59. Baby Boomers Keep Books Keepin’ On

You’ve seen a lot of changes in the name of progress, such as email and overnight shipping stamping out – so to speak – traditional mail use and delivery. Then there’s Uber and Lyft overtaking taxis and limos while offering new inclusive employment opportunities. How about air b and b’s, or food and grocery delivery at the stroke of a few keyboard strokes. Texting … TikTok … FaceTime and Facebook … Indeed and LinkedIn apps and online communities vs. pounding the pavement with printed resumes and frequent job fairs. And then there’s the newspaper – once such an entrenched must-read that several cities had more than one attention-grabbing edition every day. And amid all that, well, what about books? Did you feel a visceral response at that question? “Not my books, too!” I would cry.

Well, it turns out we baby boomers hold the tradition of reading so dear that in a world of so many new choices with e-books and audio books, research and the numbers show we are reading more printed books than ever. And we know stories often feature heroes undergoing transformational change by the last chapters. That’s what life change is all about, of course. Today I have the privilege of sharing journeys of beloved reading by women at midlife, beyond and before. They make me smile, and I bet you will too.

P.S. Besides this podcast—I've got you covered with my free checklist, 3 Steps to Self-Start Your Weight Loss. To get your free copy and start losing like a boss, just ask for it via email to hello@laurieadamscoaching.com.

This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher. 

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Hi, and welcome to the Fire Up at 55 Plus Podcast, a show about how to put yourself first in your second act of life. I'm Certified Life and Weight Loss Coach Lori Adams, here to empower you to let go of guilt, take charge of your health, then find and fulfill your dreams. It's never too late, so let's get started. How do you connect with people? I know for those at Midlife Plus, we've seen a lot of different ways, and now we're very accustomed to email versus snail mail. Who wants that because mostly it's junk mail? It is nice to get a Christmas card or a thank you note. But really, we've seen that evolve. We've seen social media come into play. We've seen the demise of newspapers. We get our information quick. We get it online. But you would think because of that well, reading electronic, digital formats, guess what? Research is showing that many people find it easier to retain information when reading from a physical book. Or maybe you just prefer holding a physical book in your hand, turning pages, feeling the weight of the book in your hands. You know, they can also be easier on the eyes than reading on a screen for extended periods of time. Although I like my e-reader too. Audible, all kinds of things, all kinds of ways. But print books continue to be the most popular format for reading among adults in the US, with about sixty-seven percent of people surveyed having read a print book in the past year. And we've all seen the rise of book clubs. I know I belong in a couple, and even online. We have digital book clubs, I have some great sources online, modern Mrs. Darcy is one of my favorites, so is Goodreads, and also the PBS site dedicated to the Great American Read in 2018 that lists a hundred books that people chose. It was a popularity contest, and yet a lot of the classics were included, and a lot of more fun books too. I suggest you go to that site and see it. Anyway, so today I'm really excited because to me, summer reading is better than any other. There's just something about it. You get to go outside, sit maybe on a beach or by a pool or just under a tree in a park enjoy some time in nature with a great pastime that costs very little if you go to the library, especially. So I'm gonna start today's topic about reading in books with a child's poem. It was a school assignment and this young poet seized upon her love of books when the teacher said write about something you really enjoy. So just four sentences Words flash, pages fly, so fast yet slow, I wonder why. I take such pains to reach the end, then want to start and finish again. Well that's what reading's all about. You get into a book, sometimes it's slow when it starts, but if you really love it, you just keep going. And I've pulled some all nighters, you probably have two in your past, to get through a good book. Memoirs of a geisha, if you're interested. Anyway, this is something where you just can't stop yourself, and then when the book's done, you're like, oh my gosh, it's over. And sometimes you like to think about it, but pretty much you might just want to find another good book. So I decided to survey some people beyond those that have made great suggestions on our podcast, the guest experts. You can go back and hear almost any interview I've had with someone, I've asked them what books they like to read. And I went to my book club, and I also went to my family, most of whom are in my family book club, to talk to them about how they got started reading and how they started to love reading. And then I've added a few things about reading, and I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you think about maybe getting off the computer a little bit more and off your phone