I don’t know exactly when or why, but I quit reading books some time ago. I’ve picked up books and tried to read them, but have just chucked them away out of boredom. I used to be a voracious reader, too, sometimes reading several books a day, every day for months at a time. Doesn’t matter the subject, or the author, I’m just not interested.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Everything worth saying has already been written down and read.
Can’t recall who to attribute this quote to but:
“Sir, I’ve read your book and the only problem I could find was that the covers are too far apart.”
When I was a kid I got hollered at in school for reading too much. I used to have half a dozen magazine subscriptions on top of all the books I read. The more I got into the internet the less I “read”, and the more broke I got the fewer subscriptions I maintained. I think I read the same amount of words; I just received them in a different format.
I’m taking 18 credits this semester and HAVE to read. Over the past year I ramped up to my old reading habits via short stories - Maughm, to be specific, because he suits me, but others as well - and that’s done a lot for my uni reading.
Heck no! As it stands, I’m trying not to pester my UPS guy about my latest shipment of books’ arrival. Books books books. Some people dream about rolling around in a pile of money. I want to roll around on some books right before I read 'em.
Have you tried reading short stories, to re-charge your reading battery? How about some of your most very favorite books? Change genres?
I don’t usually read many books at all when I’m in school. But when I’m not, or during breaks, I still get into them.
Ever since finishing my freshman year of college, I haven’t been able to pick up a book without analyzing it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that I have all this new knowledge and these new ways of interpreting what I read, but I hate that I can’t turn my brain off. I can’t even do it reading romance novels anymore, and that’s saying something. It’s impossible to just sit back and enjoy the story. I must ferret out meaning.
I used to read constantly. Several books a week during busy times, like drama season. On weekends, I could finish two or three or four books. It was fun. Now, not so much. I can’t escape in my reading anymore, because it reminds me of my work too much. The last book I read for pleasure, pure pleasure, was Howard’s End, and that was over a month ago.
It’s horrible. I feel like a member of my family has died or I’ve ended a serious relationship. I’m practically bereft, but they’re just books! (God, I feel dirty for saying that.) Am I crazy? Is this the curse of the English major?
Yep, I’ve got 8 recently purchased books, all by my favorite authors. But I can’t get past the first chapter without getting bored. I used to go through atleast 2 per week. But after having to cutback due to financial reasons a couple of years ago, I can’t seem to get into it again.
Try changing genres - when I was younger, I read a lot of SF and fantasy - then I figured that my tastes ought to “grow up”, and I read mostly “lit-rah-choo-ah”, Booker Prize nominees and the like. Then I got to where they were boring the hell out of me, so I switched to American crime fiction, and got very interested in that. I’ve been on that kick for a couple of years now, but later, who knows? Vary it if you’re in a rut.
Have your eyes been checked lately? I’ve noticed that when my eyes have to work harder to read, then I lose interest more quickly. And right now, I need bifocals, so I haven’t been reading much of anything lately.
The last book I read was "See Pug Run"
Oops! gotta go now guys or I’ll be late for my job scrubing toilets at Mc Donald’s…
I definitely read less than I used to. Like chique, I used to get in trouble for reading in class when I should have been paying attention. When I was a kid in the summer, I would ride my bike down to the bookstore and sit in a corner and read all day (years later, I ended up working at that store for a year and a half, so I figure I’ve paid them back for all that time I used them as a library). In the evenings, my dad would come get me for dinner.
I still read a lot, more than most people (I read 47 books for the first time last year and more rereads that I didn’t count), but not nearly as much as I used to. When I worked in the bookstore I read over eighty books a year. Okay, yeah, I am not constantly surrounded by books anymore, but I commute three hours a day, I have plenty of time.
My knee is still jerking from the thought of the horror of quitting books.
I read less, but only because pesky things like work and cooking get in the way.
I’ve gotten that way too, but more with fiction books than anything. Recently I’ve found it hard to get into fiction books, but I’ve been devouring non-fiction books like there’s no tomorrow.
The only fiction book I’ve gotten into is Stephen King’s last Dark Tower book but because I’m eager to find out what happens to Roland.
I read much less than I used to. I blame it partly on the eyes, and partly on the internet (which I guess still counts as reading, but not as books, per se). Another problem is that I’m primarily a fiction reader, and I haven’t discovered any new authors lately who really do much for me.
Right now, my “to read” pile is larger than it’s been in a couple of years, so maybe there’s some hope for me yet.
I read a lot fewer books now. I think it’s because my free time comes in smaller chunks. I just don’t have the hours it takes me to get involved in a novel. I don’t like reading just a few pages and having to put the book down so for those times I just surf the web or read the newspaper.
