Ya know, I read a book about this one time…
FWIW - I’m one of the nerds that reads to damn much. My EX, who’s a couple of months away from his PhD reads almost nothing - journal articles is it. And he’s not SUPER dumb, so I wouldn’t worry too much… 
Abigail Thernstrom, of The Manhattan Institute, has done quite a bit of research on the racial gap in educational achhievement among gradeschoolers. In a panel discussion that aired on C-Span (I think) a few months ago, she said that there was a almost a perfect correlation between how well a child would do in school and the number of books in the child’s home.
Years ago I was briefly acquainted with a man in the music industry who entertained at his Hollywood Hills home frequently. His living room walls were awash in books with floor to ceiling bookshelves.
In the course of our discussions he admitted he had read very few of the books on his shelves, and made a point of buying new, well-reviewed or controversial books so that his visitors would be impresssed by his erudition.
Anyone counting his books and rating his intellectualism on the number of books would be impressed. But as he said, gesturing at the shelves, “Looks cool, don’t it?”
Avoiding the question of literature, how about nonfiction books? Frankly, I question the ability of someone to have a deep understanding of most nontrivial subjects without having read a book on it. There is a definite limit on how much knowledge can be conveyed by a magazine article.
If I was to express horror that the “average” household only had 25 books it would be because it is unthinkable for me to live surrounded by so few books. I can live without TV (though I do like TV). I can possibly live without music (it would be tough). I cannot live without books; I love them and need them only slightly less than I need food. I cannot sleep unless I read first and I do not care to unlearn that habit because reading brings me so much more than pleasure, it fills a need in me. Books are a big deal in my life.
This DOES NOT mean that I am looking down my nose in horror at the families that only have 25 books! I wouldn’t be angling to live with them, that’s for sure (what would I read?) but I wouldn’t think less of them because they don’t share my love of books. My brother is a very intelligent guy but he hates to read; if there are more than 5 books in his house (and any that don’t contain maps or sheet music) then they must belong to his fiance. I do not think any less of his intelligence because of it, just as I do not think less of the people who responded to that other thread with a lower number. Intelligence does not depend on being well read, it is merely enhanced by it.
I find this thread so weird. It’s like people are competitive about reading. It’s not a race! The most successful reader (if there is such a thing) is the one who has enjoyed it most and that’s not something you can measure. Somebody who has read 12,000 books may not have experienced as much fulfillment as much as a child who has just read their first all by themselves. You only read for yourself, and who cares what anyone else thinks or how many books they’ve read or what they say?
Because I go to the library. At least once a week and I always have a few reserved books to pick up. Yes, BOOKS, not DVDs or music albums. When you think about it, a book (not a reference book or nonfiction, since you might refer back to it, but novels you’ll more than likely never pick up again) is really just a tangible memory of the experience of reading the book. It’s like a dead body, all used up. It’s like keeping an empty food package. To me, anyway.
Also, I’m none too pleased about those “studies” that say the children of nonreaders are always going to grow up to be dumb, maybe because I’m an exception or maybe because I know MANY people who are exceptions, thereby making the rule seem a little ridiculous. The only books in my house growing up were medical books and photo albums, and I turned out to be a reader. Studies like that downplay the control we all have over our own stupidity, and give the people who had the luck of having good parents one more thing to gloat about.
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This:
OK, I think I understand what you’re saying now, but… reading is a good thing; more reading more so; Why should not people express surprise and dismay about examples (or general statistics) of what they feel to be substandard literacy?
You appear to have taken this all far too personally (not to mention exaggerated it all a little).
I don’t base my beliefs about reading on studies. I base them on my observations and practical experiences teaching in the public schools, and studies back THOSE up. Some of my genuinely brightest kindergarten students weren’t very good readers because, in part, NO ONE in the student’s home read for pleasure, owned books, valued reading or demonstrated the habit of reading for pleasure. This is not a predictor of intelligence, and I’ve never claimed it was. It is a fairly accurate predictor of academic success with regards to reading and whether the child grows up to read. (Reading, like religious devotion, is a habit best ingrained in the young.)
You didn’t just “turn out to be” a reader. Someone taught you and you liked it: a relative, a teacher, a friend, maybe even a librarian. Who turned you on to reading for pleasure and using public libraries, davenportavenger?
We have strikingly different reading habits. I keep very few works of any media, in fiction or non-fiction, print or recordings, that I don’t periodically re-read or replay. Heck, there are posts and threads on this message board I periodically re-read.
