Q&A with Josh Lanyon discussion
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What else are you reading? (June 2010 - May 2013) *closed*
Christine wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Emanuela ~plastic duck~ wrote: "Today I got #2, #3, #4, #9 and #12, I hope Fadeout will arrive soon :)"Yay! :)"Johanna and Manu--Yay!
You guys may soon surpass me. I finished #..."
I am reading The Archeron my kindle and audio.
I am reading Death Claims (#2) in print. I didn't realize there were a bunch of us reading these! =D
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I have quite a few. Little Downy Duckling b..."
Absolutely it makes sense. We are what we read -- especially at an early age -- which is why it's so important that the young read a wide variety of things.
And why book burning is so popular some places.
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What a jump! How frustrating! Still, how exciting to see them being translated!
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5 stars (I hate ratings!)"
Yay for Rhys! :-)
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After you posted that you ordered your copy, I ordered mine from one of the Amazon connected dealers. It was just under $50, "used/good." The copy has a small bend in the front cover and slightly discolored page edges, but looks OK otherwise. I'll need to use my beading magnifier to read the text. ;-)
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I have quite a few. Little D..."
This reminds me of something... My parents have told me that when I was very young, a child, I never fell asleep when I was read to. You know the way parents use fairytales as a mean to get their children to sleep — goodnight stories. My mom, dad and my godmother used to take turns to read to me, but they all grew tired of reading before I fell asleep. I only fell asleep after my mother sang to me, but never to reading.
The same thing goes for today too. I can easily read all night through, but reading never tires me so that I would get sleepy. I was wondering if you guys are like this too, because I've never met anyone who is...
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Hmmm, I'm still only seeing Mind Fuck as a $10 ebook on U.S. Amazon. The others listed are the $15 Casperian print copies. I actually ordered the full print set from Casperian after reading the series online a year or so ago. They are beautifully designed, there are a few extra shorts, and I'm kind of a fanatic (yep) about things that resonate with me.
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After you posted that you ordered your copy, I ordered mine from on..."
Cool. :) And hey, don't you worry, the text isn't as small as I imagined it to be!
ETA: Sorry, I first thought that you just ordered it, but you got your copy already, right?
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After you posted that you ordered your copy, I ordere..."
Thanks for not calling me "copy cat." 'Cause I was one. )
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I have quite a ..."
I do fall asleep reading, but that's true about not falling asleep as a kid. I would just keep begging for one chapter more. :-)
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This is exactly what I did after reading The Administration at first as files. And I agree, those covers are beautiful and the design of the whole print series is spot on.
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I was wondering if I would fall asleep while listening to an audio book... so far that hasn't happened, but if I'd try really hard... ;)
Josh wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Josh wrote: "Pender wrote: "Josh wrote: "So I was wondering how many of you have tried to hunt down half-remembered favorites from your childhood. Do you have any books like that?"..."
I am actually on that just one chapter more stage still :). Sometimes it gets very late..
Johanna wrote: "Josh wrote: "Johanna wrote: "Josh wrote: "Pender wrote: "Josh wrote: "So I was wondering how many of you have tried to hunt down half-remembered favorites from your childhood. Do you have any books..."I can't remember falling asleep while being read to. For me it was always a treat, not a method to be apeaced. I wouldn't want to miss a second and I would beg for more all the time. :)
Re audio books: When I was new to listening to audio books I sometimes fell asleep when in bed. So I concluded that they would be the perfect way to find sleep when needed. Strangely, it never worked again... ;)
Karen wrote: "Hmmm, I'm still only seeing Mind Fuck as a $10 ebook on U.S. Amazon. The others listed are the $15 Casperian print copies."That is because I helpfully gave you a bad link. I assumed - without looking! - that the Manna Francis page would have all of her books, but no. Try the link below, or just search Manna Francis in the Kindle store.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_...
