Have you ever shared a book with someone by reading it aloud to them? I’m sure you have to your children and your grandchildren. I know I did. I loved those storybook reading times at night when my children were little. I can still remember my oldest two sitting on the edge of the bed together listening as I read a long book, chapter by chapter. Funny that I can’t remember the book, but it might have been Tom Sawyer. I do remember reading a line that said somebody was going to get a thrashing and I asked my son who might have been four or five if he knew what that meant. He said he thought somebody was going to throw trash all over them. We also read many library picture books and that same son could pretend read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel without missing a word because he had it memorized. Good book memories.
I then enjoyed reading to my grandchildren when they came to visit. Since I was a grandma, we sometimes read four or five books before it was time to sleep. Once, when my oldest granddaughter who probably did get the most spoiling was here, I read one of my young adult novels, all of it the same night. That girl never wanted to go to sleep.
Rudolph Ernst “Reading a Book”
But I have never sat down with an adult to read aloud to her or him. I considered it when I was sitting with Mom after she struggled with dementia, but that was too late. She could no longer follow a story line reading herself or listening. But I did have a reader tell me she’d read my book to her husband and sister-in-law who neither one were in good health.
Mom’s mother once told me that the best times of her life were when she and my grandfather would be sitting and reading together. Not aloud, but in the same room, each with a book in hand. I used that thought and feeling for Nadine and Victor in my Rosey Corner books.
I did have Ruth and Adria connect through books in my most recent novel, River to Redemption by reading aloud to one another. It wasn’t that unusual in those days when there were no televisions or radios. There were books and stories to share. But in my research for my current work in progress, I have been reading some of Emily Post’s Etiquette book. Here’s a bit of her piece on Manners at Home, from the 1922 edition.
In the present day of rush and hurry, there is little time for “home” example. To the over-busy or gaily fashionable, “home” might as well be a railroad station, and members of a family passengers who see each other only for a few hurried minutes before taking trains in opposite directions. The days are gone when the family sat in the evening around the fire, or a “table with a lamp,” when it was customary to read aloud or to talk. Few people “talk well” in these days; fewer read aloud, and fewer still endure listening to any book literally word by word.
I suppose the more things change, the more, in some ways, they stay the same. The mention of only a few hurried minutes for a family to be together before being off to more activities can certainly still ring true in this day and age. Now it’s sometimes hard for a family to find time to gather around a dinner table together. Talking is sometimes replaced by televisions or electronic devices with games and 
texts.
Movies are shared watching time but does anybody “endure listening to any book literally word by word?” Her use of the word “endure” makes me smile. And yet I think it might be nice to read aloud. I know some couples who do read books to one another while they are on road trips. My husband and I haven’t done that, but we have listened to audio books and let somebody else do the reading aloud.
Audible books seem to be getting more popular, so maybe we are ready to “endure” those books word by word. My two recent books, These Healing Hills and River to Redemption are both new Audible books. It’s fun to think about people listening to my books while they are riding in a car or maybe while doing chores around the house or just when they want to relax and let somebody else do the reading for them. River to Redemption has an attractive audio price right now an Amazon.
So have you ever read a book aloud to another adult? Do you ever listen to audio books?
Do you think sometimes we are in and out of that railroad station Emily Post mentions and don’t stop enough to enjoy family time?
As always, thanks for reading. Silently or aloud. 