and immersing yourself in the joy of summer reading. It just seems more relaxed. So Lucia, the elder in our book club, many of whom are professors or teachers, said I loved reading from Dick and Jane in first grade. As a teen, I was enamored with Janet Lambert books. I still own some of them. I used to spend my allowance on a new book regularly by taking a bus to Marshall Fields' book section. The elderly clerks were so friendly and helpful. Now I belong to three book groups and read a wide variety of offerings, but my favorite genre is nonfiction as I love learning. Oh my gosh. Dick and Jane primers. Dick, Jane, and Sally were staples in early reading, first grade in my era. You probably remember that. Some of you may remember that they went on to other grades too. Were they exciting? Well, no. But it was exciting to learn to read using them. And when I could sound out the name of their cat, Puff. P U F F Well, that was thrilling. The Dick and Jane stories reached the height of their popularity in the 50s when 80% of first grade students in the United States were learning to read through these stories. And prior to that, a lot of schools used Bible stories, and nothing really wrong with that except that they were very intricate and had a lot of big words, and it was a little harder for people to get started. So I also looked up Janet Lambert, who Lucia admired, and I found out that she was an American actress and she authored 54 young adult fiction titles for girls from 1941 to 1969. Her works, best known for the Penny and Tippy Parrish series, focused on the lives and the coming of age choices of wives and children, especially the daughters of U.S. Army officers during World War II and the Korean War era. Thanks, Lucia. As the elder in our group, you keep us on our toes. So Lucia's daughter, 50-something Bev, is also in our group. She's a teacher and a great reader. She said she was hooked on the Happy Hollister series around second or third grade. I remember those. I think their books were read. I think they might have been like a family that maybe solved mysteries, but I probably should have looked that up. Anyway, she said she would usually read in bed during summer vacay with double popsicle wrappers strewn across the bed. As my fluency consolidated, Bev said I dove into books that my mom saved from her early teenage years. Rosamond Dujardin's Boy Trouble and Trixie Belden. The Red Tailor Mystery were favorites. Then came The Beloved Harriet the Spy and Imaginary Love Conversations with Pony Boy from The Outsiders. Okay, I'm pausing here to say right on, Bev. The Outsiders by Essie Hinton was written in nineteen sixty seven. She used, because her name was Susan, her initials, which was commonly done perhaps well not perhaps. Publishers urged it to have bigger sales because they thought that male writers would sell more. Anyway, it was about a gang, couple gangs, and Pony Boy. Well, you need to read the book if you haven't, because it is a standard and it has been going strong since I think she wrote it in nineteen sixty seven. It's also in the Great American Read website and on the list of finalists. As a young adult, Bev said, I was floored by the injustices with Grapes of Wrath and amused by Owen's unique humor in a prayer for Owen Meany. I know that's on the list. Today I read fiction less voraciously, but still get lost in the novels by amazing writers such as Wallace Stegner and Ernest Hemingway, and am lately appreciating nonfiction about World War II. So again, the Great American Read was an eight-part series broadcast in 2018 and hosted by Meredith Vera, probably known best for her role on the Today Show for many years. The read explored and celebrated the power of reading, told through the prism of America's 100 best love novels as chosen in this survey by people, invited anyone to weigh in. It investigated how and why writers create their fictional worlds, and how we as readers are affected by these stories, and what these 100 different books have to say about our diverse nation and our shared human experience. The television series featured entertainment, informative documentaries, testimonials from celebrities, authors, well-known Americans, and book lovers across the country. There was a two-hour launch episode in which the list of 100 books that won in the survey was revealed. And then there were five one-hour theme episodes that examined concepts common to the groups of books on the list. In the finale, the results were announced from a nationwide vote. To kill a mockingbird was the winner, but Outlander was a surprise second. Again, more of a popular choice. So Kathy in our book club. Kathy with a C, we've got Kathy with a C and Kathy with a K. And the first book she said she really remembers Loving were the Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum. And he actually lived in Hintsdale at one time, the western suburbs of Chicago, near where I am. And she said she remembered reading the first one in third grade, bringing it back to the library, and then being delighted to know that there were many, many sequels she could read also. In fifth grade, she fell in love with history by reading. And I remember too going to the little Clarendon Hills Library when it was, and I say little because it was first opened in a house, and then they were able to raise funds over the years to