Granted, there is a hoarding/packrat/collecting aspect to my book buying, but my habits aren’t exactly indiscriminate. I grew up reading boys mystery fiction series like the Three Investigators, Encyclopedia Brown and the McGurk books, and comic books so the habit of serial reading is pretty strong even in my adult reading habits. If I’ve read one book by an author I’ve enjoyed, I tend to actively search out and read others by the same author. This sometimes leads to genres I hadn’t considered before, or similar books by different authors who write pastiches and homages. By the same token its hard for me to throw away or give away books by that same author I may not have enjoyed as much, because its a point of pride for me to say to someone whose interested: “Yes, I have all of Stephen King’s books, including his essays and short story collections and this book of poems by his wife. Which ones have you read?” If I’m feeling especially generous I may lend some out. This tends to get expensive because (sadly) non-book readers are incredibly irresponsible about returning people’s books in good condition. (I still have gaps in my collections from people borrowing books.)
To you, books are corpses. (Which would make libraries, what? Masoleums?)
For me, a good book is a friend you revisit every once in awhile, introduce to friends and family, and occassionally take to bed.
Mmmm. Where’s my Anais Nin?
I read voraciously as a kid, up until about half-way through high school.
Then I realized that reading fiction is little better than watching television. Generally a waste of time IMO, unless it’s something like accurate historical fiction, or biographical, where you get useful or at least interesting information from it. Now I read nonfiction almost exclusively, and only when I need to do research for some reason. I prefer active/interactive activities to purely passive ones. I don’t think I’ve read one book this year, though, except the one I edited and the one I wrote myself.
Personally I don’t understand the people that think I am missing some great and central part of life by not consuming at least one book a week. To me it’s like saying my life is sad and something to be pitied because I don’t particularly care for tomato sauce.
Perhaps it’s good with regards to my pathetic “library” that I have no intention of breeding, elsewise my hypothetical children would be poor readers, but with exceptional cooking skills and an extensive knowledge of house plants and massage.
Fucking snob.
Hardly. I prefer television over books because then at least I can work on things with my hands while I listen/watch. They even make edumacational television.
That said, I have noticed that the people that hold reading up on such an ivory pedastal are often the same ones that dump on television. Not all, of course, but many. Personally I don’t see a lot of difference. Hence my comment.
I’m kinda agreeing with you, except you really shouldn’t refute you’re a snob by responding with the words, “Hardly,” and “Hence.”
Methinks conflating TV fictional programming and good reading materials speaks more ill of your choices in both, rather than reflecting the ill inherent in them. But then, my father watches and reads little to no fiction at all, too, and sees no point to my watching shows like “Lost,” “Rome,” “Deadwood,” – and he’s by far a more voracious reader/book collector than I.
My apologies. I thought using those words would make me sound more intelligent, since I need all the help I can get.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong or “ill” with either of them. I just find it relatively pointless, and think there are better things I can personally be doing with my time. For the most part, I just don’t care about reading or watching things that didn’t happen or don’t really exist. The few movies I watch, I generally enjoy more for the visual aspect than storyline or plot. I just don’t care.
As an example, I like Harry Potter. I watch the movies because they are pretty and they have Alan Rickman in them. I read threads here and spoilers so I can get a condensed version of what happens in each book. I want the information, I don’t care about the romanticising, or the details.
Like the OP, I don’t like the insinuation that there’s something wrong with me or I’m fundamentally missing out on something because my personal preferences don’t match those of someone else. Particularly the fact that I probably don’t even own two dozen books. Even if I did read often, I’d get them from the library. Who wants a shelf full of books you’ve already read just taking up space?
!! :eek: !!
Wow.
I-I… did you really just…?
Wow.
I was going to say the same thing. A non-fiction book covers a subject in far more depth, giving far more understanding, than even the best TV documentary or magazine article. Compare the number of words in each. And even highly intelligent boards like this are not the same as a book. Good fiction draws characters far more deeply than those in short stories (by definition) or TV shows, where the nature of episodic television forces characters to stay pretty much the same. For fiction I read sf, and there you can show things you still can’t afford on TV.
The number of books you own isn’t important really. I don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs: I do go to used bookstores, and luckily have a socially acceptable addiction. I had hundreds of books when still in high school, from finding good used bookstores, and bought lots when I was in grad school making $4,000 a year. But libraries work too. I get non-fiction books I can’t afford and don’t want to collect there, and sf books for my collection from used book stores. But I doubt the 25 number is based on families who can’t afford more.
