I stayed up past two a.m. last night happily churning through a book. Reading seems timeless to me. It puts me in a book-related fugue state that used to get me in trouble in elementary school because the class would move on from reading time to math yet I remained oblivious, completely absorbed in my book. It still causes me trouble. I have no idea how many minutes or hours have elapsed when I finally lift my eyes from the page. That’s not helpful. No matter how late I stay up reading I still have to get up early.
When my kids were very tiny I only let myself read when they were asleep or nursing. Okay, I also read while they were safely strapped in the stroller, pushing it with a book propped against the handle. I hoped this would keep them safe from their mother’s zombie reading state. Actually it didn’t. Now they’re zombies when they read. Or maybe they pretend to be, the better to filter out reminding parental voices…
As Ariane wrote recently on GeekMom, the books we read can’t be unread.
I’d like to think every book changes you a little bit. You can’t unread it. Once it’s read you will carry that book around with you somewhere in the recesses of your mind for the rest of your life. Can our lives be summed up as a compilation of the books we’ve read, a queue of stories that make us unique?
We here at GeekMom have found that’s true on a profound level. When we looked back at our favorite childhood books we found they’d had a significant impact in shaping our attitudes, interests, career choices, and self-image. I consider the wonderful crop of books available today and wonder how our children will incorporate those storylines and those characters into the adults they are becoming.
As for me, I feel pretty zombified today with only a few hours of sleep due to The Night Circus, a novel with magical appeal.
Perhaps because I’m tired, it occurs to me that books lure us into this zombification. Think about it. Close scrutiny of readers reveals that we willingly zone out, only our eyes moving in oddly repetitive back and forth motions. While reading we are out of our own minds, happily roaming through the imaginings of someone else’s. Perhaps our beloved books build brains to feed on them. If that were true I’d say, “Nosh away my dear books. Make a buffet of my mind. I am your happy zombie.”
As a teacher, I reserve that wonderful zombified state of reading into the night for summer break. I have The NIght Circus on my list of must read soon. Maybe the next time I have a 3 day weekend.
That’s me. I keep asking people to give me money so I don’t have to work. There are too many books to be read. I’m reading Austen! I don’t have time for a job. But, I get sleep deprived and go to work anyway, and then read when I get home. Another great article, Laura.
I am totally a reading zombie! My husband jokingly says goodbye to me when I get a new book, since it’s usually impossibly to pull me out of a book once I get into it. I’ve been like this as long as I can remember — my first F was on a spelling test in third grade when I didn’t realize one was happening, so I had to turn in a blank paper.
My younger brother said he used to have nightmares that he ran through the house yelling a family member had been kidnapped, but I, his trusty older sister, only mumbled “that’s nice” and kept on reading.