build the building they have now. But I remember seeing all these Oz books, and one featured a character with a pumpkin head. That's really all I remember at this point in time. But I had always thought it was just Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West. So also she said she fell in love with the book, The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I've heard that a lot, and I've never read that, so I'm going to go back, even though it's a children's book, I believe, or young adult. She said she thought it was those books that made her want to be a historian. She's always been a fantasy lover, and she remembers loving The Lord of the Rings as a young adult. She read it over and over and devoured every Harry Potter book as it came out when she was in her 30s and 40s. I think I liked them more than my kids did, she said. I kind of felt the same way. I feel lucky that I was there at the time that the books kind of unfolded one by one. I remember standing in line with my son, Border's Books, for a midnight release for book three. And I thought, if I'm going to stand in line with him, I better start reading these books. And I read book one and two before book three came out, and it was really fun. And then we all started reading them. And then we got the audiobooks because my husband doesn't have much time to read. And next thing you know, we have the whole library, and it was just, it was really a lot of fun. And I know a lot of kids immerse themselves in the whole thing right now, but I know that also J.K. Rowling wrote the book first for like a third grade level, and then the level was supposed to increase as the stories increased in intensity. So why am I bringing this up again? Well, you know that this movement of ours, 55 plus transformation, realizing life change that you enjoy. Well, you can learn a lot about that in books. You'll see a lot of characters, as we talked about, in a storyline, go from a beginning to a conflict to having a mentor or a guide and learning along the way that they can test their limits. That happens a lot in these books, in almost all fiction books, as far as I can tell. So Kathy went on to say she loved Eric Larson. He wrote the New York Times bestseller, Devil in the White City. It was published in 2003 and was the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and a spin about the cunning serial killer. It is fiction after all, historical fiction, who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death. So published in 2003, but five years later it had sold more than one million copies. And he's got so many great works out there, if you want to check them out. Kathy went on to say she devoured every book by Elizabeth Gouge, a British author who wrote most of her books in the forties and fifties. So it's fun to go back and rediscover authors. They don't have to be on the bestseller list today, and many of them are just wonderful. And many of them spawned lookalike stories. She said that Elizabeth Gouge is probably her all time favorite author, even though hardly anybody has heard of her now, and she's very out of fashion. But something in her books really touched me, Kathy said, and still does. There's a quality of light and goodness that permeates her stories that I really love. And then Shannon. Wow, great question. She said she doesn't remember early early kid books, but she was a reader very early on. The Little House on the Prairie series, anything by Judy Bloom. And then in junior high and high school, she said three books changed her life each in different ways. There you go, transformation. She said she owns very few books anymore because she moved so often. Again, we're a little bit more mobile society now and we like to pare down. But she kept these three. So I thought I'd look them up again. Well, Jonathan Livingston Siegel is one of them. And I remember that very well because I was in high school. It was published in 1973. And I just read it because all of my friends were reading it. It was cool to read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. But it really was about a struggle by a seagull who was different from everybody else. He was unique, an uncommon member of the flock, and he became obsessed with pushing boundaries that nobody else in the flock was interested in. So he spent all of his time flying higher and higher and higher and then diving down at incredible speeds. So he was shunned by the other birds. He went off to live on his own. But he ended up in a higher realm where he could learn to climb higher and dive faster. He decided against pursuing even higher planes he was told about because he wanted to return back to the world he started in, so he could mentor other birds like him. There you go, a mentor. A mentor transforming other people. So that seagull did show how we can transcend our own limitation if we simply try hard enough and persist. Now, the next book she mentioned, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Wow, I remember that. This was by an American writer who was a philosopher. His name was Robert Maynard Persig. It was a meditation of how to live better, but it was set around the scene, well a narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest undertaken by a father and his young son. Shannon talked about some other books, but also wanted us to know about the book