Booking Through Thursday Interview

Every week Deb at Booking Through Thursday asks readers a bookish question or two. Or – this week – 15!

If you feel inspired to put your answers to these interview questions in a post on your own blog, please link to the original site Booking Through Thursday: Interview, Part 2.

Here are the questions with my answers:

1. What’s your favorite time of day to read?

It varies, depending on what else I have to do.

2. Do you read during breakfast? (Assuming you eat breakfast.)

The newspaper. Not books (not usually, anyway).

3. What’s your favorite breakfast food? (Noting that breakfast foods can be eaten any time of day.)

Tea with bread (toasted or not) and cheese and fruit.

4. How many hours a day would you say you read?

Can’t say. If you only count printed novels/fiction there are days when I do not read at all. And others when I do read for hours. But if you also count audio books (which I do!) it could be anything between half an hour to several hours, depending on what I have going. And if you add the newspaper and various internet texts (like blogs) then I read more.

5. Do you read more or less now than you did, say, 10 years ago?

An accident in the year 2000 that led to chronic neck pain was a major shift in all of my habits – reading included. While it led to less reading of paper books, on the other hand it also led to a lot more listening to audio books.

6. Do you consider yourself a speed reader?

No not really. Perhaps a bit more so back in my study years.

7. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Super strong like Pippi Longstocking! This because I’ve been struggling so many years now with problems lifting and carrying…

8. Do you carry a book with you everywhere you go?

No! I carry as little as possible! (See above.) Nowadays I have an Android phone though, which can carry audio books at no extra weight… (hooray)

9. What KIND of book?

In the phone, usually some English classic because that’s what I have most of as audio mp3 files.

10. How old were you when you got your first library card?

Can’t remember. 13? Before that I borrowed books through school or with my mum. We lived in a village outside town. At 13 I started going to school in town.

11. What’s the oldest book you have in your collection? (Oldest physical copy? Longest in the collection? Oldest copyright?)

A novel for “young girls” that belonged to my maternal grandmother, printed in 1907, translated from German into Swedish. Author Luise Glass. The original German title is Im Krähennest from 1905 – In the Crow’s Nest. The book is very worn and almost falling apart. It was also read by my mother and my aunt in their childhood/youth. For me to read it in my childhood or youth was somewhat of an achievement since it’s in old Swedish spelling from before a spelling reform in 1906. (I also have my paternal grandfather’s school reader from 1910, there the shift has been made.)

12. Do you read in bed?

Yes.

13. Do you write in your books?

Sometimes. Mostly those I read for special study purposes though.

14. If you had one piece of advice to a new reader, what would it be?

Children just learning to read, or people who can read but just don’t…?? I guess to both I’d say: Read what you’re interested in!

15. What question have I NOT asked at BTT that you’d love me to ask? (please leave the answer to this one in the comments on Deb’s post, it’s she who is asking!)

I’ll have to think about that one! For now, I’ll just say that this interview could have been made to last 2 or 3 months… ;)