Reading Habits Q&A With My Mum!

hi everyone i'm miranda and welcome to my youtube channel today i'm really excited because i have a special guest on my channel with me today it's my mum donna hello man hello miranda thank you for inviting me well it's so fun to be doing a video with you if any of you are listeners of my podcast tea and tattle then you will at least recognize my mum's voice because she has been on the podcast with me in the past and i'm really excited because we're going to be doing a book club together on teen title podcast and we're also hoping to film our book club so this sunday i think is the 20th and that's when we'll be discussing the fortnight in september together i'm really excited about it me too so as well as doing a podcast episode we're going to try filming our chat about the book together too and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts about it as well because i know quite a few of you are reading along which is lovely but because my mum's going to be joining me for a monthly book chat on youtube i thought it would be nice to well introduce you a little bit um i've certainly got most of my love of reading from you and i thought it would be a nice introduction if we answered some questions on both our reading habits because although we have quite similar tastes in reading our actual habits of reading are quite different from each other today yes so i asked some of my instagram community to send in questions for me and my mum about our reading habits and they really turned up trump's we've got a load of questions we've got over 50 in fact so we'll just try to get through okay as quickly as possible but yes so this is an episode all about my reading habits and my mom's reading habits and um some tips from us on well on being avid reader yes because i think you could certainly say that's true of both of us we're we're never without a book so exactly we're both lifelong devoted readers so let's dive in i've got the questions on my phone we haven't rehearsed this together at all no so it's gonna be spontaneous it is so let's just dive in how did you both become readers and who in your lives made you both avid readers well you certainly made me an avid reader my mum read to me story books constantly when i was little you really taught me a love not just for words but for books and sounds the physical form of the illustrations i i tried very hard exactly lovely books you did you bought me the most beautiful books you read to me constantly and a great pleasure in my life actually has been not only my lifelong love of books but that throughout my life i've always shared that love with you and we've often read the same books together well i don't want to say that i had you just to have someone to share the books i loved with but there is a bit of an element of that because it was certainly a lovely byproduct of having a daughter that also loved the same books that i could read to i mean i never tried to push you and in some ways we were quite different but um i had a sort of my my parents certainly didn't read very much um i didn't have that element i i did have my dearly loved grandpa who i think probably was made to sort of sit and and and read to me so very quickly taught me how to read and so i had that element but i also had to be fair you know your dad was a big um element to in making you also a book lover because he's also a reader different books than we would read yeah but he was always very encouraging yeah yeah i was certainly brought up around books from both my parents but i think it's so funny because um nanny my beloved grandmother on your side yes was so not a reader oh no and i i always think it's amazing how you grew up to be a reader because she was actually almost disapproving of reading she loved cleaning you know being busy and she thought it was so idle to just sit with a book she did she did it showed how much she when you love someone and when she realized how much it meant to me that i read and for you too then all of a sudden she actually could forgive it and would actually be yeah sometimes still when she's come to visit us and you'd sort of vanish for a bit and then nanny would say to me where is your mum i bet she's reading somewhere yes all right so question number two do you read one book at a time or several can you read several fiction books at once or do you mix it up with non-fiction what about you on that one um i definitely read more than one book at a time i'd say i have one focused read a time but i always do have other books on the go so for instance i absolutely love reading a poem a day and this book is called a nature poem for every night of the year and it has a companion volume which is a nature poem for every day of the year so i'll read poems from these every day i love to read poetry i often have a non-fiction book of essays going at the same time books that i dip in and out of essentially alongside a fiction or a non-fiction book that i would say is my focus read that i'm reading steadily and i love audio books so i listen to a book um as an audiobook all the time as well yeah i i also um always read a poem before bed i'm reading the um poem the autumn poem for every night and day or whatever yeah the new one it's lovely yeah same idea i love doing that i usually have um a diary that i'm going through in the year that i'll read bits of that's non-fiction or a journal something like that by someone that i'm interested in having a look at but i just dip in and out and i change them every week really i don't sort of stick with reading the whole thing just as interesting and i've always got um at least one if not two fiction books on yes you read even more books at a time than i do yes i true do you dnf or persevere so if you're not enjoying the book do you just give up on it and for me i i don't