When I think about my family, one characteristic that comes to mind is that we are all novel readers. At any given time, you can usually find one of us with a book in our hands. For as long as I can remember – and as long as she can remember, too – my mom has always been an avid reader. However, over the past year there has been a significant change in her reading practices. In October of last year, my mom underwent a double lung transplant, and ever since then she has noticed a significant decline in her desire to read. Before her transplant, she would read 1-2 books a month. She and my dad have particular series that they both read, so she would almost always be reading those. She chose other books to read by author. She has favourites, so she would stick to the ones she liked. She never had set times during the day that she would read. Being at home all day, she would read in between prepping meals, cleaning, while watching television, or at night when the house was somewhat quiet, but she never needed complete silence in order to read. She did not have any sort of preference regarding her mode of reading, as she liked reading both in print form and electronically using e-readers.
However, I never see a book in my mother’s hand these days. Being a post-op transplant patient, she was put on many different medications to ensure her body does not reject the lungs. When I asked my mom how this has affected her reading, she stated that it is next to impossible for her to maintain concentration long enough to read a page of a book, or even to remember what she just read. For a while she tried to get into a book, but she found that words would become blurry, and she would be re-reading the same sentence multiple times and the content still would not register. Over time she got frustrated and decided to give up reading for a while.
Growing up, I always envied my sister’s bookshelf. I do not remember a time in my life when it was not completely full – top to bottom, every shelf. My sister takes after my dad and is a very quick reader, as she is able to get through two or three books a month if she truly desires. Similar to my mom, my sister usually chooses the novel she reads by author. It is very rare for her to stray from her favourites unless she has been given a good recommendation. She did explicitly state was that she does not read books according to popular trends. For example, when everyone was reading the Twilight Saga or The Hunger Games trilogy in preparation for the films, she had read them long before. She will not read a series just because it is popular at the moment. She will, however, go through phases of reading. Often, she will read many books in a short period of time. After these phases, she stops reading for weeks because her concentration has decreased.
For most people, the bedroom is a place of relaxation and comfort and that is where most of their reading is done; my sister is no exception. Like me, my sister leaves her reading to the evening when the house is somewhat quiet and she can concentrate on her book, but she does not need complete silence. With two other people living in the house, her husband and myself, there is almost always a television on or someone making noise. Over the years, she has become attuned to requiring some sort of background noise to do anything, so absolute silence actually bothers her if she’s reading.
After speaking with some of my family members, it is clear that many of our reading practices are similar. Everyone has preferences and styles, but we seem to influence each other.
