Out Loud

During grad school, my husband and I gave up cable TV so we could afford to eat and to have high-speed internet access.  Back then, the little leisure time we did squeeze out, we filled with trips to the gym, the occassional movie, and reading aloud to one another.  Five years out of grad school, our habits remain pretty much unchanged.  The TV picks up a few more stations over the air, and Netflix instant view could turn us into zombies any day; but we still make it to the gym now and then, and we still read aloud to one another.

The first books we read together were Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy, old favorites from Jim's childhood.  I have to confess, if he fell asleep while I was reading, I'd sometimes skip ahead.  Sacrilege, I know, but I honestly didn't want to know all about the entwives.  We followed the trilogy with a few random picks, The Keep by F. Paul Wilson and Bernard Cornwell's Redcoat, among our favorites.

Our latest read is The Name of the Wind.  When I picked it up in the bookstore, I fell in love with its prologue, "A Silence of Three Parts"--the voice, the sense of place, and the idea that silence, which seems singular on the surface, could be so distinctly partitioned appealed to me.  Paragraphs of praise, which covered the back and inside pages of the book, couldn't persuade me as well as the author's own opening pages.  In truth, I've yet to glance at the critical acclaim.  Read out loud, Patrick Rothfuss' book has an enjoyable cadence plenty of novels lack.  Tonight it's my turn to listen!