These Aren't Your Mother's Large Print Books! (But they ARE her Genes)

Chuckle #384 | November 24th 2009
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Preschoolers aren’t ashamed to read Large Print Books. Large print isn’t humiliating when you’re 5 because all your friends are also reading Dr. Seuss in 28 point type. It’s different for us adults when we discover that our eyesight is beginning to fail before we’re even pushing 60.

Menus, cell phone manuals, the teensy recycling numbers on the bottom of plastic containers…all this has, of late, become a challenge. Add a “dim light” factor and I might as well be legally blind. I often need to ask for help from younger eyes. (Luckily, I was prescient enough to have kids.) My husband’s failing eyesight is about three years ahead of mine, and together we make quite the embarrassing pair. You should see us on “date night”. And no, I will NOT bring a flashlight and magnifying glass to a restaurant. Not yet anyway. I have my pride.

Thanks to “pride”, I spent a recent weekend trying to hide the fact that I was reading a Large Print book. This was difficult, since anyone within 10 yards of me could read along without too much effort. It also had the words “LARGE PRINT!” splashed all over the cover in...wouldn’t you know it...REALLY BIG text.

Why the large print book you ask? I was desperate for a distraction. We were on an in-law visit and I had nothing to read. In survival situations like this, people do unexpected, uncharacteristic things. Like read large print books, feign illness, go out for coffee a lot, and eat their pets. Ever watch “Lost”? This Danielle Steele Novelette was the only book available, and the only thing standing between me, my in-law’s couch, and the inevitable Lifetime Television Movie of the Week. I had no choice.

Did you know that all 300 titles by Danielle Steele are available in large print? That says something. I think she may have written this one in her sleep after passing out over a bottle of Jack. Writers who commit such literary crimes should not go unpunished. (And the editors who put them into print should be charged as accessories.)

ROMANCE dominates the “optimized alternative format market” (aka Large Print) because lovelorn ladies of a certain age in bifocals are the primary consumers. Apparently the farsighted are suckers for LOVE. On a positive note, (now that I’ve managed to offend sappy romantics, mother-in-laws AND the visually challenged, let me just say that Large Print isn’t so bad. While the fear of being caught in possession of a large print book can still send me down a rabbit hole (Alice’s will do), there are some benefits. I did not have to hold the book up under my chin to read it, nor did I get nauseous reading in the car. I also predict fewer wrinkles because I did not need to squint so much. (The downside is that my mind may turn to mush because of the limited titles available.)

Just for the sake of mental stimulation (and vanity) I’ll think I’ll stick with regular print for as long as I can. But when my time comes, I’ll go straight to the KINDLE. I’m just beginning to understand the popularity of this new device. It’s not simply that it is a cool new technology; it’s that baby boomers can SET THE FONT SIZE to anything they want. No more embarrassing large print books, no more embarrassing authors. The visually challenged can now read ANY BOOK they darn well please. So there, Random House.

And if the eyesight gets really bad, there’s always audio books. Just crank up the earphone volume as your hearing fails. No one will ever need to know that BOTH the eyes AND the ears are going…

Do you Kindle? Or do you own 20 pairs of perpetually misplaced reading glasses?
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