I took my then-fourteen-year-old brother to see *From Russia With Love * in '64, and on the way home he wouldn’t shut up about how much he’d liked it; of course, I then had to tell him that the book was better. Gave him the book, and his non-reading self knocked it off in one sitting. He went from regarding books as his personal Kryptonite to being nearly his best friends. I’m sad that he died before I discovered, and could tell him about, the world’s greatest living author.
A lawyer friend (law requires a LOT of reading) absolutely deplored and avoided recreational reading. A huge devourer of motion pictures, he liked Crichton’s Timeline so much that he read the book, which remains the only piece of fiction in his home, more than fifty years after law school. He does read woodworking hobby mags, though.
I think the definition of “reading” has to be more clearly defined. I’m “reading” posts on this forum right now, and “read” and research when I link cites for what I post. Just because they’re not physical or E-books, doesn’t mean it’s not “reading”. Even texts require reading.
If someone told me they’re going to read XX books this year, I’d applaud them for their effort, but challenge them with the statement that while they may gain more insight into that particular subject if it’s a non-fiction book, I probably read more, and learned, retained and got more topical information by reading this and other forums. I used to read fiction for entertainment, but now choose to watch movies or TV for that.
I post a lot of nonsense here, but on other forums, most of what I post is facts based on research by reading, studying and personal experience.
There’s a huge difference between exposing a child to books and trying to force them to read. Giving children books is about letting them see that reading can be for fun. With younger children the expectation is that they’ll look at the pictures. There’s a fair number of books for younger children that have little or no text, like the Carl books. What little text there is isn’t necessary to understand the story.
The people that the person in my example worked with knew he couldn’t read. They were treating him like shit. The reason they’d give him a written list of things to get was because they knew he wouldn’t be able to read it.
I grew up in a household full of readers and tons of books around. Everyone had at least one book on the table next to them… except for me. I can read, I did well in school, I got my degree, and have had a very successful career for over 30 years. To me though reading anything longer than a quick note is a chore and not fun.
I read one word at a time, and mentally say that word to process it. I can’t understand how others can just absorb a full sentence at once. My son was (medically) diagnosed with dyslexia and we were told that usually runs in the family. The psychiatrist asked several questions and I pretty much checked off all the boxes. Some have mentioned day dreaming while reading… this is my case too. When I read a few pages I will often realize that something made me think about something else and before I know it I have to go back and re-read the last few pages.
I probably haven’t read 52 books just for fun in my entire life. I have bought many thinking they would be fun/interesting but most have had the first few chapters read before they were forgotten.
It hasn’t hurt me… I’ve been successful… I’ve raised three great kids… life has treated me well… I just don’t find reading to be fun.
Much as I love the Dope, what you get here is at best a pointer to information, with some highlights. Even the best poster can only give a snippet of data, otherwise the post would be TTTTL;DR.
Goes for everything. A two minute story on TV news is not going to inform you like a two page story in the Times. You’ll learn some history from Hamilton, but not like reading Chernow’s biography.
Now if you only care about topical information, a book is going to be out of date as soon as it’s published. But still, in most cases you find more from following the links than from just reading the post. And that’s a good thing.
I used to be annoyed by people posting ‘cite?’, but now I like it. I completely agree that following links is a great (and sometimes the only) way to fully comprehend what the poster is trying to convey. Also necessary, IMO, is that you have fully read (there’s that word again) or at least heavily skim ALL the other posts in a thread before making your own post. Even if for nothing else than keeping from making a fool of yourself.
I usually read for pleasure, mostly sci-fi, although I am currently reading a detective story mainly for the local color as it takes place in my home town. But also I read or try to, physics books because I would really really like to understand quantum theory. Also a bit of history (I recommend Jill Lepore’s “These Truths”) and other non-fiction. But I have a friend who cannot read for pleasure. He reads a lot, but never for pleasure. He reads only “serious” books, the kind I would not enjoy. And much of what he reads is not in English. He reads French, German, and Swedish. Now when I was trying to learn French, I read–and enjoyed–a lot of Maigret stories, but he would never stoop to such things. He regards my reading as frivolous.
My brother would never read for pleasure through HS, which he barely graduated from before joining the Air Force. He spent a year in western Alaska where he discovered Sci-fi in the base library and was henceforth hooked on reading. When he got out, he went to college* on the GI bill and was a reader the rest of his life.
How did he get to college with nearly solid D’s in HS? Well Penn State had a policy that if the sum of your HS quintiles and SAT quintiles did not exceed 6 you would be admitted, although not to the main campus. His HS quintile was 5 and SAT quintile was 1. Maybe there is a moral to this. Maybe if HS English teachers didn’t insist on “serious” literature, less Silas Marner and more War of the Worlds or whatever, there would be more readers out there.
I’m sort of the opposite of the person mentioned in the OP. Who couldn’t imagine reading except for the purpose of studying.
I can imagine studying for the purpose of having something to read, but it’s not something I can do successfully. All my life I’ve been a skim reader, ignoring the spelling, word, grammar, context and meaning. By choice, I always start a book in the middle: I don’t need to know all the characters mentioned in Ivanhoe (or in Buckaroo Banzai). And I’ve gradually come to feel a sense of loss when I compare myself to others, particularly one sister and brother. I had to work to get through university. Everybody thought I was smart: everybody has my whole life. I’ve never had any trouble understanding any of my subjects. But reading for learning is hard for me.
True of any historical novel. You really need to read up on the history first, especially because the author sometimes takes some liberties with historical accuracy.
At least with Waverley you don’t have to struggle with a lot of complicated names in another language. But that is not in itself an obstacle, you just go through the list of characters a few times until it all falls into place. Even Russian novels … and War and Peace is actually very easy to read. Not so Dostoyevsky, he really is hard work.
I travel by train to work. I get to the station about twenty minuets ahead of time and the journey itself is forty minutes. I want to pass that time but it’s too early in the morning to stick earphones in and listen to music or a podcast. So I bring a book along and have sixty minutes reading. The return journey has more people around me so that’s when I stick my earphones in and block out the noise of the crowd.
To me reading a book now is like exercising. I’ve allocated time for it and it’s a second nature to me therefore skipping it is out of habit. And the books I read vary from crime fiction to science fiction to history to science to biography. Right now I have three books issued out from the library — one is a story about a cyclist’s eighty day circumnavigation journey, another is a fictional British Intelligence espionage thriller and the third is a guide to Egyptology. Three different subjects but fascinating to me.
I’m not talking about parents, but schools. Common Core made it a requirement for all children in Kindergarten to be able to read by the end of the year. That doesn’t mean look at books, but read words. Some children, more often boys, are not developmentally able to do so by age 6.
Especially when the post is a zombie, and you are ready to post something you posted two years ago. Happens to me all the time.
Plus, Dopers have the annoying habit of posting the great joke i was ready to post hours before I read the thread. Burns me up.
