The Stopping Point

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Whether or not we are writers, all of us who participate in this blog are first and foremost READERS. And we all have our little quirks about how we read and when we read, but here's a question I've been thinking about lately. When you are close to the end of a book--especially a really good book--at what point do you either have to put the book down or FINISH IT.

This is a little harder to judge if you're reading on a device, but for me, with a paper book, it's usually about 50 pages from the end. There are two factors here. One, if I keep going I know I'll read all way to the end and then I won't be able to get up on time in the morning. And, two, I know if I do manage to read just a little bit more and then have to stop, it will spoil the exquisite pleasure of the resolution.

Is this silly? Or maybe a wee bit obsessive/compulsive???

And of course this isn't counting the nights when I fall asleep reading, and hubby has to take off my glasses and put the book on the night stand. The dozing off thing is very annoying--it means that the next day I have to page back through the book until I find the last thing I remember.

REDS, what about you? Where do you have to stop? And is there anyone who can put a book down five or ten pages from the end?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Nope, nope, absolutely not. Once I get close, I want the whole experience. Sometimes if it's too late, I'll start reading something else instead, because I know if I stay up I'll be sorry in the morning. Also--I always think it's not fair to the author to rush through just to see what happens--which is what I wind up doing.  I ALWAYS see Jonathan asleep with a book on his chest. Is that a compliment to the author--or not?  

LUCY BURDETTE: no, I save it for the next day, even though that almost kills me. I want to savor, and I know I don't remember the last thing I read late (for me!) By the way, I finished a good one last night called Celine, which I am sure a couple of you recommended last week. There I was, in bed, with nothing left to read and not quite ready to turn out the light. So I started something new, a book I had given to our daughter for Christmas called The Mothers by Brit Bennett. What an amazing voice! Now I am excited for bedtime tonight!

HALLIE EPHRON: The Mothers is on my bedside table as we speak, but I haven't started it yet. My daughter loaned it to me -- she raved about it, too.

I cannot read in bed (I fall asleep) and I often stop with 20 or fewer pages left. Especially if it's a really good book and I want it to last.

JENN McKINLAY: I read in bed and I read all the way through. Yes, I know I'll regret it, but I do it anyway. If I don't, I'll just stay awake wondering what's going to happen so it's best if I just keep going. I do wake up with books on my chest, and it cracks me up when I have to go back ten or more pages to figure out where I clonked out. Sleep-reading, it's a thing.

INGRID THOFT: I can put a book down with as few as twenty pages left, and I definitely stop reading if I don't think I'll be able to finish it before I doze off.  Like Debs, I want to savor (and remember!) the ending, which is more likely to happen the next day.  My hubby and I also debate the fact that even if I'm loving a book, if I get sleepy, I can't possibly keep reading.  He, however, is able to stay up and finish.  He says the books I'm reading aren't interesting enough, but I beg to differ!  I think this is more a commentary on me and my brain than on the book I'm reading!

RHYS BOWEN: I find very few books these days that I simply can't put down. I suppose I'm more picky than I used to be. I get letters from fans accusing me of making them stay up all night to finish one of my books. I don't think I've ever done that, but I have stayed up well past my bedtime. I think the last one was Kate Morton's The Lake House. Usually if I have a book I'm really enjoying I look forward to going back to it, like having a secret stash of dark chocolate and taking nibbles when I have a moment. And there have been a few books I didn't want to end.... ever!  I'm off to England next week and have a fully loaded Kindle which, fortunately, I'll be able to take on the plane with me. Huge sigh of relief.

DEBS: There is nothing I love more than staying up into the wee hours to finish a really gripping book, and I have to admit I'll indulge myself when I'm in England on my own, with no fixed daily schedule. Otherwise, sigh, I have to put the book down at a reasonable hour or I'll regret it. The dogs aren't inclined to take "I stayed up too late" as an excuse in the morning!

READERS, what's your stopping point?

