Saturday, March 01, 2008

Saturday Morning Book Review

The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life: How to Get More Out of Books in Your Life and More Live From Your Books by Steve Leveen

This is an amazing little book. I listened to it yesterday and I have so many things I want to do now with my books and my reading. This is the first person I have encountered who feels about and uses audio books the way I do. I am going to do the review a little different today. I am just going to post the notes that I took as I was listening and then I am going to tell you some of my thoughts.

Notes:
Do you need more time to read and gain a larger life?

Take advantage of audio books

Leveen interviewed people who read to see how they chose their books and how they found time to read.

At mid-life Leveen found that the classics are not dry and hard to read.

There are over six million books in English.

To have lived a well-read life you must be in book love all your life. It is not based on the number of books you read.

You must live your well read life. You must choose the books you read. The right book can change your life and help you change the world.

How to choose a book.

How to create your reading library.

What books to check out of the library and which to buy.

Don't worry, its not too late to read the classics. If you read them when you are older, you bring life experience to your reading.

How to get more out of your reading. Engaged, active reading.

Leave a foot print in a book, write in them (another reason to buy your own books.) This will help you retain what you have read.

Why read a book if you are not going to remember anything from it.

This is an amazing book. Everyone who loves books has got to get this. Even if you don't think you like books you need Leveen's information on audio books alone.

If everyone took this approach to life and reading, I can't help to believe our world would be so much more civilized. You could have a mini book discussion while waiting to check out in the grocery store or waiting in a doctor's office. More people would have read more widely. It would just be great.

Those were my notes while listening. Although this book deals with however you enjoy reading books, I loved Leveen's love of audio books because I share it. My dear son and I found audio books at the beginning of our homeschool adventure. We were going to so many classes and get togethers, we were always in the car and plus we were both reading the same book for what ever book group he was in at the time. I wanted to read the book as well so that he would have someone to talk to about it as he read. You have no idea the joy of discussing a book, any book, with your child. You can use it as a teaching tool about how to live in the world because that is what books bring us. Now that I have returned to school to get my Masters in Literature, I download audio books of everything I am having to read for class. I listen as I read the paper copy and take notes. There is nothing better than listening to Shakespeare read by the Royal Shakespeare Theater or listening to Zora Nell Hurston, read by someone who knows how to make the dialect flow. You just can't get that beauty by reading in your mind. Plus I think the combination of visual, reading along with the paper book, and oral, listening to the audio book, creates a retention that you just can't get any other way. Yesterday when I was listening to this book, I took my knitting to Starbucks, got a cappachino, had my note book and pen at my side and listened, knitted my second sock and made notes. It was so much fun and so relaxing and so inspiring. Do yourself a favor, get this book and read it then get an audio book and try this for yourself. You will thank me.

You can get audio books from Amazon and from www.audible.com and I have added this must read to Favorites-Book Review. You can find out more about this book and Steve Leveen at www.yourwellreadlife.com

Happy, happy reading,
Laura

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