I participated in a Blogging Challenge in 2010. We were supposed to write a post about our Life As a Reader. The challenge consists in simply making a bullet list about your connections, reflections and thoughts as a reader. It is an exercise of putting pen to paper (finger to keyboard) and not lifting your hands for 5/10/15 minutes or until you emptied your mind completely and can’t think of anything else. This exercise was very valuable, reflective and fun. Since six years have passed and I thought it might be time for an update. The world around us has changed tremendously. How has this change affected my reading habits? I recorded 62 bullets about my life as a reader in 2010, please see part II from #63-100 (six years later) below.  I wonder about the reading habits my grandchildren will have when they are grandparents? I would love to start documentation of their lives as readers. How about you? Will you accept the challenge to share YOUR Life As a Reader?

Part II from 2016 (#63-100)

63. I feel comfortable reading a paper book, a book on mi iPad or on my iPhone
64. I love re-discovering children’s books with my granddaughter… books that I enjoyed as a child or books I used to read with my own children
65. I buy more books now than before, since I don’t have to worry about the physical space I need to store them.
66.I read many different books at the time, before I used to finish one book before I would start another.
67. I am at a stage where I primarily read non-fiction books.
68. I contributed two chapters to two different books by Heidi Hayes Jacobs (There was a lot of reading involved in the book writing process)
69. I am currently in the process of co-authoring a book (to be published fall of 2017)
70. I read every day on Twitter
71. I read every day in my RSS Reader (Feedly)
72. Although I read a lot to my daughters when they were growing up, only one out of the three is an avid reader as an adult
73. I like to recommend books to others
74. I am fascinated by experimenting around the notion of “reading” y how it is changing through time and influenced by cultural
75. I am interested how our reading habits are changing due to new innovation influenced by technology.
76. I read a lot of text messages daily
77. I reader more and more as part of short annotations (ex. Snapchat videos)
78. I learned to continue a conversation through following and reading #hashtags
79. when I read in one of my languages, it helps me re-live and re-activate inactive words
80. I continue to read new books in the series of Harry Potter and Outlander
81. books can be companions throughout your life when the authors keep publishing new books in the series through different decades
82. one can read the same books throughout different decades and parts of ones life, gaining different perspectives from that one book
83. I continue to not be a library person. I like to own the book and not having to return them
84. many times I find myself needing the paper and digital version of a book. I jump from one version to the other. I read in one version, annotate, then move on to the other version to continue reading
85. many times, I read a paper book and I have the desire to click on the paper to find more information through a link
86. I need glasses to read since 2013
87. sometimes I read interesting articles and I feel the need to sketchnote
88. I continue to be fascinated by my 4 year old granddaughter’s learning-how-to-read development
89. “writing a blog starts with reading” (Quote by Dean Shareski)
90. reading a document, written in collaboration with various authors, requires additional skills than if you were reading something written by a single author
91. I read my Twitter feed in short moments throughout the day
92. reading hyperlinked text gives me the opportunity to read deeper. It requires the ability to filter, select and focus
93. my favorite book to read together with my granddaughter is  “Stellaluna”
94. the last fiction book I have read was ” Leaving Time” by Jodi Picoult
95. I started reading this week the new book of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”
96. I have not been in a library in years
97. I buy all my books online
98. I love to read  🙂
99. I am afraid that most teaching methods in schools to teach our children to learn to love reading have the opposite effect
100. I am fascinated with the idea of how our reading habits  have and will continue to change in the future.

Part I from 2010 (#1-62)

1. The first book, “Mein Esel Benjamin”, I remember was a book about a little girl in Spain finding a donkey and becoming best friends with it.
   
