Readers can enjoy a good book in many places

Have you seen people reading books lately?

You see people strolling and chatting, biking and skateboarding, hiking, fishing, sailing and kayaking. They dart into video stores, talk on cell phones and eat ice cream cones. They watch Red Sox games.

In our local library the other day, a few people were reading books and others skimmed newspapers. Most library users, however, peered at the library’s computer screens or bent over their own laptops. Don’t get me wrong. Computers are terrific. But what about the dozens of books being checked out and what about the books sold every day in bookstores? When and where are people reading them?

Many of us have become accustomed not only to eating on the run, but also to reading on the run. A few pages here, a few pages there, and usually it’s newspapers and magazines, not books. No time for books, people say.

But others insist on reading regularly. Steve York, a service adviser at Quirk Subaru in Bangor, reads “two chapters a day, no matter what.” Marcee Correa is surrounded by books at her workplace, Port In A Storm Bookstore. She relishes her lunch break when she slips off to a quiet spot to read. One of the nurses at Eastern Maine Medical Center stops at the waterfront to read a few chapters before her shift.

Reading at home has its downside. Think back to the last time you sprawled on the living room couch, deep into a great plot or exposition, and just because you were visible, someone started talking to you. Or perhaps the ambient chatter, phone conversations and teen music overwhelmed your ability to concentrate.

Some people escape to read in the bathroom or wait until bedtime when they can close the door to be safe from interruptions. If there are small children about, though, there’s no spot sacrosanct for reading unless, of course, the choice is to read to the kids.

Whether you live in Maine year-round or are a seasonal visitor, you can read outside – at least until the end of September. There’s the hammock on the front porch, the Adirondack chair on the lawn, or a blanket on a cobblestone beach. A landscape painter working outdoors attracts onlookers, but a reader is seldom subject to strangers peering at the text.

If you like being on the move, try walking outdoors with your book. Don’t laugh. People read while on a treadmill, exercise bike, or elliptical trainer. That’s fine for the six-month winter in Maine, but why give up the fresh air and trees in summer and early fall?

Corinne Carbone of Somesville, like her father before her, reads while walking in beautiful outdoor locations. She reads a while, and then thinks about what she has just read as she continues to walk. She alternates between reading and thinking, but maintains her walking step. Some say the kinesthetic factor keeps the brain cells lively. Choose a big-print book from the library, find a road with few cars or a path with few bikes, and go for a walk with your book.

Another approach is to choose an outdoor setting appropriate for the book you’re reading with your family. Susan Plimpton, children’s librarian in Southwest Harbor, relishes the memory of climbing Kebo Mountain with her husband and children to read aloud the last chapter of “Heidi.”

Alan Lord of Downeast Marine Resources Inc. created a space for outdoor summer reading. He has a Cover-It, one of those small structures covered with gray plastic for protecting equipment. He hung a light and built a screen door to protect against mosquitoes. Sitting by his duck boat and decoys, he reads in summer evenings while smelling the good scent of earth. To rest his eyes, he gazes at the maple trees across the street and marvels at fireflies. “I just love to read in there,” he says.

Heather Spurling, the sole graduate of Little Cranberry Island’s Islesford School this year, smiles when recalling herself as a young child. When boarding the ferry that runs year-round between the Cranberry Isles and Northeast Harbor, she went straight for the crate of children’s books kept in the cabin. She maintains the habit of reading on the boat, but she carries along her current book. She has put in many hundreds of hours of good reading during these ferry runs.

Ten-year old Logan MacDonald spends hours in the car each week between his home in Bass Harbor and his destination of Bar Harbor to participate in the Eden Children’s Chorus and in YMCA sports. He reads to himself, but he can’t resist reading aloud the good parts to his mother at the wheel. The Shiloh Trilogy stories, for example, carried Logan over many miles, and entertained his mother as well.

At the Nice Twice shop on Route 1A between Bangor and Ellsworth, you may see the owners’ grandson, Josh Beers, look up from a book as he greets you. Weekend business at the shop is too brisk for him to read on the job, but he squeezes in book time on weekdays. He’s working his way through the Stephen King books, on the heels of six months of nonfiction. He developed his love of reading as a child in a household where television largely was inaccessible – in the woods near Lake Lucerne.

Reading during meals is frowned upon in many households, but some families agree to a reading supper from time to time. Some readers revel in the practice when dining solo at home, and there are readers who choose to go alone to a restaurant to eat and read. When an acquaintance comes along and wants to socialize, however, it’s awkward to admit that your book is more compelling.

As a young waitress at The Island Inn on Monhegan, I was impressed with an elderly woman who came to the hotel for two weeks each summer. She staked out her table in a far corner and set up her lamp and tea cozy. She would read throughout each meal, stopping only to banter when I brought the tea and served the meal.

Leisure-time reading sounds enticing, but there are those whose work in summertime affords no time for books. These people are dreamy-eyed when referring to wintertime reading. Ellen Ewankow is a captain for the ferry that runs between Southwest Harbor and the Cranberry Isles in the summers. Ellen rises at 5:30 a.m. and works steadily all day and into the early evening, so she is hard-pressed to find time for books. She smiles, though, remembering last winter. In a little work hut on a mountain in Jackson, Wyo., she read during the slow times on her job as monitor of a triple chairlift.

On the road, you may meet a red truck filled with firewood, and it might be Fred Swanson of Trenton. He doesn’t have time to read while cutting and delivering wood during the summer and fall. A certain book on the Allagash, though, calls to him, just as the Allagash itself lures him on vacation.

Linda Stanley laughs at the very idea of reading during the summer. She owns and runs Under the Dogwood, a seasonal shop in Southwest Harbor. “Not with the shop,” she says, “and when I get home, there’s gardening, chores and dinner.” She pauses. “Oh, but do I read when on vacation! The second I’m on the plane, I read and read and I never stop.” She chooses books about the places she visits. Her favorite countries are in South America and Africa, so it’s no surprise that a friend gave her “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood.” Linda looks off to where, in her mind’s eye, she sees the book on her screened-in porch. “Only two pages so far,” she chuckles.

Is there a book calling you? Where might you take it for an hour or two of reading, like in the good old days? I remember my dad years ago, sitting on the rocks by the sea, where he read every Sunday afternoon in summertime. As a child put to bed on a sleeping porch, I read myself to sleep by flashlight under the covers. In the mornings, when my family figured I still was asleep, I continued with the next chapters. A generation later, one of my sons climbed a favorite tree to read, while his brother chose the woodshed roof.

With this article in mind, I checked out “The Young Man and the Sea,” a new acquisition at our library, and found a secluded beach where I read the book from cover to cover. Where might you go to read?

Tell us where you read in pieces no more than four paragraphs, sent to Where We Read, Style Desk, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04401 or via e-mail to bdnstyle@bangordaily.net. Include, name, town and daytime telephone number.