reach bookshelves. 

It is good that you pointed that out. I just wanted to make sure I didn't fumble when I wrote and said something I don't mean. The point of the top of the field I was trying to make is that you have to read a lot of books first to get there. Then it is scientific journals/articles where the focus is. 

[lumpentheologie]

5 hours ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

I can't "follow" audiobooks. My mind wanders. I listen to a couple of podcasts (and was even INTERVIEWED on one of the Harry Potter podcast I follow) and even those are a challenge to hold my attention.

 

 

I'm exactly the same---I read and write for a living (and rarely have time to read any fiction these days) but I couldn't follow an audiobook if my life depended on it.  I'm an visual-spatial learner, though, and I really really prefer reading to listening in basically every aspect of life. It's gotten to the point where I even watch netflix with the subtitles on because I hate straining to make sense of what people are saying. This would never have occurred to me except that my fiancé isn't a native English speaker and he understands better having subtitles on---but now I like it so much that I even do it by myself. 

[mango_fandango]

3 hours ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

I have friends who refuse to read fiction, on the grounds that fiction is a "waste" of reading. To me, THAT is arrogance.

That was exactly Erika Shupe’s attitude to fiction. She, and many other fundies, have the mindset that you have to be constantly learning (if you’re not reading Biblical stuff of course). She was more “liberal” with regards to books in that she allowed her kids to read some fiction, but it was heavily controlled. Fantasy and romance were the main no-nos. She herself didn’t do fiction as there was “always so much new material to read”. I think, in the fundie world, reading fiction is akin to TV or movies, in that it’s just mindless escapism, which risks you coming across “unsuitable” stuff, when you could be keeping your mind sharp by learning out of a non-fiction book. 

Whilst I agree that learning is a good thing, sometimes all you want to do is grab an old favourite and just escape. Everyone needs downtime!