Johanna wrote: "The same thing goes for today too. I can easily read all night through, but reading never tires me so that I would get sleepy. I was wondering if you guys are like this too, because I've never met anyone who is..."I was never read to when I was a child. My family was rather poor, we had a small, chilly house, and my brother and I slept in our grandmother's room. My poor nonna wanted to sleep because she woke up very early, so no light and no books. My dad bought me books when he traveled and I read them until they fell apart. I read everywhere, every second. When it was time to go to bed, I took my book, sat on the lower steps of the staircase but not too low, so my parents couldn't see me and I could use the light from the kitchen, and I stole a few pages, until my grandmother called me because I wasn't in bed yet :D
Reading before sleeping makes me more alert. I had a boyfriend who fell asleep while reading, book falling on the floor and all. I should have known at once it would never last between us ;)
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LOL
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I've been struggling with insomnia lately. I should try audio books. See if that helps.
Antonella wrote: "Thank you for the rec, it looks like quite a few reliable people fell in love with the book!"It does have some first-timer's flaws, Antonella and Pender. The dialogue can be stilted and oddly formal, especially when it involves teenagers. Tedious detailed descriptions of time-filler action and unimportant things like clothing have made me skim over quite a few paragraphs. So far I'm not inclined to rave about the book, but it promises to be a compelling story.
At least the author has grammar and punctuation down-pat. (Hallelujah!) With some rigorous trim-the-fat editing and the help of sharp beta readers, his talent could really shine.
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LOL. So there are people like me after all. I'm amongst soul mates. :)
By the way, your former boyfriend sounds a lot like hubby... maybe I should be scared... ;)
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Maybe an extremely boring audio book...? ;)
ETA: I have a particular book in mind, but I'm not going to say it out loud...
ETA2: I found listening to poems very soothing, but I didn't fall asleep listening them.
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Yeeowch! :-D
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Poetry and picture books are both good calmer downers. ;-)
And Joan Hickson's Miss Marple. I don't know why, but whenever I'm sick I put on those old Miss Marple's. I think something about Joan Hickson reminds me of both my grandmothers, although neither were much like Miss Marple!
And I have a Pandora channel called Meditation by the Sea that's very soothing. Except the light from the TV bothers me.
Jordan wrote: "Susinok wrote: "I read Dirty Secret by Rhys Ford. Sequel to Dirty Kiss. This one was a very good mystery with a lot of insight into how Koreans view homosexuality.5 stars (I hate ratings!)"
I totally agree. Both Dirty Kiss and Dirty Secret were great reads. I think book #3, Dirty Laundry, is coming out later this year...
Johanna wrote: "The same thing goes for today too. I can easily read all night through, but reading never tires me so that I would get sleepy. I was wondering if you guys are like this too, because I've never met anyone who is..."I try not to read in bed because I have no self-control. I'll read until the book's finished even if I am tired. I've never actually fallen asleep while reading.
If it's a book I haven't read before, it's a real struggle for me to put a book down—dishes don't get done, dinner is late—so I usually don't start a new book unless my schedule's clear for a while. I find I can finish most ebooks the same day, which is why I rarely update what I'm reading on this thread. I'm usually between books.
Josh wrote: "And Joan Hickson's Miss Marple. I don't know why, but whenever I'm sick I put on those old Miss Marple's. I think something about Joan Hickson reminds me of both my grandmothers, although neither were much like Miss Marple!..."My whole family likes Joan Hickson's Miss Marple. I think she's the Grandmother we all secretly want to have.
ETA: Ouch. Just realized that's kind of a slight against some of the women in my family, but it wasn't intended that way.
Josh wrote: "Calathea wrote: "Re audio books: When I was new to listening to audio books I sometimes fell asleep when in bed. So I concluded that they would be the perfect way to find sleep when needed. Strange..."If you start a new book, it might not help and keep you awake. But if you listen to it the second or third time, you can actually relax and listen. I know I have mentioned it before, but I use TextAloud (Text to speech converter)by NextUp.com with NeoSpeech Paul16. It is really very good. If anyone is interested, I have a few tips to pass on to make it even better. Just let me know, or PM me.
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That is because I helpfully gave you a bad link. I assume..."
Ooh, thanks. I'm happy to see this. I think it will bring more readers to this series, unless they can't find that page. I wonder how Amazon manages to do these things.
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When I was listening to audio books over the holidays and recovering from my concussion, I sometimes fell asleep, but that was due to the drugs. Kind of interesting trying to locate where I was last consciously listening...