often choose a book that i don't like so i don't put myself in the way of books that i don't think i'll like so i tend to i'm always persevering i guess because i know i'm going to like it really if i yeah and usually your recommendation or someone i trust or yeah i'll keep going yes that's true you're very good at choosing what you're going to read um i tend to persevere i think sometimes i will give up on a book if i'm really not enjoying it but it's quite hard for me to do that i'm a bit complete about things i would say so i do tend to persevere although in general too i think i'm pretty good at choosing books that i think i'm likely to enjoy you get better as you get older don't you want things like that i think you do i think you do you understand your own tastes more i mean it's good to be taken out of your comfort zone sometimes but i think the class is true and book clubs are good for that and if i'm reading something for a book club even if i'm not loving it i will try to finish it so i can talk about the book and sometimes it's interesting why you don't like something as much as why you do what are your favorite genres well i love mysteries and i also love um journal diary type books um uh what else sort of cozies really whether it's d stevenson or miss reed that type of book yeah of course i love classics victorian classics definitely yes i love all those too i love cozy mysteries you know golden age kind of crime you read a lot more than questions i do than i do you actually enjoy modern crime words i don't really it's quite often i think oh that was too frightening for miranda yes i don't like anything too grizzly and even ones that are in the sort of style of the golden age period i somehow never enjoy quite as much as the originals and by islam nature writing a good deal that's one of my very favorite genres as well and literary biography i would say two how do you choose your next reads do you go with other people's recommendations reviews your to be red pile and what attracts you to a book the cover classics that you haven't read yet other people's recommendations yeah slightly foxd is very good isn't it as a quarterly you get so many um recommendations through them and i think that really does help yeah slightly fox magazine is a wonderful literary quarterly and sometimes i'll read reviews in newspapers i don't honestly judge that much by a review though no i trust much more to my own interests and my opinion if i think a book looks interesting and i think it looks like something that i will just recommend to one another as well we do i trust your recommendation but you're about the only person i really trust well yes sometimes you know you'll like it more than me or but i always find something in there and i find that i think one of the important things when you get older is to really listen to someone younger than yourself who's maybe got a different um field of interest and who can bring things to you yes yeah i think i think a misconception people have a lot is that you're always recommending books to me yeah and not the other way around and that that isn't actually true i mean you do recommend books to me but i recommend loads to you more and i find yours exciting and new and i think you know you really have very diverse reading habits which i don't i'm not well that's interesting yes yeah you probably do read more along a certain line yeah but you you pull me out of that and that's wonderful because it's a way to stay young in your reading which is important well and we do have a great history of sharing books which is wonderful but yes i am also attracted to books by their cover sometimes too yeah a beautiful cover will definitely make you want to pick up a bit but sometimes when they're not good it really you you sigh over it you know there are books that we buy that we feel like oh if only they didn't make shiny covers or if only that the cover was more attractive it's true i know there are some books you wish had better covers because they deserve them um all right next question do you have a favorite reading ritual or place to read at home and in public i certainly have a favorite arm chair in the living room yeah i love to read it she does it yeah you read on the couch always on the couch yeah yeah legs up i must admit blanket often in places so if we have a little ritual we tend to read most in the evenings might have a glass of wine highlight a little sort of oil lamp or a candle by my arm chair and snuggle up with a blanket and read for i don't know at least an hour two hours usually two hours yeah i think so then i continue we both go upstairs at whatever time we want i'm i'm always ready to bed in the evening and i always wake up early so i i read in bed in the morning as well yes um which i don't do and i just when i was working i did a lot of commuting so that yeah i always read that was the way it made commuting bearable yeah a number of times i missed our stop because it's so interesting yeah and favorite place in public i mean a pretty park or something like that it's nice to read the gardens here in yorkshire exactly it's lovely to go and sit in a garden and yeah take a book with you um next question are there any places or times of day you simply cannot read no you can read anywhere you can't read in the car oh no i feel sick that's right you can reach in the always so jealous of that yes yeah yeah because i can read on the bus in the car yeah which is great but i think can we get on the train as long as i'm facing the way the train is going yes other than yeah so i can read anywhere you just can't kind of read on the card but apart from that anytime i don't like reading like first thing in the morning when i wake up um you read but i'm if i'm awake then i get up yes i know where i wake up so early that i don't think it'd be kind to