2. My favorite author as a child was Enid Blyton
3. I owned all the Famous Five, Mallory Towers and the Twins of St. Claire (“Fuenf Freunde”, “Dolly” and “Hanni und Nanni” as they were called in German).
4. I was thrilled, when on a layover at the London airport, I found a bookstore. I bought the English version of Enid Blyton books (not available in the US) for my daughters.
5. I spent every last “Deutsche Mark” of my allowance buying books.
6. I remember hanging out for hours at the one wall book display at a local department store in Heidelberg browsing the books. The concept of coffee shops, armchairs and comfortable seating in books stores did not exist yet.
7. My favorite genre is Historical Fiction.
8. I read fluently in German, Spanish and English.
9. I could read and understand what the story is about in French, Italian and Portuguese.
10. I am not a “library” kind of person. I like to own my books to re-read them.
11. I jumped on board with e-readers as soon as the Kindle came out.
12. I LOVE reading on my iPad.
13. I dragged my book collection from Europe to South America and then to North America with me.
14. When I travel home, my suitcases fill up with books until I reach the airline weight limit.
15. One of the last memories I have with my father is going to the bookstore “Hugendubel” in Frankfurt, Germany to browse for books.
16. I read “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon during the pregnancy of my third child.
17. The first Barnes and Noble bookstore I ever went into was in Rockford, Illinois.
18. I used to read at least 10 (picture) books a day to my children when they were little.
19. My children always (mostly) received books as presents from me on their birthday.
20. Going to Barnes & Noble was a favorite outing for me with my three little girls.
21. I don’t like reading “bad” translations of books.
22. I prefer reading a book in the original language the author wrote it in.
23. “Jauche und Levkojen” is the book that makes me feel close to and reminds me of my grandmother and her life in East Prussia.
24. I am usually disappointed when watching a movie after I read the book.
25. I was reading “Harry Potter” as I was flying back from my father’s funeral.
26. I maintain a “Books I Read Around the World” Google Map to keep track of the book’s location/setting.
27. I created and maintained a book recommendation site for German speaking parents who raised their children abroad: Sprachhexen (German word for Langwitches)
28. I imported and sold German books in the US via the Sprachhexen site and Ebay.
29. I used to at least spend 1 1/2 hours EVERY night reading (30 minutes) to each one of my daughters.
30. I tried to read as much as possible German books to them.
31. I frequently write about book related issues on my blog.
32. I am experimenting with different “note taking”/ visualization techniques when reading a book.
33. I am reflecting on the process of buying, storing and reading books nowadays.
34. I enjoy being able to “carry” around all my e-books in one place.
35. I LOVE my book shelf from Ikea.
36. I do most of my reading online and in digital form.
37. I do like the smell and feel of a book in my hands, but I KNOW that I will get over it as I am enjoying the advantages of e-books.
38. I love to read in bed.
39. I started reading online in 1991. It was a Mommy-to-be support group on the Prodigy Bulletin Board group of “Babies to be born in January 1992.
40. I started reading blogs in 2005.
41. I started reading Twitter in 2007.
42. My first “Geek” book was “The FrontPage Bible”.
43. “The Diary of Anne Frank” was the book that inspired me, like so many other girls, to start writing a journal at age 11. I also give her credit to prepare me for becoming a blogger decades later.
44. I keep an inventory of the books that I read, have read (since 2008) and plan on reading on Shelfari.
45. I only read a manual as a last resort.
46. I can read (not great) old German type.
47. I was able to read and understand Spanish long before I stared speaking it.
48. The first book I read in Spanish was “El pajaro canta hasta morir” (Thornbirds) by Colleen McCullough. The next one was “En el nombre de la Rosa” (In the Name of the Rose) by Umberto Eco
49. I remember that we read, in my last English course in HighSchool, “The Cather in the Rye” by J.D.Salinger. I learned the English word “phony” with this book.
50. The one and only book I ever read in French was called “La Maison des Hirondelle”.
51. I don’t like to read subtitles in movies.
52. One of my favorite books I read as a teenager was “The Source” (Die Quelle) by James Michener.
53. A book that went down in family history for my daughters was “Once upon a Potty”.
54. I loved reading “Bibi Blocksberg” books to my girls.
55. The only comic books I have enjoyed reading were/are “Asterix & Obelix”.
56. As teenagers, I used to read two magazines “Bravo” and “Maedchen” until I moved to Argentina.
57. I have over 500 RSS feed subscriptions in my Reader.
58. I collect travel guide books of the places I have been to and would like to travel to.
59. I have read books to my little niece (who lives in Brazil) via Skype.
60. My favorite authors in the Spanish language are: Mario Benedetti, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Isabel Allende.
61. Some of my favorite author in the English language are: Noah Gordan and Ursula Hegi.
62. I took many Hispanic literature classes for my undergraduate degree and LOVED reading authors of different Latin American countries and periods in history.