The Book Binge

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys has already reported to you

about Left Coast Crime 16, The Cactus Caper, the fan and writer conference held in Phoenix over the last weekend in February. This conference was a blast! I saw so many friends, and met new ones, both writers and fans. The panels were great. The weather was glorious--this is why people move to Phoenix, perfect 75 to 80 degree days in February. I got to see a good bit of downtown Phoenix, plus I got to visit my friend chef Sean Currid's new restaurant, The Blue Hound, in the Kimpton Palomar. To top it off, I came home with a great stack of new books.

AND, unfortunately, the flu.  As did at least a dozen other people that I know.
Now the upside to this is that I had a day, in the middle of last week, when I did not get out of my pajamas, which is very unusual for me. That day, I did something else I don't do very often. I allowed myself a book binge.

I tucked myself up on the chaise in my office (having quarantined myself from the bedroom for the duration) and I read the new Charles Todd Ian Rutledge novel, No Shred of Evidence, from cover to cover. The book is fabulous, and Caroline (assuming she is recovered enough from the flu) will be here to talk about it on Friday.

But the uninterrupted read was such a treat, such a luxury, that it made me realize how seldom I allow myself to do it. Usually, only when I'm confined-to-bed sick, and sometimes in London, when I have none of the ordinary household/family responsibilities and can take a rest/read day. In fact, the last time I read a book straight through was last year in London, when I curled up in front of the gas fire in my flat and read Laurie King's Dreaming Spies in one cold, rainy day.

I think we experience books differently when we are completely immersed and our imaginative experience is not interrupted by time and daily life. We live the characters and the story more intensely. And I think books that we read this way stay with us, are imprinted on our memory more deeply.

Reds, how often do you manage to read a book in an uninterrupted day? What was the last book you read on a "binge?" And do books read that way make a greater or more lasting impression on you?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I completely think it's different. I manage to get through three or four pages in bed at night, before I fall asleep, and I often think about how unfair that is to the author. I will confess now, that back in 1980, I called in sick to work (!) because I knew all I wanted to do was stay home and read THE STAND.  Debs, I did the same thing with my first Rutledge, though I' m wracking my brains for the title, and I did the same thing more recently with Shannon Kirk's METHOD 15/30, and with Laura  DiSilverio's new thriller (coming soon)  CLOSE CALL.   Oh, and Gilly Macmillan's WHAT SHE KNEW. It helps to be on airplanes all the time. That is lovely enforced reading time. (Right now  I'm in the airport in St. Kitt's!)   Feel better, dear Debs!

HALLIE EPHRON: It rarely happens that I find a book that I CAN binge read as opposed to binge skim. Because the storytelling has to hook me and the writing has to be so good that I want to read every word. And I’m so happy when it happens. Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent. Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer. Laurie R. King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Keigo Higashino’s The Devotion of Suspect X. When I’m sick my go-to drug is an audio book.

RHYS BOWEN: Oh, what a luxury to be able to read a book straight through. I rarely have the time and I can't read fiction while I'm writing. But on vacation I get through at least 4 books and I just read Kate Morton's The Lake House in about three sessions because I hated to put it down. I did the same with Louise Penny's The Nature of the Beast last year. Now I'm engrossed in a good book, can't wait to get back to it, and actually it's mine. I've never found myself reading one of my own books with expectation and pleasure like this before. I'm supposed to be doing edits but I want to keep reading - but I can't tell you what it is. You'll have to wait a while.

DEBS: Rhys, you are such a tease! Now we're going to be chewing our nails wondering about this mysterious book... And Hallie, how interesting about the audio books. Is it that listening rather than reading allows you to turn off your editor-brain and focus on the story? It never occurs to me to listen rather than read. Although with this bug, I'd have had to stop the story every time I started coughing...

Readers, do you treat yourself to reading a book cover-to-cover? And what was the last book you got to read straight through?