be getting making a banging noise in the bathroom okay so next question do you ever read together silently yes we do pretty much every time yeah although we also talk a lot if we talked less we would read a lot more books sometimes you were like i just have to finish this i'm slightly more talkative than you i think that's fair to say yes what are your daily reading routines what time of day do you like to read best i think we've answered that really it's evenings that we most like to read because we we don't watch television no we don't we don't really watch only any tv so instead we read um next question getting a bit lost is there a genre you prefer reading depending on the time of day that's interesting it seems interesting i think poetry i like to read at night yes yeah just before bed there's something really soothing about reading this is the last thing i'll read usually before i turn out yeah so yeah um definitely poetry at night how do you motivate yourself to read during a reading slump how do you get out of a reading slump do you ever have them no no i don't have them never no fortunately touch word touchwood i actually think um reading helps my sense of calm it helps my mental health i actually start feeling really anxious if i've got really busy and i haven't been able to read that's very true i can tell yes i get more irritable and stressed out i'm really very good but you are you are yes and i can tell what you need to just have some time to yourself and it is it's like it's my me time it's like my therapy it's my kind of meditation yes it's my reading time and i need to have that time so i actually feel awful if i can't read for some reason um do you have a set to be red pal or are you a mood reader or do you just choose what to read on a whim you're much more win-based oh definitely because for me i don't have to read anything except for obviously you know now i'm going to be doing this then i will but apart from that i'm lucky i can just pick up and read whatever i want whenever i want i really love that freedom yes that is wonderful i tend to structure my reading more partly because there are certain things i want to be able to read and review for youtube that i think my listeners will be interested in i when i was running the podcast weekly i had to read a lot of books for that very much but i also i'm very influenced by the seasons in what i read so i will both yes and i will plan and structure my reading around the season too because i like to read in tune with the season so i plan my reading to that extent but i also will read on a whim if a new book comes out that i think sounds great then i'll just drop everything else and read that because i really want to yes yes next question are your taste in books similar or different similar very very similar i mean i i love more children's literature probably than you know yes if it if we had all the money in the world i and space i'd still be collecting picture books which yeah i think now you you love the ones you had as a child but you've not got the interest in collecting yeah no that's true and even books for older children so you read children's literature more than i do which is interesting do you generally enjoy each other's recommendations have you ever had very differing opinions about a book we do enjoy each other's rights i don't think we usually disagree no i can't think of the time when we've really disagreed on them i mean i i wouldn't recommend to you the type of book that i know you wouldn't read invite that's true sometimes you get a little frustrated like you really want me to read the mike karen books mick characters yes i do yeah desperate and she keeps telling me this and i keep kind of yes all right i will i don't i know you're going to love them you know they're not scary no but they're more modern day kind of spy thriller yeah mystery kind of but yeah so because you're trying to push a more modern day thing on me i'm like resisting a bit because i'm not too sure it's funny isn't it that i do read more modern day than you do in terms of mystery yes and i'm i don't know why but i'm a lot more stubborn about enjoying them but i will read it at some point what's interesting because i know that um you're not so keen and it's obviously our books pieces limited i always buy them on kindle well you're a kindle reader i am and i probably get to that question um okay so next question what are your top five favorite books gosh that's hard yes i know someone else asked for a top three too i i actually hate these questions because it's kind of impossible what's your favorite child i mean i would have to cheat and say the complete novels from james weston yeah is one of my favorite books because i would have to have all her books she's my favorite author and jane eyre is an important book to me for many different reasons a room of one's own by virginia woolf is very important to me um the pursuit of love by nancy mitford is one of my very favorite books and i don't know off the top of my head maybe call comfort farm i love that yeah yes i didn't how about you well like you i think i'd have to cheat on the novels yeah jane austen and then if only the trollope um barchester chronicles all got into one i would have to add that but you know obviously that's a bit of a a beer to have but i love i love trollop um also for me i would have to choose or one of the metfords maybe i'm i'm very fond of don't tell alfred which i know isn't isn't it in paris yeah yeah yeah i love france i love that um something like perfume from provence i love that looking and probably a misread because you know yeah absolutely love yes but please in general don't ask us that question essentially because there's too many many there are too many yes you know and agatha christie how could you not include yeah i'll say it yeah it's