# Writer who wasn't a reader **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 18, 2018, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384 "2018-05-18T03:57:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Oly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oly/32/8255_2.png) [@Oly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oly)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/1 "2018-05-18T03:57:44Z")
Has there ever been a well-known writer who was also known for not being an avid reader of other people’s writing? Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/2 "2018-05-18T04:15:25Z")
I think never being an avid reader **at all** would necessarily make someone a third-class writer. But being uninterested in certain things? Probably most. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/3 "2018-05-18T06:13:52Z")
Interesting question, but I certainly can’t think of anyone who fits the bill. I can’t even \*imagine \*anyone who fits the bill. But it’s still an interesting question. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/4 "2018-05-18T09:05:49Z")
Benjamin Disraeli, now more famous as a British Prime Minister than as a novelist, is supposed to have once said, “When I want to read a novel, I write one” or some variation on that. I can’t find any solid proof he ever really said any such thing. See [When I Want to Read a Book, I Write One – Quote Investigator®](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/09/09/book/) ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/5 "2018-05-19T09:00:28Z")
Aside from the quote’s attribution to Disraeli probably being apocryphal, one reason to be dubious is that he’d grown up in the most bookish of households. His [father](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_D%27Israeli) was notable as a literary journalist and famous as a bibliophile. Sons do oft turn against their father’s obsessions, but if he didn’t read much growing up it certainly wasn’t for lack of opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/6 "2018-05-19T10:41:57Z")
A writer friend of around my age (60ish) tells me that technology has lowered the bar for people who want to write. I don’t know if he made this up or is quoting someone, but he says: people used to learn how to write; then, with the advent of vanity publishing, they would just start writing; now, they blog and call it writing. Re: Disraeli’s quote - since it’s in the present tense, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that he had done a lot of reading in the past, but preferred at that point to use his time to write. [My stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=538252) went through a phase where he wanted to be a novelist (not _write_ a novel; _be_ a novelist). I asked him who his influences were. He didn’t know what that meant. So I asked him what writers he liked. He couldn’t name any. So I asked him what novels he liked. He’d never read one. But he had read part of the way through a non-fiction book once. So yeah, there are probably writers today who don’t read. I can’t imagine wanting to read anything by them. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/7 "2018-05-19T15:00:24Z")
Does Tweeting count as writing? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/8 "2018-05-19T16:00:21Z")
Homer, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/9 "2018-05-19T16:39:50Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Homer, obviously. Good one. Except that wasn’t Homer, but another guy with the same name. Anybody else here old enough to remember when that was going around? I’d say there have been many genre writers who didn’t read much literature generally, and who studied their own genre just enough to get proficient in it. The pulp guys who wrote 10-40,000 words a week literally had no time to do any pleasure reading. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/10 "2018-05-19T21:15:37Z")
James Thurber lost one eye and damaged the other when he was seven. I remember one biography said he couldn’t make out anything smaller than about three words on a sheet of paper. But perhaps someone read to him. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/11 "2018-05-19T22:35:31Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > James Thurber lost one eye and damaged the other when he was seven. I remember one biography said he couldn’t make out anything smaller than about three words on a sheet of paper. > > But perhaps someone read to him. Thurber didn’t begin to go completely blind in his left eye until he was in his 40s. That became a slow progression over a number of years and cataract surgeries. He wrote by hand for a while and then dictated to others. He used a jeweler’s loupe for his cartoons. He also had what he called a “trick memory,” near photographic recall of everything he read. That undoubtedly helped when he played himself onstage reciting one of his stories for T_he Thurber Carnival_ in 1960, not long before he died at 67. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/12 "2018-05-20T17:13:02Z")
How much did the writers of the Bible books read? How much was there to read back then? ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-who-wasnt-a-reader/814384/13 "2018-05-20T20:39:13Z")
Of course, there’s a whole long list of other writers who became blind or near blind: Joyce, Milton, Borges …