How Many Zzzs are Enough?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Imagine my surprise when I opened up the Parade magazine in my Sunday paper a week ago and there on the cover was Ariana Huffington (founder of the enormously successful Huffington Post website) propped up in bed in mauve silk pajamas. And she is reading (or at least holding) a real book! So what's with that? I wondered.

She's touting SLEEP, that's what. And I am 100% in her camp. After a collapse from exhaustion in 2007, Huffington has become a sleep advocate. And, boy, do we need one. We Americans are a sleep-deprived nation. 35% of the respondents polled by Parade reported getting less than five hours of sleep! We pride ourselves on working long hours, on being able to function fueled by caffeine, and even when we do get to bed, we don't turn off. (How many of you sleep with your cell phones, with the computer on in the same room, or with the TV on? According to research, the electronic glow disrupts the body's production of melantonin, which promotes sleep.)

But the truth is that no one functions well when they are sleep deprived, and most of us need a

good bit more than we get. I know I can't write when I'm tired--my brain feels like glue. I've learned from experience that, like Ariana Huffington, I do best on a solid eight hours of sleep. I can manage on seven (hopefully with a nap,) but on six hours or less, I am useless.

What does Ariana recommend? Her routine sounds like my idea of heaven: she turns off all her devices, takes a hot, scented, candle-lit  bath, puts on her (lovely) silk pajamas, and reads from a real, non-digital book. Sigh. I sometimes do some of these things. (No silk p.j.s, alas.) But I do try to take baths, because a) it's nice, and b) I know I always sleep better when I do. (I even make my own bath salts.) I turn off my computer, and although I do sometimes read on

my tablet, I've installed a blue light filter to cut down the electronic glow.

So, fellow REDS, do you know your sleep I.Q.? And what are your tricks for getting enough shut-eye?

LUCY BURDETTE: I wish I could function on 5 hours, but it's so not true. Part of my problem comes from the fact my office nook is part of the bedroom. In fact, I've been known to spend the day writing in bed. Which is terrible sleep hygiene, not to mention murder on my tendinitis. Still searching for the magic sleep bullet...

I wondered what effect electronic reading would have on sleep. Have you noticed a difference with the blue light filter Debs?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: No problem getting to sleep--I am so lucky about it, I can sleep anywhere. Plane, chair, anywhere. Of course, that probably means I am tired all the time, but we'll just skip that. I stay up too late, go to sleep about midnight usually and get up at 7. I read a book-book in bed, usually manage about three pages.  I mean--that's fine, right?  But no computer in the room, not even my phone, no TV on.  I'd adore to be able to manage on five hours--think of all I could get done! (And that's why I love to fly west-I get three whole extra hours of time, which is so fabulous!)  But if I have fewer than 6 hours of sleep I can really feel it. And I can see it in my face, too, when I am too tired. Can't you tell the difference, just by looking at yourself?

DEBS: Lucy, I haven't read anything on my tablet with the blue light filter, so I will keep you posted on that. Rick swears by it. He has it on his iPad, his computer, and even  his phone. It's cool because you can see it change right at sunset.

Hank, I think that is one of the worst things about getting older--it shows (eee gad) when you're tired. I stayed up too late reading last night (the downfall of all good sleep intentions...) and I just looked at myself in the mirror a few minutes ago and thought, "Are those caves under my eyes? And why is my face sagging???)

RHYS BOWEN: I need my sleep and I often battle sleep problems when I'm writing. I can fall asleep easily enough but when I wake at two in the morning I cant stop thinking. Wait, she would never have said that when the police questioned her.... and then my brain is racing and I am doomed to stare at the ceiling for hours. I do sometimes read a real book, but if there is something I really want to see on TV, I stay up past my sleep window and then I can't sleep.  I bought a fitness tracker that monitors sleep and was interested to see that on good nights I sleep for four hours without stirring, wake then sleep four more. On bad nights doze wake doze wake.

