snort
Can I borrow this line? cause it’s oh so true.
Not only did I get in trouble in school for reading; I got in trouble in school for reading during “Reading”.
Having blown through the (small) local library’s selection of juveniles prior to fourth grade, I started in on the adult section. One day in class, while the teacher was reading aloud from The White Mountains, I was reading Jay Anson’s 666 (schlocky horror novel of The Exorcist variety.) She caught sight of the title and I was promptly sent to the principal’s office to have the book confiscated. sigh
A year later, I got in the same trouble for reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover (which I mostly didn’t understand.) I also got in trouble, or at least chastized, for reading:
[ul]
[li]A Clockwork Orange[/li][li]Catch-22 (which I’m currently rereading)[/li][li]Wifey[/li][li]The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn[/li][li]1984[/li][/ul]
and it so forth. Mostly I just got in trouble for reading, period, when I shouldn’t be (during lecture), or when teachers thought I shouldn’t be (pep rally, blah), but too often it was for the content of the book, which (for the most part) the teacher had never read.
The scene in Donnie Darko, where Kitty Farmer responds to a question about whether she knows who Graham Greene is by saying, “I think we’ve all seen Bonanza!”–farking priceless! I’d love the film for that alone, even if it makes no bloody sense.
“I’ll tell you what he said. He asked me to forcibly insert the Life Line exercise card into my anus.” Man, oh man…I wish I’d had that kind of opportunity in school. 
Stranger
I also read a lot, which sort of confounds my husband and friends. Like a couple of other people in this thread, I make my living as a writer, so a lot of people I know figure that I wouldn’t want to read if I’m off the clock because writing often entails more reading than actual writing. Still, I wouldn’t give up my off-the-clock reading for the world.
I read anything. At the moment I’ve got a romance novel I read while brushing my teeth, a finance book I read in bed, a couple of health magazines and local business newspapers I read in the morning before I get to work or in the evening when I’m relaxing, plus the stuff I read all day (mostly news and business Web sites) and the stuff I read on trips (usually stuff I’ve been meaning to read but get distracted from reading by other material). There was a time when I was trying to force-feed myself the classics. I figured that it would expand my horizons and teach me more reading appreciation, which was true to some extent. But mostly, I found myself not looking forward to reading anymore, so I simply started reading those classics that touched on things I was interested in, plus anything else that looked remotely interesting, and sold or donated those books that were making me not want to read anymore.
If you’re interested in business, by all means read business books. I’ve heard that “Eats Shoots and Leaves” and “Who Moved My Cheese?” are excellent management books, though I’ve never read them myself. They have the added bonus of being fairly short, so they’re good for those with shorter attention spans.
For what it’s worth, I’m currently reading Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” Kottler & Armstrong’s “Principles of Marketing,” “Rich Dad Poor Dad” (which I’m starting to suspect is largely crap with some common sense thrown in), and a nice bodice-ripping historical romance by Lisa Kleypas.
Actually, overlyverbose, Eats Shoots and Leaves is a book about punctuation. A fascinating one. I read it in just a few sittings, and really enjoyed her dry humor.
How about if I have a PDA with various e-documents stored on it? 
Thanks for the correction. I’ve always seen it in the business section of the bookstore, so I guess I incorrectly assumed it must be about management. D’oh!
man, after reading through this thread I feel so inadequate. When I was in grade school and high school I was every bit as manic about reading as you guys. Then I got to college, and all sorts of other things got in the way of reading time, including this newfangled thingumbob called the Internet. Post-college, tarted reading a lot again, then I started grad school. The only stuff I read now are text book, manuals, and peer-reviewed journal studies. I still find time to fit in some reading outside of The Straightdope and online slash. I don’t think I’ll ever be back to pre-college (non-school/career related) reading levels ever again.
Sigh
Actually, embarassingly enough, that’s me too. I’m not reading books but I am still reading a lot of online slash as well as the Japanese study (how appropriate that I’m responding to a poster named Ichini Sanshigo). And I also read an awful lot of news sites. Huh, I bet if I calculate the online word count I read daily, my reading pace really hasn’t dropped off…
I’m not game to click on that link. As it is, I won’t live long enough to read all the books on my To Read list and I just know I’d be adding to it.
Someone put Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, and The Female Eunuch on our seventh grade reading shelf. I think I read The Chrysalids then, too. Aagh. Probably I could sue them for exposing me to child-unfriendly literature.
I love books. And *Tris, I’m stealing that line, too.
I have two paperback books in my purse right now, and a third I take along just in case the first two don’t hold my interest. (Although I just posted to the Anybody Quit Reading Books? thread about my current difficulty in reading.)
I can’t wait to get back to reading 2-3 books a week; I need to read like I need air.