it's it's too hard it's too hard how do you manage that awful feeling of not wanting to read what's on your shelves or saying you have nothing to read when clearly there's many unread books on your shelf so it's a bit like opening a wardrobe and going i've got nothing to wear yeah that has happened to me but the book thing hasn't happened to me yes i understand that book thing sometimes sometimes i feel really restless and i just can't quite settle to a book that doesn't happen yet yeah which is interesting and i find when that happens i just have to keep keep looking until something just clicks with what i think what i do is i'll reread them that's a good so you know if i'm ever sort of not sure then i'll think oh i'll be redecided with rosie or whatever you know that whatever seems appropriate at that moment yes and then i'm comfortable and then i can yes and sometimes what i'll do is i'll just i'll just go to like a short story collection or a book of essays or something so i feel like i'm reading something but it's something i can put down and pick up and then when my kind of mood sorts itself out or whatever then i can just um pick up a book and really get into it then um all right next question do you read physical or ebooks or audio books right well i'm definitely a kindle reader um started when i was going commuting to work all the time and it was just so much easier plus she's really fussy about the books you know absolutely terrified i break a spine or um make it look you're making sure you sound like a timer when you wouldn't really cross if you've got the brand new book and i like sort of dropped it yeah i'm a bit fussy yeah so i don't learn books no um but you're a very you're a very clean reader i am yeah but you know i i love kindle because i just feel like it's there it doesn't need space there are many books that i feel oh like this sort of book i'm i might not really read i don't know and i think you did when you had surgery in your upper body yeah really helped you you know um having had surgery from breast cancer that's something to think about is it's great yeah and i know like um my uncle your great uncle as his um eyesight when he's so glad to be able to increase the font size i mean there's there's a real place i think because you do so much on screen it's different yes because i'm on a screen for so much of my day because of the work that i do i hate reading on a screen i will only read a physical book but i also listen to audio books all the time i love audio books basically if i'm just doing something that doesn't require my brain like getting dressed brushing my teeth doing the washing up cooking anything i will have an audio book going at the same time and i've been like that since i was about what five years old yeah you have a little portable cassette player that you trip around yes i don't know i quite enjoy hearing yours but that was something that you brought yourself and you just um my dad now is a big audiobooks listener too and i think i like to think i've influenced exactly yeah yeah um is there a time of year when you read more books no i think we both yeah really steady same amount all year round i mean who would want to miss the summer books or the winter books or the spring you know they're all they've got so many treasures in each season do either of you write in books no that makes me feel like please don't mark up my books no never yeah no okay next question do you have a favorite snack to eat while reading um no well tea cups of tea and glass of wine and even cup of tea the rest of the time merry and christmas um i don't really like eating while i'm reading because the idea of i don't know eating a chocolate biscuit or something and then it gets on the pages no crumbs or something yes so no i'm fussy about my books we don't actually read on the table that's actually something we don't usually do no maybe sometimes over breakfast like on a weekend morning yeah but that's about it um next question is how long do you read for each reading session well i could read easily three three hours we usually don't have that much time no i could easily read for that long too um two hours in the evening generally at least i would say do you keep a reading log how do you keep track of your reading or maybe you don't you don't keep track of your reading no just this year i started using the reading journal which is published by fraser and parsley and it's um quite good for noting down what books you've read and writing a little bit about them so this is the first time i've actually really started tracking my reading i'm quite enjoying doing it but sometimes i feel a bit pressure to um fill it in which is annoying and i mean oh so obviously i have instagram i have youtube i think i share what i'm reading in lots of different ways keep track of it lots of different youtubers um what are your tactics for tuning out life and screens to focus on the book without distractions a lot of people said they got really distracted while reading we just don't talk that's that's important when we're yes we have i think it helps establishing a ritual establishing a place where you go and you like to read at a certain time every day and that becomes part of your little routine and those who don't watch so much tv yes that's about a really big one paperback or hardcover hardbacks your paperbacks for me all kindles lighter is better for me i find do you use bookmarks yes absolutely you you know i'm not going to turn over those pages and i go and get a bookmark so i'm going to turn over the pages but normally i just close it and then have to spread it or you leave like the flap um do you take notes when you read i only take notes if i'm going to be interviewing the person or like interviewing the author or um writing an article on the book yes i've never taken that's