Mal ,'Shindig'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
How else do you survive long road trips?
In my experience, you memorize the lyrics to every song on the radio, play License Plate Bingo, look for the alphabet on signs, nap and bicker with your brother.
Mostly, it's the bickering.
(It's worth pointing out that my family rarely went on mega-long car trips; usually we vacationed four hours from home or less. Of course, when you're eight, four hours is a lifetime.)
ETA: I've never had a problem with reading on trains or planes.
I would love to make the train ride from Melbourne to Perth.
billytea, I bet you'd enjoy it. I saw the most beautiful sunset of my life on the Nullarbor Plain. (Also passed through the town of Forest, which cracked me up.) It's really gorgeous country, if you like sparse, big-sky country, anyway.
My family used to drive to Disney World at least once every two years. It's a thirteen-hour trip, so I'm very glad I can read in the car.
Driving vacations were definitely time to read in the car in my family. We also read books aloud to each other.
Also, each meal has its own rules: breakfast is time to read the paper, weekend lunches are for finishing the paper and/or books and/or talking, but dinner is for talking.
When I was a kid, I always did the MS Read-a-thon, which was great -- I loved to read and my grandfather had MS, so I cleaned up. I wonder if they still have that.
I would love to make the train ride from Melbourne to Perth.
not book related, but this is where I pop in and say, I lived there for three months in the Nullarbor. My poor home is gone now, the raiolroad uprooted the town of Cook.
Cannot read in cars. I do remember trying to read books that were above my level at say 4 or 5, but I don't remember learning to read.
How else do you survive long road trips?
When you're a kid?
Leave home around 4 a.m. Doze until daybreak. Fairly soon after daybreak, breakfast as Dad continues to drive. Soon after breakfast, stop for gas and bathroom break. By the time you get seriously bored, you're almost there.
Worked in our family.
not book related, but this is where I pop in and say, I lived there for three months in the Nullarbor. My poor home is gone now, the raiolroad uprooted the town of Cook.
Seriously? How did I not know this?
Speaking of reading the paper, did any NYCistas see the first chapter of The Great Gatsby in today's NYTimes? Apparently they're going to be publishing it serially to encourage people to read. Reading it piecemeal like that would drive me batty, but it's a neat idea.
Reading made me carsick when I was a kid, but I did it anyway. I'd just read until I felt sick, close my eyes until I felt better, then read a little more. I suspect I could read upside down in a hurricane.
Speaking of reading the paper, did any NYCistas see the first chapter of The Great Gatsby in today's NYTimes? Apparently they're going to be publishing it serially to encourage people to read. Reading it piecemeal like that would drive me batty, but it's a neat idea.
That's pretty sweet. And it might drive people battily to the library to get the book themselves. Very cool.