I don't work in the bedroom. I keep my iPad beside the bed but I don't look at it before going to sleep. Any tips on what to do if you wake in the middle of the night?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Rhys, my doctor said if I couldn't get back to sleep within twenty to thirty minutes, to get out of bed, leave the room, and do some quiet, distracting work - read, work a jigsaw puzzle, knit. Something that absorbs your attention, but doesn't make you think too much.

When I hit menopause, I started to have a terrible time staying asleep. I improved my sleep hygine: no electronic devices in the my bedroom, no reading books in bed (that's a killer for me because I WILL NOT put a book down when I'm into it) same routine every night. I'm still bad about hitting a regular bedtime, which I really need to do, because, like Debs, I'm useless for writing without eight good hours of sleep.

I have to tell you, though the magic bullet for me was Trazadone. I wasn't big on the idea of taking a pill to sleep, but my MD asked me to try it and it changed my life. It doesn't knock you out, but it enables you to stay asleep throughout the night and slip back into sleep if you rouse because you're too hot or too cold or the G.D. cat takes a stroll over your chest. I swear by it. Oh, and my beloved black velvet sleep mask, of course!

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I love sleep — and it's not illegal, immoral, or fattening! Naps — bliss! I think there's something about novel writing that really uses a ton of brain energy. I had dinner with Karin Slaughter this past May, and it turns out she's an unrepentant sleeper — ten full hours at night and a good two-hour nap in the afternoon. Hearing her say that made me feel so much better about needing so much sleep myself.

DEBS: Wow! Ten hours AND a two-hour nap in the afternoon? That's amazing, Susan. (But when does she read???) And Julia, I applaud your self discipline with the "no books in bed" rule. I've read last thing at night since I was a child, and it's the one thing I always do, even if it's only a few pages. It's my fixed point of comfort, and the anticipation of it has seen me through many less than

wonderful days.

(I just added the guy here because he was cute. My excuse is that Ariana recommends real alarm clocks...)

Readers, what about you? Do you know how much sleep you need? And what do you do to get it?

Bedtime Stories

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: No matter how tired I am, I have to read before I go to sleep. This is a wonderful and lifelong habit, and I embrace it dearly. 

This is Melissa Jones Ragsdale's nightstand 

(I had thought we'd post photos of our own nightstands for this blog--with our piles of books. But then I got curious. Wonder what YOUR nightstands look like? So I asked my dear pals on Facebook to send me photos and Wow! Wait til you see them all.)

Anyway, back to reading at night.  Although it is wonderful for me, I am not sure it is wonderful for the book. I’m so excited to read when I start. Then, a few, well, I was going to say pages, but actually, often it’s paragraphs later, I feel my eyes fluttering and my attention evaporating.

I am, I have to say, able to persevere longer than Jonathan, who has just taken three months (exaggerating, but not much) to read Greg Iles fabulous Natchez Burning. He loved the book, loved it, but read about two pages a night before he fell asleep. I’d look over, and there he’d be, this huge book propped on his chest, eyes totally closed.

Wake up honey, I say. You’re sleeping. (Only wives can say this, even as I type it, I hear how absurd it sounds.)

I wasn’t sleeping, he insists. I’m reading.

Sure you were, I say. How’s the book?

And then I’d get the ‘look’. I don’t exactly remember, he admits. But I know it’s good. (He adored it, in the end. And one day spent hours reading it. “Wow, he said, “I can read so much more when I’m awake. And the book makes so much more sense.”

The best reading-at-nights for me are the ones where the book is SO GOOD it propels you through, far longer than is prudent. The Stand, I remember almost staying up all night to read. (I called in sick the next day, I guess I can admit all these years (32?) later. I did the same with Lisa Unger’s In the Blood. And Joe Finder’s Suspicion. And now, The Demonologist. (It’s very scary.)

Do you read before you go to sleep? Successfully?

This is Eleanor Cawood Jones' nightstand

HALLIE EPHRON: I'm with Jonathan. If I try to read in bed, it's a few pages and I'm out. Middle of the day, though, I LOVE to read as a break from writing. In the winter I make myself a hot cup of tea, in summer ice water, and lie down on the couch for a nice, if brief, vacation in someone else's book. I also love to read on airplanes. Now that's the test of an author's storytelling, if the book can make the trip "fly" by.

