I can't read. And now I'm part of a reading club?
Sunday, September 30, 2012 Here's a fun fact: the only reason this blog exists is because I can't read. The moment I open a book, I can't make it more than five pages before my face is planted nose deep into the spine, drooling. I'm sexy and I know it. This proved to be problematic back in 2007, when I had a two-hour LA Metro train ride to work. The Metro doesn't exactly traverse the "wish you were here" LA hotspots. When you fall asleep and miss your stop, all you wish for is your mommy. Blogging meant I could stay awake, and that led to good things like getting to work on time, and also not being dead.
My kid used to take advantage of this affliction of mine. He'd pick the longest story possible at bedtime (i.e. longer than 5 pages) just to make me dream talk. You know what I mean, right? You know when you're on the phone with someone and you're dead tired and you start dreaming and say something totally non-sensical, and then they're like "what did you just say?" and then you wake up just enough to kind of remember what came out of your mouth, at which point you scramble to explain what you just said, as if you totally meant to say it? "Um, you were talking about back stabbing friends and I said pickle sunny side up ergonomic because everyone knows you can't eat on a Sleep Number bed, yet I have jerk friends who come over and eat breakfast on it. And to add insult to injury they add gherkins to that bullshit! God! Don't you hate that?"
So, getting back to my original point, Fury used to make me read long books to him because he knew that five pages in, Peter Rabbit would be riding the cashmere pineapple Pythagorean theorem. His squeals of laughter were totally worth the feelings of complete parental ineptitude that this phenomenon would trigger, however.
In addition to the above, I also have to admit that I can't do fiction. Just never got into it. With a few exceptions (pretty much all having the name Stephen King attached to them), I have never enjoyed, nor appreciated fiction. I read true crime books. I read history. I read business, pop psych, biographies, memoirs... but fiction? Never appealed to me. When I read, I feel like I need to learn something. Fiction isn't true. Therefore, it is a waste of my time. I know this is wrong, and I know movies are fiction and I enjoy those. What's life without inconsistencies?
I recently bought The Final Storm for a plane ride, thinking it was a WWII history book. When I found out it was fiction, I tried to read it on the plane anyway. Big mistake. After every sentence, my brain countered with "you know, Jim, this never happened." I fell asleep three times and got through about 30 pages before accepting that I hated it. If you did the math, that's twice my reading endurance. This proves that I tried.
So now I'm part of an online book club.
Say what??
This is a good time to give you my FTC disclosure statement: I said no at first. I said I don't like to read because I fall asleep after five pages. I said I don't like fiction either, which means half the catalog is dead to me. They said they would pay me. I was between jobs at that time. I said "ok, keep talking." They said that this is a reading app that lets you write comments in the margins as you read; and your friends who are also reading the same book can read your comments, and you can read theirs. It's like live tweeting a book! It's like a sidebar conversation. It's like the filmmaker's commentary on a DVD. Plus, I could pay the electric bill. Done.
Real-time social reading. This is the answer to all my reading problems. Being able to read your friends' notes on each page is like having that friend who makes conversation with you in the car so you don't fall asleep at the wheel. And that is what the Copia social e-reading tool is all about. And a 6-paragraph preamble is what I'm all about. Bullet points are nice too:
- Copia is device agnostic. It's not going to iPad heaven, but it'll have a good time on any platform while it's here. It'll even work on a web browser.
- You can buy millions of book titles direct from the site. I just read Escape from Camp 14. It's a memoir of the only person to ever escape from a North Korean labor death camp. You will never look at life the same way ever again. Don't say I didn't warn you.
- If your friends are reading the same book, you can read their notes in the margins as you read. So in the case of Escape from Camp 14, I fully expect to see notes like "Jim I hate you" "I am now depressed for life. Thanks a lot, Jim" and "Kim Jong Il can suck it!"
- If you go to someone's profile page, there's a cool Venn diagram thing that shows how their library overlaps yours. That's the kind of dangerous technology that causes soulmates.
- Copia got a whole bunch of us parent bloggers together for this, so if you're into that kind of thing, check out the Copia Parents Book Club.
- You can also set up impromptu reading groups with your friends on Copia. Some of us decided to read the same book at the same time to take advantage of the real-time commenting feature. Feel free to join MrLady, Redneckmommy and LaidOffDad and me in our splinter group, Tanis, Doug, Jim, and Shannon Do Books. I believe you need to be logged in for that group link to work, but getting an account is free.