Also, I think my favorite genre has changed and left me behind. Science fiction is filled with Star Trek novelizations and twenty-seven book series with a sword weilding hero. I hope the real future doesn’t contain turn out that way.
I mentioned in the other thread that I no longer read like I used to. If you’d seen me read even five years ago, you’d never peg me as someone who’d stop reading. I think there’s several of factors.
One, I do a lot of internet reading, both news adn fiction, so I’m still reading a lot of words.
Two, I’ve gotten older and a lot less tolerant of really crappy writing. When I was younger, I’d read anything as long as the story was good. (strangely enough, this doesn’t apply as much to stuff on the web, I expect that to not be great)
Three, like Case Sensitive says, tastes change. I’m no longer fascinated by pop science books like I once was and I won’t read fantasy unless it’s Pratchett. I spend a lot of time doing reading-like activities (studying Japanese) but not actually reading books.
Four, my pet theory. I think the internet has kinda ruined my ability to concentrate on longer works. I’m used to short and punchy and don’t seem to have much patience for loooooong books. (I’ve been wanting to read the last two Potter books but they’re sooooooo loooong I can’t bring myself to waste that much time…)
I’ve the same problem. I’ve read back over books I read and liked years ago, only to be disappointed. A few months ago I went back and read the Horatio Hornblower novels (I’d read four of them before, but this time I read through the whole sequence in chronological order, 'cept for the last) and while some of them were good, others were much less carefully plotted and edited. I couldn’t bring myself to read the last one (Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, I think.) I re-read The Lord of The Rings novels and found them to be tedious this time through, though The Hobbit is still a good read. I’ve almost completely lost interest in science fiction, and in particular Niven and Heinlein (though The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and If This Goes On… are still grabbers.)
On the other hand, some novels I’ve gotten a lot more out of. I’m currently re-reading Catch-22 and laughing my ass off at much of it. For some reason I didn’t get this much out of it the first time, perhaps pertaining to the fact that I read the whole thing in one 14 hour marathon session in order to write a book report the next day. (Knee-biting overachiever. :rolleyes: ) Jim Thompson and Raymond Chandler have become deeper over time, and I’ve picked up James M. Cain and a few other less noted crime authors, too. And some interests haven’t changed at all. I could read Alfred Hitchcock anthologies crime and horror all day.
Like Case Sensitive I’ve gone to reading more “classics” and high-fallutin literature, but I don’t take it for granted that just because it’s won the Booker that it is any good. I read Cold Mountain and couldn’t believe what a monumental waste of time it was. On the other hand, I though The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to be even better than the hype.
As Anaamika says, the idea of losing interest in reading makes me weak and desperate. I’d rather give up Irish whisky, cloudless blue skies, and my left hand first.
Stranger
You are not crazy, you are having a normal English-major reaction. It will pass. I stopped reading for a while after I (finally!) graduated, but in a few years I picked up the habit again. I read more slowly than I used to, which is frustrating as I have less free time now than I did.
I feel like I don’t read much, but that’s because I’m comparing my current habits to my childhood habits. Even now, I read way more than any of my coworkers, although I’m far behind my more bibliophile friends.
I feel the same way - I read pretty slow - about 30 pages per hour, and don’t have the time to read - so I want QUALITY. I read fantasy and sf, but I find myself re-reading the same books over, and over, and over.
There is so much junk that people are telling me is good - and I can’t bang out 3 books a day like others. I remember when I was in HS and College I’d be up until 4:00 am reading Interview with a Vampire just to finish it and sleeping for 2 hours then going about my week obsessed with the book.
That hasn’t happened to me lately, and for a long time I blamed Stephen King (he was cranking out 6 books a week for a while - I quit around Pet Cemitary, which just burnt me out) but I guess it’s not his fault.
I read buttloads of books as a kid. For some reason I’ll never understand, I think by the 4th grade I had read pretty much every book Stephen King had written by that point. I used to get random books I liked the cover art for at the used bookstore, and read them. I read buttloads of fantasy books, including all the Dragonlance saga and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I even read a lot of “classic” literature just because I was curious if it was everything people made it out to be (I think I was the only one in my whole 10th grade English class who enjoyed Silas Marner.) All of that dropped off by my last couple years of high school.
I did (and do) read very fast, but have a problem that when I start a book I have trouble stopping until it’s finished, and that gets disruptive. So that’s one reason I rarely read any more. The other reason is that I pretty much lost interest in fiction books entirely. They inevitably leave me feeling depressed with reality by the time I’m done with them. I enjoy the escape into worlds where fantastic things happen and everything is melodramatic and romantic and things just Work Out, but I get too emotionally invested in stories and the withdrawl is too much. I don’t see a lot of movies for the same reason. I still read TONS, but it’s all news articles online, or non-fiction subjects in my assorted areas of casual research and/or interest.