I used to listen to lots of 'books on tape' while driving but sadly I drive so little it would take me about a year to finish a book these days. And I haven't gotten the hang of putting a book on my iPhone and listening on the run. Why won't earbuds stay in my ears? Worse, having all that noise in my head makes me accident prone and forgetful... and dangerous.

This is Karin Carlson's nightstand 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I can't read at bedtime; not because I'll fall asleep with a book on my nose, but because I'll stay up until 2am. If the book is really good, I'll keep going on chapter after chapter, and if it's bad, I'll put it down and try another book until I hit something I like! So at bedtime, I do the Sunday NYTimes crossword puzzle. Not only is it engaging but still put-down-able, it also makes an auto gift for the kids: every year on Mother's Day or Christmas, someone gives me one of the Sunday Crossword Collections books. And yes, I do them in ink. Without looking at the solutions.

My favorite reading times? Early evening, after dinner. Holidays and vacations. Traveling in the car, either by audiobook or with a print book if I'm not driving. And am I the only person who relishes flying because it gives me a stretch of uninterrupted reading time? When my kids were small, my best (only!) reading place was the bathroom. I went through a lot of short story collections.

This is Vicki Berger Erwin's nightstand

 DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am a life long dedicated read-in-bed-er. No matter how late it is, how tired I am, hotel or flat or home, I read something. I'm trying to think of some occasion when I HAVEN'T read. Even the night my mother died last year, I read. If that sounds callous, it wasn't at all. I had just spent six days with Nigerian hospice nurses, and I pulled up an Alexander McCall Smith book on my Kindle. I wanted to keep the rhythm of those African voices in my brain a little longer, because they had been such a comfort. And I needed something to take me out of myself, even for just a few minutes.

I don't allow myself to read often during the day, because I'd never get anything else done. And every day I look forward to the end of the day when I can get in bed and pick up that book--whatever that book happens to be. Some nights it's just a few pages and I have to reread them the next night, but I don't mind. Other nights I manage to get to bed early enough to read for an hour--or even two. Bliss! I'm not sending a photo of my to-read pile, because I'd have to decide which one:-) But as soon as I finish this fabulous non-fiction book on British undercover cops, I'm reading the galley of Rhys's new Georgie (can't wait!) and then the galley of Tammy Kaehler's new Kate Reilly, and then Kent Krueger's Ordinary Grace... and so it goes on. And I firmly believe it's better to have too much to read than too little.

This is Alyssa Renae White's nightstand

LUCY BURDETTE: I just finished Rhys's fabulous upcoming book--

(HANK: And more on that here tomorrow!)

LUCY: As well as MRS. HEMINGWAY and almost done with THE STORIED LIFE OF AJ FIKRY (so charming!) I read in bed every night. Who cares if I have to read a page or two over again because I was nodding off--makes a great pleasure last a little longer.

I have trouble giving myself permission to read during the day because it feels like such a guilty pleasure. But I read eight books on vacation--oh the heaven!

HANK: I guess we all read in bed right? Love that!

  

Here are a few more nightstands courtesy of the friends of Jungle Red!

Marianne Bowes

Kathi Gorecki Voskull

Michelle Tucker Reed

DFOJRW Mary Garrett! (very subtle, xo.....)

Fascinating, huh? And I'll post more all his week!

And our own dear Reine--also subtle!

Tomorrow we'll hear all about Rhys's new book, and Wednesday S.J. Rozan, and Thursday, Nancy Martin...and Friday, well--he's just amazing, so you'll have to come visit. And Saturday And Sunday--more surprises!

SO--do you read in bed? Let us know--and you'll be entered for an ARC of my new TRUTH BE TOLD!
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And talk about great contests: check this out! http://hankphillippiryan.com/newsletters/newsletter-7-14.html