not since university days um do you have a public library in your town have you visited we do have one and i've signed up online but i haven't gone there yet and you haven't no we haven't gone in yet i think it was closed still when we first came and the hours are still really limited and because i'm terrible at returning live pre-books on time especially right now when we don't go out so much anyway yeah but um the library is really good to use for renting audio books from so i do tend to use it for that next question do you create a special environment for reading i think we've covered that already so yes um do you carry a book with you wherever you go yes always yes is your dad a big reader too yes we want spam here's a hypothetical you're invited to a dinner party and instructed to bring a book which book do you bring that is tricky because i would want to know whose dinner party i'm going to because i when i give someone a book i really try to think about what book they will enjoy not necessarily what i will enjoy but what's appropriate because i assume you are you're being asked to bring it so that it can be a gift so you have to choose something a bit neutral maybe yes maybe non-fiction i think non-fiction a nice like foodie memoir yeah maybe yeah seen by everybody fisher very good idea yeah we're together on that one there we go um do you ever read aloud to each other no you'd like me to yes i often ask miranda to read blood and she'll do a tiny bit and then she's like back in the book and she's not no or sometimes you'll ask me to read like a poem aloud i don't really like reading aloud i i'd rather not no if you want to choose your favorite film adaptation of a book what would it be or it would have to be a jane austen one i mean pride and prejudice that's not really a film you know the one with the collaboration i guess for me persuasion is your adult sense and sensibility yes with emma thompson and katelyn lovely yes do you have any bad reading or book habits for instance do you ever read the end of the book first i i do that really annoys me she does or if i'm getting irritated and i'm like is this book going to go the way i think it is if so i'm going to be a bit annoyed then sometimes i like to check and go oh no okay it isn't oil yes it is i would never do that [Laughter] but now always be prepared that's my motto you become a member of your local library we already are what do you feel is the benefit you get from reading well like i've said i think it really benefits my mental health it really does it makes me a happier calmer person i think it also opens my very limited perspective in this world up i mean i've been lucky i've lived in canada and the states and france and britain so um reading literature in all these different places is really marvelous yes it is a picture it does it really broadens your mind um it exposes you to different cultures and places even if you're not able to travel too so yeah i think books are a wonderful wonderful thing next question what do you do when you start a book but get distracted do you restart or retract or retrace a chapter or a few pages yes um if i'm reading a book and for some reason you know my mind's gone elsewhere suddenly come back i'm like oh i don't know what's going on i'll go back and pick up where yeah yeah yeah um unless an exception to that is if i'm listening to an audio book and i already know the story well and if i tune out for a bit um then i can just come back in and that's why actually i only generally ever listen to audio books so i've already read the book in its physical form and i know the story really well because then it doesn't matter if i get distracted for a bit and i'm listening to an audio book um would you like to write a book yourself absolutely i think you should but i don't want to so yeah if you had to choose between fictional non-fiction what would it be fiction yes fiction yes yeah what's the novel of your life if you could only have one book which has spoken to you the most okay i can't do that i mean i can't choose five let alone one maybe either pride and prejudice or persuasion i can't even choose but they're not really novels of your life i mean you know they're back to them and enjoyed them again but i can't say there's like one book that somehow influenced my life no there's too many have been from yeah yeah yeah that's fair enough um which character from a book would you most like to be and why lizzie bennet because i just think she's amazing i love how fun and intelligent and light-hearted she is i think miss reed for me i think she's wonderful and the way she has this wonderful life really yeah what's your favorite period for books to be set in do you prefer them to be written from that time or set in that that's an interesting question yes um i love into all literature and i generally prefer books that were written from that actual time rather than just the contemporary but a set in that time if that makes sense i love i love victorian literature and i i love it when it's actually written in victorian times yeah yeah uh do you share bookshelf space yeah we'd be in trouble if we didn't was your mum a fan of school stories as a child too yes i was yeah you didn't read the challenge school books not many i had a couple which i enjoyed um but i i read a lot of um angela brazil oh yeah i don't think you no i never liked it i've heard um but enough like in a blight and yeah yes do you have a set of criteria in your mind to judge whether a book is good or not well i think i think it has to be readable and it has to make me you know want to keep going but yeah the plot should make you want to keep turning the pages and language and it should have a plot i do get a little bit annoyed with yeah there's just character driven yeah um how do you balance reading writing and social media