The Lair

There are people who love being read to – that is, someone else sits down with a book or magazine or newspaper in front of them and reads aloud. I know several people who like this.

I’m not one of them.

I have often wondered if my childhood had anything to do with this (it probably did, we are all influenced by our childhood in some way or the other). My parents never read aloud to me. Not that I feel the lack at all, I was always given a book – or found myself one – and read it. There was never a question of someone else performing the labour intensive activity of actually reading to me, I’d read it myself thank you very much.

Why is this a problem now? Because I am completely unaccustomed to someone reading an entire book to me now. I simply cannot concentrate on the contents of the book, nor does it make it easy for me to visualize what is going on when I have to concentrate on the next words being read. When I am reading text off a page (or a screen), it’s easy. I read at my own pace. When someone else is going the reading for me, it’s pure torture. It’s always either too slow or too fast or just plain “uh. yeah, what did you just say? because I wasn’t listening”.

Which is a pity – because in my seemingly unquenchable thirst for new things to read, I have discovered that an mp3 player and a podcast directory, or an audiobook directory or two can be very useful assets. For most. For me? Well, I don’t have the patience to listen to podcasts. Not even when I’m driving and stuck in traffic. Give me a transcript any day.

Perhaps it’s an acquired ability.