You may have noticed that the book we decided to read is a work of fiction. That's because Doug picked it and I'm trying to remain open to new frontiers. Just note that if you happen to be reading Telegraph Avenue with us, you might see a comment that reads jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjafvirwj'bvowirtjrq. Just be thankful Copia hasn't yet figured out how to share drool.
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If you want to jump into the pit with us, or simply enjoy agnostic reading, leave a comment and share with me one book you've been wanting to read by Friday, Oct 5 11:59pm PST (leave the comment by then, not finish the book by then). I will draw TEN lucky winners to receive any book of their choice through Copia. So get a book, fire up the iPad/iPhone/Droid/laptop and join us!
Reader Comments (20)
I am, right this minute, looking at my To Be Read Pile, or TBRP for those of us who devour books. There are at least 45 books in the pile, not including the two in my car. I am struggling through Swamplandia, considering re-reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (read it!) and looking forward to some of the titles I have by Elizabeth Berg. That was way more than you asked for, but there you go. Books for the win!
Um, I wanna read Telegraph Avenue. ;-) But I'm in the middle of A Dance With Dragons. And I'll let some others of the English major variety attack you first on the whole "fiction doesn't teach" tip. ;-P
wow that sounds awesome!! I just wanted an e-reader (as I took all your fiction fan genes) and I know way too many book fans I could connect to. This would be good since my bookclub (as in, with people all in the same room, yes strange concept) is usually across town and you remember what it's like to drive across LA. I've been horribly lazy about making it through my booklist and every year it's my resolution to make a serious dent but I never do. I have my new library membership and got books like we did back in the day but carrying around Tolkien makes for a good bicep workout. SO, as I ramble, I want an e-version and want to put a bunch of both fiction and non on there. I could start with seven books that both Fury and I have read 1000 times each :)
Gone Girl. Everyone says it's awesome. And, because I am a lemming, I must join Everyone.
I want Mei in our book club, please and thank you. If I have to read marketing crap, I'mma need her to help me.
LOL mr lady! yeah marketing is the ultimate fiction out there, JIM. Inconsistencies......re-commenting since I didn't post a specific book up here. One thing on my list is Finding Ultra. It's non-fiction and about a guy who hits 40, decides he's out of shape, and starts going nuts, and is now one of the fittest men in the world, doing ultra-triathalons around the world.
i've heard "the $100 start up" is good. i also never read "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance." i'd like to read that finally.
This would be fun to try with "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, seeing as how the movie is coming out in a couple months. Will this work on a Nook? That's my eReader, ever since someone stole my Kindle Fire. AT THE LIBRARY! Blargh . . .
I'm in. I'm just like you. Except that I love to read. Love it. Read all the time, so I'm really nothing like you - especially because my preferred reading is fiction. So, wait - I'm kind of like you because NON FICTION makes me sleep and drool.
and it's so not pretty when I do that while I'm reading on the iPad.
:)
I want to read 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, but I am intimidated. It's sitting on my bookshelf and ever so big. And I like fiction!
Wanting to read.... Video Night in Katmandu. My aunt recommended it to me. I am not a huge non-fiction reader but I like "travel" related stuff. (I enjoyed The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Getting Stoned with Savages, and Lost on Planet China...all by J. Maarten Troost... if you like tha tkind of thing!)
May I suggest a fabulous non-fiction book regarding WW2 that actually reads like fiction, so you might be able to deceive your brain because it's all true? Unbroken by Laura Hildebran. Oh my, after being done with that, I was sick and ill and amazed all at once.
Hmm, yes, I followed the yellow brick road from Tanis to Shannon to you. I told one of them I've always wanted to read Anna Karenina but it is daunting. But for you, I'll pick something non-fictiony. Like, I would like to read a book about Peter the Great of Russia - I'm sort of on a Russian kick right now.
This sounds like fun. I've been looking forward to getting into Jim Butcher's Ghost Story. Have it sitting on the shelf already too.
Don't have a lot of available time to commit to reading but the club sounds like it would be fun to do. I can absolutely relate to the sleepiness factor though.
http://papee.net/2012/10/05/im-an-incoherent-zombie/
The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. It is amazing.
the new junot diaz, "this is how you lose her." it's a collection of short-form fiction, but maybe the stories aren't long enough to actually put you to sleep and allow you to drool through them. maybe.
Oh I love online book clubs! I am in between books right now so have no idea which one I would get.
mark of athena . ireadaloud.com
I started reading 1Q84, but had to give it back to the library before I was 10 pages in. It's on my list of books to try again, though.
I also want to read Cloud Atlas, because I want to see the movie, because I'm an idiot?