Pender wrote: "Now you've got me wondering if there are any (bad) books I might have read at an impressionable age that affected my approach to things..."Good point! I've always tended to stop reading a book I thought was bad (although I used to feel guilty about it), but I suppose a book could be very readable and enjoyable but also include a "bad" message. The best example which comes quickly to mind is that I read the whole of Enid Blyton as a child, and she gets criticised for sexism and some racism. Her views did not infect mine, even at a very young age. I always thought Anne was an annoying wimp and Julian was way too bossy! I didn't buy into the "only the boys can do this" stuff.
But I can't remember where I learned that feminist approach. Not from my parents or from any book I can remember. I think I must have just based it on my perception of myself and my own abilities plus a very well developed sense of fairness; "it's not fair!" was my constant cry. Plus ca change.
Josh wrote: "Absolutely it makes sense. We are what we read -- especially at an early age -- which is why it's so important that the young read a wide variety of things.And why book burning is so popular some places..."
Absolutely. And censorship.
Johanna wrote: "This reminds me of something... My parents have told me that when I was very young, a child, I never fell asleep when I was read to. You know the way parents use fairytales as a mean to get their children to sleep — goodnight stories. My mom, dad and my godmother used to take turns to read to me, but they all grew tired of reading before I fell asleep. I only fell asleep after my mother sang to me, but never to reading.The same thing goes for today too. I can easily read all night through, but reading never tires me so that I would get sleepy. I was wondering if you guys are like this too, because I've never met anyone who is... ..."
You are not alone. I never went to sleep while being read to. Mind you, I never went to sleep to singing or anything else either.
And I can read all night (and do). I would get into trouble as an older child allowed "just one more chapter" because I honestly never notice chapters ending and beginning.
Josh wrote: "I've been struggling with insomnia lately. I should try audio books. See if that helps..."I find it helps mainly because it passes the time with less stress than if you're lying there thinking of all the reasons why you can't sleep! The best thing is to listen to a book you know well, because it's soothing and eventually you may well drop off to sleep. Strong Poison did it for me the other day!
Today I got Brandstetter #1-5-6-7-8, only 10 and 11 missing :)
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But audio books allow me to concentrate on one thing, which chases away the chattering brain and puts me to sleep. It's rather nice.
And yeah, my parents read to me, but they would stop before I fell asleep, because they were reading novels, and I didn't want to miss anything happening.
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No, no. I think one reason that's an effective portrayal is it's recognizable.
It's nice to compare our reading habits.Poor me never had anybody reading to her, but was encouraged to read. In my teens though I had to get up very early in the morning to go to hight school, so I couldn't read indefinitely. Hence troubles with my parents telling me to switch off the light and me reading under the blankets.
Nowadays I see that they were right. I don't have any kind of self control concerning reading.
When I lived with my then husband, we would both tell each other: ''Let's go to sleep'', and after a good while we would manage it. But when we separated there wasn't any control anymore, so I went on reading till very late for some months. Soon I developed different kinds of annoying health troubles (a cold which would go away, a fungal foot infection, when I had never had one, and so on) IMO connected to my general weakness due to the lack of sleep.
So now I try to keep track of my reading habits, and avoid going to bed too late too many days in a row.
My record is starting reading in the evening and going on till 5 a.m. I'm sure I could do better ;-)).
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I think that's the key. The tiring part of not sleeping is the way your brain jumps around from thought to thought. If I was lying there constructively solving all my worries and concerns, it would be time well spent. ;-) It doesn't work like that though.
My parents always read to my siblings and me, not in bed but before bedtime. I continued that with my own kids, and it is still a warm memory from my own childhood and early parenthood, to sit in the sofa in the arm of an adult or with children in my arms and being read to and to read to them. I still do this with the smaller kinfolk in my family. It was always a good way to calm a rowdy child before bedtime, reading a book or singing. My oldest got a book with children's songs when he was a baby, we used to work our way through it in the evening.I always sang to them in bed before kissing them good night and turn off the light :)
Even after my kids learned to read themselves, they still wanted to be read to. The last book I read for my son was the collection of the brothers Grimm's fairy tales, they are rather grim some of them, he loved that I read them to him, but I think they were to frigthening for him to read by himself.