I few years ago I got recruited to help a bunch of third graders behind in reading read better. None of them had English as their first language. They read some simple books, and I corrected them, and explained words, but what made me happiest was that I was able to instill in many of them a love of reading. By the end of the term some of them were getting books on their own where they never did before, and my friend who recruited me told me their test scores improved.
I have less than a hundred books around I guess. When I read them, I keep them for a while and then give them away. Oddly, I find it is the obscure paperbacks that seem to pile up.
If I need to, I know I can get another copy of Inside the Court of the Red Tsar should I need it. I suspect another copy of a certain cheap novel may be the last copy I ever see. I also keep reference books.
Why is it ‘right’ to be a packrat with books, but ‘wrong’ to keep (say) old bottles and boxes? If my library gets to a point where I cannot easily find that certain book I am looking for, then it is too big.
Yep, and there’s no lack of scoffing, no matter what choices are made. Sneering doesn’t achieve much of anything beyond making sneerers look like tools but the ol’ instinct gets pretty free rein anyway.
I’m a lifelong, passionate book nut but frankly that doesn’t translate into much. Some of the canniest, wisest folks I’ve ever met rarely read anything beyond the bare essentials. Equally, some of the most flagrantly useless, blinkered people I’ve met were book snots who used titles read as a means to count coup. Title droppers are the most pathetic, oblivious bores imaginable.
Well, mabye wine snots are worse. Barely.
Anybody who has to make a big, technicolor production of “I AM…”, usually ain’t.
The reason I consider reading to be essential is not just personal preference. If you’re getting most of your information from places like TV and newspapers, you’re lacking perspective and depth. You basically have to trust what they say unless you’re lucky enough to find someone who expresses a well-informed viewpoint. And they almost certainly became well-informed by reading books.
There are other considerations too. Literacy is enhanced by reading long narratives. If you don’t read a lot, you almost certainly don’t have a very good vocabulary, you won’t have the patience or concentration for dealing with longer pieces, and your writing ability will probably be affected by what you’ve read, or rather what you haven’t read. You can see it on these boards. The barely-intelligible posts we see here sometimes are probably not written by people who read a lot.
While there are stupid people who also happen to be readers, I doubt that many people who are considered to be intelligent are not readers. At the best, someone who doesn’t know a whole lot about things would be considered ignorant, no matter what their intelligence. There are a lot of things you can’t learn unless you read about them. I’m not entirely on one side of things though. I run into people in real life and on these boards who may have learned more about a subject than I have, but seem incapable of applying the things they’ve learned. Logic is as important as information in some ways.
The problem is that I just can’t respect people who say they don’t like to read. In my experience, non-readers have shallow and sometimes downright stupid ideas about how things work and they seem to have little appreciation for history and the background behind current events or even entertainment. For example, Ebert seems not to read since he often makes comments that show him to be completely ignorant of the source material of movies based on books. He’s not stupid, but he sure ain’t none too smart neither sometimes.
Another example: I met my friend’s mother-in-law when I was staying with him for the holidays a couple of years ago. A proud non-reader, she hadn’t heard of the PATRIOT Act, and had only a vague idea about the Constitutional issues involved, much less the history that led to the provisions of the Constitution. She’s a math teacher, she’s not stupid, but she shows that she has very little idea how things work outside her little area. Reading could broaden her. It would certainly make her more interesting to talk to.
I watch movies, play video games, watch TV, all the usual stuff, but I also read. A lot. I know I often get more out of things because I get blank looks when I refer to connections that other people don’t get. I can make those connections because I’ve read about various different subjects in both fiction and non-fiction. If I stuck to only reading things that were assigned in class or read only magazines, journals, and newspapers, I wouldn’t have that base to draw on. My life would be much less full and my ability to understand and appreciate the world around me would be impaired.
Those are the reasons I’m a bit upset when I hear that someone’s only read a couple hundred books in their lifetime. There’s a whole world of knowledge that you’re not even bothering to explore. Take the time to learn some stuff.
Hmm. I happen to have thousands of books in my house.
Am I the only one who acquired them mostly at library sales and garage sales? The last time I went to my local library I picked up ten great children’s books about science for less than five dollars. I rarely pay more than $1 at garage sales even for pretty books in good condition.
The only books in the house that were more costly were gifts from friends and my spouse.