Tina Lewis Rowe

What Do You Read?

I Like To Read!

I have hundreds of very useful books on supervision, management, leadership, career development, training and similar material in my home office, and many in boxes in my storage area so I can find them if I need them. I’ve skimmed through all of them and some of them I have read dozens of times.

I also have a good number of books and compilations that could be considered great literature–novels, history, philosophy, poems and plays. In addition, I have many cookbooks as well as books of sermons, biblical commentary, devotionals and several Bibles.

I also read page after page of internet material, PDF and e-books, a few magazines, and general research material. I read a lot!

My favorite fun reading: However, in case you’re picturing me with a cup of hot tea, perusing a weighty tome or otherwise being intellectual, let me shatter that image by boldly stating that the books I read most often have titles like, “Destiny and Desire”, “One Night Of Passion” and, “The Thief of Love.”

When I was little I read fairy tales, and essentially I still do! I really enjoy reading a well-written romance novel set before the twentieth century. I am not as fond of Jane Austen as some are, but my favorite author is Georgette Heyer who wrote in the Austen style. In those books the hero and heroine don’t kiss until the last page.

In the mid-1970s Rosemary Rogers started writing romance novels with much sexier scenes than in the past and I said then that romances would one day be thinly veiled erotica. Actually it has become explicitly graphic erotica. I skim through those and if they’re too graphic I won’t read them. I’ve done everything that is described in them, but I don’t want to read about someone else doing it!

I have to work to read for studying, but I make the effort. Here is the reading problem I work to avoid–which is why I chose this topic for a post: If I don’t specifically set up a time to study I use my reading time in reading for enjoyment or personal reflection, rather than to learn.

So, I make a strong effort to schedule time every week–not every day!–to read a book, article or research item, as though it is part of a class and I will be tested. I read a section, re-read it, make notes if I need to, decide if I agree with it, think about how I could apply it in my life or work or in training, and just generally study it.

Hopefully that will not only keep my brain exercised, it will ensure that I don’t fall into the trap that many trainers seem to be caught in: Teaching the same thing repeatedly and depending upon intuitive thinking to develop material, rather than solid study and research.

Keep reading! Reading is a great skill we should never take for granted. Sometime, think about what it would like if you couldn’t read–or like many people if you could only read enough to barely get by.  How sad that would be! I hope you enjoy reading, and that your reading involves both fun and intellectually stimulating material.

If you need a romance novel, I’m just finishing one called, “Timeless Love” about a modern woman who travels back to pre-Civil War days and falls in love with a wealthy and incredibly handsome man who she helps in his abolitionist work, before they escape a mob by coming back to modern times where he apparently is able to start a new life without worrying about not having a social security number or anything like that. Hey! It could happen!

January 22nd, 2008 Posted by TLR | Life and Work, Personal and Professional Development | 2 comments