Growing up I was always reading- especially in school. I learned to be really sneaky about it and one teacher told my mother (many years after I was in his class) that he gave up trying to catch me at it because if he gave me a question in class, even with my nose buried in the book, I always had the correct answer.
I can blame the internet for my cut back in reading, plus a really bad rash of buying horrible books that I really resented paying for. So I went from 1-2 books a week to having a re-read in the bathroom or night stand and maybe 3 new books a year. That was until I re-discovered the library. It ROCKS!! Our library is not the library I grew up with- the one that you had to wait 3 months to get a decent newer book. It helps that I was inactive for so long, so I have the last 10 years of new books to read and all I have to do is request them and pick them up. If I don’t like a book, shrug- it was free. FREE!! That’s how I feel now :).
So I’m up to a book ever 2 weeks, with still my re-read in the bathroom. I love to read while BBQing especially, and I read at lunch and before bed. I pick grilling recipes on maximum reading time capacity LOL.
I have to be friendly and outgoing in my job, which does go against my basic personality. Growing up I would much rather read than interact with classmates. One of my earliest school memories was faking a sick note so I could spend recess in the library and not the playground. I have times where I just want to be left alone with my books and could conceive of being imprisoned with a ton of books and not being too put out about it :). As long as they were decent books…
I read a lot. For years I read only non-fiction, but then I lived in a community where the neighbors wouldn’t talk to you unless you had lived there for a year, so I got into novels for entertainment and realized that you can learn quite a bit because the authors research so much of the detail. It also stimulates my imagination so I enjoy fiction more now. Mostly I like courtroom and medical thrillers because I worked in the legal field and for a hospital so I’m familiar with terminology and procedures. After all that I’ve seen, some of these tales are quite believable.
When I moved into a large apartment complex, I was ostracized for reading in the sun, on the patio. It was considered bad manners. I was supposed to sit with the groups who liked to belabor what they had for supper last night and gossip about the other tenants. Didn’t stop me from reading though.
This brings up something else - how do you read more then one book at a time? I only ever read one at a time (not counting magazines, etc.). I like to keep focus on the book I’m reading!
I know a couple of people that are proud not to have a read a book since high school. Or even during high school. Most of them are slutty girls, for whatever that’s worth.
I’ve cut down a lot.
When I was 11 we first moved to a place that had a library I could get to without my parents taking me there. I checked out, and read, their limit every week (20 books) through my teen years.
In college I had enough other stuff going on, and enough of a social life, that I cut down to 6 or 7 books a week, not counting textbooks.
Now I read about 2 books of fiction and 1 of non fiction a week, and 5 magazines.