called Transitions Making Sense of Life's Changes. Well, that's all about transformation. It actually is a 40-year best-selling guide for coping with life's changes. It's been named one of the 50 all-time best books in self-help and personal development. There's a new discussion guide for readers. It was written by Susan Bridges and named today's current people and organizations facing unprecedented change. Yes, I'm reading this because I wasn't sure what it was about. But then I went on to learn that it was the very first book published in 1980 to explore underlying and universal pattern of transition, you know, the steps one to the other. So the first thing in this important self-help book of all time is endings. It takes you through beginning with an ending. So too often we misunderstand them. We confuse them with finality. That's all over, it's finished, you know, leaving a job, leaving a home, leaving a location, leaving a relationship. So it is important to understand and really look at the way we think about endings and more about how they can help us start anew. And then there's the neutral zone. This is kind of the second hurdle when it's a timeout. You know, we feel disconnected from people. We maybe don't want to do anything. We're not emotionally connected to the present right now. We keep kind of leaning towards the past. But it's time for us to reflect and take a breather and be a time of reorientation. We have to get through that. So how can we make the most of it? This book talks about that. And then finally, the new beginning. Okay, here's the transformation. We come to beginnings only at the end when we launch new activities. So again, getting into action after you've let go of some of the past, we've talked about that. And to ask more of yourself, more than simply persevering. You know, it requires that you observe what's around you and your inner signals, your desires, your potential that point the way to the future, and your second act of life, your best life yet. So, in addition to the book club members that responded to this, I also reached out to some of my family, some of who are in a family book club, big extended family on my side, the Teshner side. And first, I just gonna go in order of how everybody responded to me. And first I heard from wasakia, and I was so pleased because she lives on the west coast. We don't see her a lot, and she is the daughter of my brother Peter, the film editor, and his wife Gloria. And she said one of the many things she treasured about early childhood was her mom, Gloria, reading to her every night before bed. Gloria is an excellent storyteller and beautifully used those skills when she read to me. My deep love for children's book that I carry to this day began during that time. When I was a very young girl, probably about four or five, another treasure in my memories is from first grade when I was introduced to my school library. Oh man, I remember the library too. I was so excited to get that library card. A tiny, packed, and perfectly organized room. Librarian, hushed voices, Akea said. And the card, the catalog, the cabinet. Akia loved the feeling of that space. But she said actually reading the books was quite difficult for me. Her mom helped her through that, accompanying her and doing read alouds together. Then her confidence as a reader blossomed and books became my own personal friends, and we all know that reading divergence, I will say, is something that a lot of people have challenges with. I know I read really fast, probably because I was an editor and I had to get through a lot of news releases, but I don't always comprehend the full meaning. And when you ask me about what happened in a book, I'll be like, oh yeah, I'm trying to remember what that was about, unless I go back. And then there's my son who has like a photographic memory, reads and remembers every inch of it. And then my daughter, who is a slower reader, but she's got great comprehension and she loves audiobooks a lot now, too. And they both read to their children, so that's awesome. She said that now she well, the key is she's a mom of three boys, three active boys. She said she's got over four million children's books in her boys' rooms. And picture books are now her absolute favorite genre. She's obsessed. She carries on the tradition of reading to her kids, but she also reads constantly for herself. And she said she has a rotation of about five books at a time. She read the entire Harry Potter series once a year. Her range is very wide, and it sure is because she reads young adult novels, historical fiction, sacred religious texts. Akia is part of the Baha'i Temple, art books, she was an artist in college, and artist biographies. A couple that she said to me were Ruth Asawa's Through Line, The Autobiography, The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl by Issa Ray, and the Sunday Philosophy Club series by Alexander McCall Smith. So then it was nice that the next story that came in was from Gloria, Akiah's mom. My love of reading began as a toddler, she said. She doesn't remember the name of it. Her favorite book during this time was a wonderful compilation of stories and poems. I must have been three or four years old. The book had lovely illustrations and we'd recite the poems together. Lois, her mom, was an avid reader. She was a member of those book of the