On Thursday, September 16th, Booking through Thursday asked:
“I couldn’t sleep a wink, so I just read and read, day and night … it was there I began to divide books into day books and night books,” she went on. “Really, there are books meant for daytime reading and books that can be read only at night.” — Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, p. 103.
Do you divide your books into day and night reads? How do you decide?
For me, any spare moment is a good time to read, so no, I don’t divide my books into daytime vs. nighttime reading, but I do tend to have some titles I’m willing to travel with, and some I don’t.
Maybe it’s my version of my grandmother’s admonishment to always wear clean underwear, in case you’re ever in an accident, but there are some books I won’t read outside the safe confines of my house, and other’s I’ll proudly carry with me. For example, Harry Potter books generally stay home, and not only because they’re bulky, as do the occasional Silhouette romance novel I’ll admit to reading, but novels like Sarah’s Key, a recent favorite, I’ll carry with me everywhere.
Now that I’m a proud Kindle owner, carrying books is easier, because I have just one thin piece of technology to port around, although I have to wonder if the people who write car insurance quotes are keeping up with our addiction to such techy toys when they generate pricing. I know that some police forces, the one in Cincinnati, OH, are leaving security warnings on cars around town, reminding people to take their computers, cell phones, eBook readers and GPS devices with them (or at least hide them in the trunk), when they leave home, but it’s got to be a nightmare when break-ins do occur and there are those gadgets to catalog.
Speaking of books on the road – and car insurance nightmares – my stepfather was prone to visiting library discard sales and taking home pretty much anything he deemed interesting. At some point my mother issued an edict – he wasn’t allowed to take anything else home – so he kept stashing books in the trunk of his car, to the point where the weight of them made the car sluggish and non-responsive – an accident waiting to happen. Of course, this would be the car that was stolen by a couple of kids who just wanted to take a joy ride…it was eventually found with a jammed ignition and a note from the kids, “This car sucks.”
Insurance paid for all the repairs.
The books were still in the trunk.