Heart at Home

I have discovered a new pleasure. Audio books. Ok, I know many of you out there have been enjoying them for years, but for me this is a new thing. I have always been a bit of a book snob. I like turning pages. I like seeing the paragraphs in front of me, the arrangement of the lines, knowing how much I have read, how much there is to go. I even flick to the last page, not to actually read it, but to see if the character I am worried about makes it onto the last page.

This week I downloaded my first book, and put it on my little iPod, to listen to while I knit outside choir. Last week, as I knitted in the silence of the car, I nearly drove myself crazy with thinking. I counted the rows and stitches, calculated how long it was taking me to knit a row, worked out how many rows I'd do in the hour, and raced the clock to finish them all before I had to get out and greet Christopher. It was all too much. I did not feel relaxed at all.

This week I listened to the opening chapters of Perfume, by Patrick Suskind. Wow! The book itself is very good, but I thinkthat the audio aspect really made the descriptive passages come alive for me. You know how sometimes, during a lengthy description or soliloquy, your eyes glaze over, and your mind wanders, and the next thing you know you have to turn back three pages and start again? Well, I don't do that when I am listening to a well written, well read passage! It's great.

Then, I am enjoying books in general this week. The night before last I finished The Great Gatsby, so that's the first book I can cross off my list! It was good, so brimming with mood, and an intersting portrayal of the flapper culture. Well worth reading.