month clubs and Reader's Digest, and we had an old set of encyclopedias I loved going through. Being an only child, books were my best friends, Gloria said, and I love the magic of escaping to different worlds and learning something new about people. We both love nothing better than curling up with a good book, and I still do. No one favorite book or author comes to mind that I read as you know. Young adult, there were so many that I gravitated toward. I love Jane Austen, George Elliot, Dostoevsky, Tony Morrison, and Alice Walker. I could go on. Peter, her husband, little brother, the film editor, and Gloria, read to Ikea at bedtime, and happily she's done the same with her boys. Sadly, Gloria says, due to the state of the world these days, reading for enjoyment has fallen by the wayside for her, but she does enjoy reading biographies and memoirs. So I asked her if she would at least give me a couple titles, because I know she reads so much. And she said that Torny Morrison was without a doubt a favorite author of mine as a teenager, and as a young woman, her novels featured people of color, as Gloria and Akea are. Her characters navigated adult relationships that were nuanced, realistic, beautiful, brutal, and magic. Gloria said I read The Bluest Eye as a teenager, and I read repeatedly Song of Solomon as a young woman. Peter weighed in quickly, recounting that his favorite as a boy was the little engine that could. So that brought up a really fresh memory for me. My dad did not participate a lot in playtime with us. He was a very busy guy. He was kind of one of those remote dads at that point in time. He softened up when he became a grandfather. But he did take time to read to us. I remember he read the Dr. Sue's sleep book, and he read it so slowly that we'd be we would be asleep by the time he finished. But Peter was recounting to Gloria that his favorite was the little engine that could. And I remembered my dad reading that to us and saying, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. That's what the engine said. And between you and me, I think that little engine had it all over, Jonathan Livingston Siegel. So next, a nice surprise from my daughter, Gretchen. I love being read to as a child, Gretchen said. Some of my favorite books from when I was very little are Gretchen's Grandma. This one was so special to me because there was no one else with my name and it made me feel special. Others that came to mind are the Little Blue Cat series and Blueberries for Sal. I remember my mom, you reading chapter books as we got a bit older, especially the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books, which I now know were sometimes heavily edited by my mom. That was me, during some of the more honest descriptions of the less savory aspects of farmhouse living. Yeah, a lot of slaughtering and things like that. I just kind of skipped over those. They were very graphic. Gretchen said I have vivid sensory memories of snuggling my body into my mom's as closely as possible. She would rearrange my body any time I'd watched her too much, which of course never made sense to me. Now as my own little ones do the same thing to me and I adjust their little limbs out of my ribs, it makes me smile. My older child Felix has loved being read to since day one. He will devour book after book. Now at age four, he asks more often for original stories, and is always vocal about how his ideas on the direction of the plot should go. My daughter Joya, who is constantly on the move at twenty months, will ask for a snuggle and a book before she sleeps, though she will dismiss her parents with a nine as soon as she's ready to sleep, regardless of where we are in the story. They both like the little blue truck books, and they really like Sand Boynton, especially the Barnyard Dance, and the little pookie books. And Gretchen is a classical singer, and she makes up words to go with the story. Not really classical, but more rhymey, and the kids love it, and they all sing. I think they just think these songs come with a book. Felix really likes hug time, and Joya is now obsessed with anything Elmo. That I know because anytime we FaceTime, she just says Elmo, she wants me to go get that Elmo doll that's in our house. And then she talks to Elmo instead of me. Gretchen said now as a mom, grad student, mostly retired musician, and part-time teacher, most of the reading I do is for my classes, but anytime I'm ever on my own, on a walk, or attempting in vain to tidy up the house, I'm listening to an audiobook. I'm an incredibly slow reader, and as such, I am a huge fan of text-to-speech features for ebooks of textbooks as well. These days, I'm deep into Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series and anything else with great characters and a talented narrator. And you might remember that I talked about Louise Penny when I was doing a podcast about successful women, especially in Midlife Plus, and her first book, I think she was in her 40s or 50s. She wrote her first book like around, was it 2012? All I know is that she's written a book every single year about mostly Inspector Gamash. So it's a real treat and it's a real testament to show what can be done when you put your mind to something. Because up to that point she hadn't written anything. I should have found out exactly when she started writing, but I know it