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Poor me never had anybody reading to her, but was encouraged to read. In my teens though I had to get up very early in the morning to go to hight school, s..."
Sleep and diet! That's the key to health, yeah.
Oh well, and exercise. Which does tend to disrupt reading!
Like Antonella, no one ever read to me when I was a kid, but I used to bring a flashlight to bed and read under the duvet... These days, I read every night before going to sleep, but I think I read the most when I wake up on weekends and just stay in bed for hours to read, until its almost noon and my stomach complains...
Poetry used to lull me, even when I was a child. My parents had a Rudyard Kipling volume (which I'm sure they never read), and I'd pore over the poems to the point of memorization then recite them to myself. I found the rhythms enchanting.My taste level has risen since then. ;-)
thelastaerie wrote: "Like Antonella, no one ever read to me when I was a kid, but I used to bring a flashlight to bed and read under the duvet... These days, I read every night before going to sleep, but I think I r..."
That is my favorite on Saturdays and Sunday mornings, to sit in bed with a pot of coffee, my I-pad and Kindle and the newspapers plus my diary, to read and write and drink coffee in bed. For hours.
I am enjoying reading about everyone's experience reading and being read to before bed. :)I didn't really get read to before bed. Instead, my dad told me stories that he made up on the spot. Usually, they were based on TV shows I liked, such as the Flintstone Kids. It was fun. He did all the character voices and he wove me into the story, making it interactive. The characters and I got into all sorts of mischief. ^.^
Reading fiction keeps me up before bed (case in point, lost about 3 hours last night to a book I didn't mean to start yet...), and funnily enough, writing fiction puts me to sleep if I do it late at night. I came to the other night with many lines of "iiiiiiiiii" in my manuscript. I blinked away, deleted them, and finished my darned 1k goal...but not before slipping into near-dream a couple of times again... Sometimes, I'll fall over myself finishing my word goal, then pull out a book while I eat my bedtime snack and totally wake myself up again. *facepalm*
Josh wrote: "Jordan wrote: "But audio books allow me to concentrate on one thing, which chases away the chattering brain and puts me to sleep..."I think that's the key. The tiring part of not sleeping is the way your brain jumps around from thought to thought. If I was lying there constructively solving all my worries and concerns, it would be time well spent. ;-) It doesn't work like that though...."
Yes, and if you're lucky you'll dream about the audiobook rather than what's worrying you.
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K.Z. wrote: "Poetry used to lull me, even when I was a child. --- I found the rhythms enchanting."
Yes, this is how I (still) feel about poetry audiobooks. If anyone has any recommendations on those, I would be more than glad to try them!
Reading was a huge priority for my family. My grandmother was a Highschool English teacher and my Dad was a "Renaissance Man"- science, math, history, literature. So I have lots of great memories of being read to and lots of very interesting discussions around the dinner table. How many people discuss Greek lit/Freud/ Jungian symbolism around the dinner table? I didn't think it was so great when I was growing up *grin*, but now I see how fortunate I was.Reading was never regulated. If we wanted to read all night, no problem. We could read whatever we wanted, no problem. Our TV time was limited until I was in highschool.
So I did the same with my kids. They could read as much as they wanted. I never got on their case for staying up reading. They aren't huge readers as adults, but they always have a book going. We are going to start the Dresden files this summer when college is out. =D
Josh wrote: "I've been struggling with insomnia lately. I should try audio books. See if that helps. "What helped me to relax enough to fall asleep while listening to an audio book is that the apps I use to play them have this sleep modus. When the phone hasn't been moved for a set time the sound will fade out and the story stop. So I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night with the story still playing and I knew that I wouldn't miss too much should I fall asleep. It's way more difficult to find the place where you left off in an audio book than in a real or e one. :)
Calathea wrote: "Josh wrote: "I've been struggling with insomnia lately. I should try audio books. See if that helps. "What helped me to relax enough to fall asleep while listening to an audio book is that the ap..."
Yep, and I listen to stories I have already read and I put the volume down really low so I have to concentrate very hard to hear it......zzz,zzzz,zzz
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Q&A with Josh Lanyon
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Yay! :)"
Johanna and Manu--Yay!
You guys may soon surpass me. I finished #2 and have yet to order more. Will soon, though.