time well thank goodness i don't know over to well it's just an endless struggle and juggle really but having my evenings as kind of sacred reading time is very important it's how i read a lot um can you share a reading moment you remember like this particular book you'll always remember because of um that's a bit tricky for me probably books associated with travel would um fit that description so i remember i read a lovely book called the lost vintage by ann marr that was set in this particular area of burgundy and we happened to travel to that part of burgundy for a press trip and it was just really serendipity i read this book i interviewed her for teen title podcast and we went to the area and that was just really special because i got to see it all she's raising it i think for me it's often a place where i've been collecting but so when i was on long island for instance i discovered patricia wentworth and she started to come out in paperbacks and sort of making the effort of trying to get them and reading them and the excitement of really finding an author that you didn't don't know and then oh my gosh she's written loads that's wonderful that's true that is always exciting i know you have many books and beautiful shelves do you have a process for moving books on to make space do you have guidelines for yourself well essentially any books that we somehow get doubles up sometimes i'm like sent doubles by mistake from publishers or if it's a book i've read but not really loved and then i can give it to give it to a friend or something yes or charity shop yeah what we use to do that it's not so easy now yes how has your living location affected your reading habits have you noticed a change in book genre subjects authors etc when you reflect on the different places you may have lived that's a great question yes i think moving to so many different places living in cities as well as now the move to the country i definitely want to read more books about moving to the country now for instance that's a theme that i'll be focusing on so yeah where we live definitely affects the type of book read yeah i want to read more books about yorkshire now yes yeah me too do you read in any other language apart from english no because sadly my french is terrible and i don't speak any other language i can read in french yes but i don't choose to i i i really love to read in my own language so that's why you get the most when you're reading in your own language i think so um do you make notes on great quotes if so how do you do this by minimizing interruption or the flow of reading that's tricky and i've found one of the best things to do is because i always have my phone on me is if you're reading a book and you come across a good quote then just take a picture of it sometimes i ask could you take a picture of this before yes because that way you don't have to stop and like find a piece of paper and pen and write it all down you know it's quite quick and then you can always write it down later so that's my tip for that um okay what do you do when anxiety takes over you know reading might be a good distraction but you cannot focus i think your tip about going back to a book you've loved is a good idea yeah like a comfort read yeah just choose one of your comfort reads and read that i think when i've been in hospital having surgery and things that sometimes you realize that oh a magazine really doesn't fit in with what's happening to you but often a book can pull you in so i think sometimes a comfort read something you're rereading can be invaluable in that sort of situation it can calm you um okay almost at the end now you seem to be a very fast reader i think we both are yeah i used to be a fast reader but nowadays i find it very hard to stay focused for a longer period of time do either of you have any advice for staying focused and reading more quickly yes turn off the notifications on your phone at least all of the notifications from social media if you can put your phone on um airplane mode for a while then do that if if you can't if you feel you can't because you want to be reachable by text and at least turn off other notifications that you can't turn off and just give yourself that time with a book i think when you were little i always made sure that you went to bed really early i knew that you would get up really early so there was always payback but um i wanted that time in the evenings to read when you've got young children around and distractions being very organized in your day so you make sure you've got things ready for the morning before you sit down to read yes that is a good idea and just reading for a long like as long as you can will help with your speech it will yeah do either of you read letters or diaries and if so which one's your favorites yes we both read letters and diaries a lot um i love virginia woolf's essays i love jane austen's letters i love virginia woolf's um diary entries dorothy wordsworth's journals yeah yes exactly do you read seasoning absolutely yes and that's why the teen title podcast will also be seasonal so the books that we choose will reflect the months that we're in so anyway those are all our answers thank you again for the fantastic questions and it's lovely to have my mom on so thank you for welcoming her looking forward to returning with the book club but yes give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it don't forget to subscribe to my channel which you can do by clicking my face it pops up here and i'll be back again very soon with another video thank you bye-bye bye

Channel: Miranda Mills

Views: 10,933

Rating: 4.988935 out of 5

Keywords: reading habits, bookstagram, booktube, book haul, reading, mother daughter books, books

Id: xMTzVGLzPqw

Length: 39min 26sec (2366 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020