was pretty recent. So finally, my sister Amy. Now Amy is a book editor. Amy's an intellectual. Amy turned her stuff in last. So I am going to take this opportunity to edit her a little bit. I actually think I should have a whole podcast with Amy. She's got so many experiences from doing this over the years. So I'm going to highlight some of the many things that she told me that will suit what we've been talking about, and then we'll explore something a little bit later, I think, because she's got so much to offer. She said she loved when Mom read chapter books to us. And somehow we called them apple parties. Somehow Mom managed to peel an apple and feed us slices of it while she read. She did that thing where you could peel the whole apple around and around and just have one peel. We made a cozy scene, and I liked Heidi well enough. But I was more of a romantic about my own private time with books I chose for myself. I think for me, books have always been both retreat and adventure, going inward and outward simultaneously, which was what makes them perfect. I remember enjoying lots and lots of Beverly Cleary and Mrs. Piglewiggle early on, but the first book I truly fell in love with was Anne of Green Gables. Who didn't? Followed by all the books in that series. My sisters and I keep talking about making a trip to Prince Edward Island. Because we could. Anne of Green Gables is definitely on the PBS Great American Reads list. Amy said I remember walking to the public library to get the next book in the Green Gables series, never thinking to take out more than one book at a time, and praying the entire way that the next one would be there for me. Fortunately, it always was. I adored Anne Shirley. She was me and I was her, except it broke my heart that my middle name, Anne, was spelled without the E. So here's where I'm going to fast forward. Amy mentioned so many other books that influenced her over time and led her to the career that she pursued and that she relied upon her love of books for and her history of reading. And we will talk about something like that at another point in time. But she said, So moving on, you asked about raising readers. When our kids were little, we read to them every night. I've often said that revisiting books I loved as a child, Betsy Tacey, oh my gosh, I love that series. And discovering newer children's literature, so many brilliant books, was one of the best things about being a parent. As Gil and Mae learned to read on their own, we always sign them up for the summer reading game at the public library. They both loved Battle of the Books in their elementary school. They both grew up to be readers. I'm very grateful to them for sharing their love with reading with me now, as they regularly suggest books for me to read. Right now I'm reading and loving The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, which is a favorite of Gill's. She also answered my question about reading mentors with a funny story about her teacher, mister Courtney, her fifth grade teacher, and she did not like mister Courtney until Halloween. That day he cleared his desk, lit a candle, and dripped wax so he could place the flickering candle in it, and proceeded to read to us The Legend of Sleepy Hollow And most of all, she said it was the characters and books that truly mentored me as a reader. Anne Shirley loved to read. Joe March, little women, loved to read. Francie Nolan, a tree grows in Brooklyn, loved to read. Who better to emulate? And Amy did. So the child's poem at the front of this episode, the four line poem is from me. I wrote an awful lot of awful poetry, but this one I always liked, which is why I remember it, I guess. By the time you hear this, I should have completed reading two selections for early June book club meetings I'm in. The Women by Kristen Hannah about nurses serving in Vietnam and A Gentleman in Moscow. The Women, no problem diving in A Gentleman in Moscow Little tougher. It's kind of a slow beginning, but I know it's gonna be one of those where you get into it and all of a sudden love it. That was recently made into a limited series featuring Ewan McGregor. Maybe you've seen it already. I hope you'll have time to indulge in summer reading, be it print books from your favorite independent bookstore, exploring your library stacks, an easy order from Amazon, audiobooks from many sources, or e-reading on a Kindle or Nook. If you can do it in a hammock outside or buy a pool, even better. I can't think of anything more transformative that takes so little effort for so much enjoyment and relaxation. So, no one-on one coach in your life yet? No problem. Besides this podcast advice, I've got you covered with my free three steps to self-start your weight loss like a boss checklist. To get a copy, just send an email with the subject line steps to Hello at LoriAdamsCoing.com. And to keep the transformational information coming each week, please follow FireUp at 55 Plus wherever you download your podcasts. And if on Apple, share a review in a starworthy rating. It's much appreciated. Hey, thanks for listening. To contact me directly, please reach out via email to hello at laurieadamscoaching.com. And I invite you to take a look at my flaming hot webpage, fireup at fiftyfiveplus.com. That's fireup, the word at 55plus.com. And until next week, make the most of your sizzling second act.