DO YOU READ?

[Necrometer]

'sup

I only mostly read the internet

I read books a ton as a kid, now I seldom do... there are plenty of reasons for this:
- my mind tends to wander to thoughts inspired by whatever I'm reading
- I am not a very fast reader
- I'd rather spend that time watching movies
- I have a bunch of stuff I "should" read but it's dense philosophical stuff which I put off, and the "for fun" stuff I'd like read gets bumped further down

I love a good audiobook when stuck in a car for a while, and I adore short stores... I have never had a blast reading a massive, epic book

Last thing I read was The Dunwich Horror and although that was just 40 pages or something, I didn't do more than a 4-page chapter on any given day.

Can't explain it, that's just how it is.

[necrothrash]

This explains so much.

[Necrometer]

[Necrometer]

You better not be PMing me a book!

Yeah man I took no offense, it's a totally legit question. Also I have almost no interest in world history or biographies or true stories or anything like that... I could explain why but it would take forever and probably sound retarded.

[John Jr.]

i've stopped watching most tv and movies, and spend most of my time reading now. a lot is on the internet, but i still prefer books, just because i can tote them around and carry a few in my bookbag, but it keeps me on topic for what i'm trying to focus on right now.

speaking of minds wandering, that is one of the reasons i've stopped watching so much film. unless it's just overwhelmingly engaging, i just cant stop dissecting it for subtext, regardless of the type of movie. i'm at a friends and we've all been shooting the shit and idly watching Commando. not really an interesting to piece to dissect, just comes off as weapons fetishist porn crossed with your usual reagan era mindset supporting propaganda.

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

We all wish we could be like EEEOOOEEEOOOEEE and read a million 1000 page books a month and somehow still keep up with a busy life.

Well, reading is my busy life. I hardly do anything else. I'm getting really sick of it actually. And I've only read one fiction book since last summer, and even that was for class and I had to read it really fast. I've gone through periods of my life where I've barely read anything.

[Whiffleball Ace]

Not related to you but one of the weirdest moments in my life was a few years back with a guy I went to college with who I admired for his intelligence and work ethic and just overall persona. He told me he that unless it was a technical how to book or something he had Not read a single piece or fiction or non study related Non fiction since high school. He was 30. Blew my mind.

Yeah, I have a friend like this. He's a geologist. It's just a whole different set of wiring, I think.

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

Also I have almost no interest in world history or biographies or true stories or anything like that... I could explain why but it would take forever and probably sound retarded.

I find general history and true story type stuff super boring, but I'm such a sucker for biographies. I came pretty close to crying when I read the Woody Guthrie biography, and I'm like a man and stuff.

[John Jr.]

fiction wise, i'm pretty much only interested in sci-fi and whatever the cyberpunk authors still kick out.

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

Some of them I read cover to cover, but some I read just enough to knock out my written reading response and BS through class. I'm assigned more than I could possibly read without taking some sort of stimulant. Before going back to school I probably read one book a month.

The last six months my vision has significantly degraded. I've had really good vision my whole life, but now it's getting really difficult for my eyes to adjust when I look up from the book. Occupational hazards.

[Whiffleball Ace]

I've gone back to the classics. There's just not much going on in contemporary fiction (for me).
I honestly read much more now than I did in college and I was an English major. Go figure.

[Frickin' Slayer]

i did prety decent last yr, if u notice i was contributing to the "rate the latest book u read" thread a lot, but this yr even though its only 2 months in, i havent finisheed n e books yet. i tried sumthing new, like to do the reading several books simultaneously thing, and thus far it hasnt realy gotten me n e where lol. if n e thing, its just me being an air sign, like my mind is floating n all these diff. ideas n interests, and just one book isnt enough ya know. but ya, im currently like n the middle of about 4 books,will prob. finish one of them by the end of the month. last year i admit im totaly guilty as charged of reading books either by aquarius authors, about aquarius', or just like n e thing aquarius related. however,lately ive decided like im gona try to be more like fair and like im going to read books by and about ppl of all signs,hopefuly.

[TheDrunkTankJudge]

I read quite a bit but not as much as I used to. When I read I usually read for about 3-4 hours at a time...

[father of lies]

I was pretty much in exactly the same boat as Ross, until I got rid of my car. I still have trouble reading for more than half an hour at a time, but it has gotten a lot easier after forcing myself just a few times. I've been trying to keep a schedule, to force myself to just fucking DO it man, and it's been helping. Short or easy books are allotted a week. I'm supposed to finish Lolita tomorrow, but I still have over 100 pages to go, and I work ALL day, so I don't really see it happening. I read almost nothing towards the end of high school and a few years after, so I'm still getting in the habit. I would like to read at least two a month on average, but I don't really read very quickly, so long books take ungodly amounts of time. This copy of 2666 on my end table is giving me the stinkeye.

More than anything, though, I need to get rid of my block against reading non-fiction. I can do it if it's easy or funny (I mislaid my copy of Lolita, and so read The Botany of Desire in two and a half days, pretty good for me), but the stuff I'm going to have to read when school gets rolling is going to be a lot heavier and dryer.

[zzzzzzzz]

I've cut down on watching movies a lot, I find it hard to concentrate like dude said, unless its completely engaging. I usually get antsy for a movie to end once it hits the hour mark, I feel like a lot of movies should only be an hour long if they're not going to even try to be completely 100% original. I haven't watched TV weekly in over a decade. I am however looking forward to watching The Killers and A Serious Man. I also keep tearing a film apart, if its not completely amazing I'll be thinking about everything going on behind the camera in each shot and what the actors are really thinking about, along with the subtext and worldview its trying to push on me.

I'm reading a lot of (good) sci-fi now and a few movie making books, as I am trying to write a very strange sci-fi movie script with imagery so bizarre it will have to animated. I'm catching up on Nietzsche and Plato as well and reading photography books, and music theory/soloing books cause shit really does improve your guitar playing in the long run. I also got a bunch of shit I read on the internet, lots of movie review sites. Shit I guess I do like reading a lot. I want to read up on home recording, something I've put off way too long after and I'm completely fed up dealing with bands and having other people do the recording. Books, check em out. I have a lot of free time and am not too busy, when I do get busy I hope to be working on something I want to do, I do not like giving my time to shitty jobs and fucking morons, I'm not doing it anymore, read then apply thyself. I'd rather be this guy

than this guy

[Phritz]

'
- I have a bunch of stuff I "should" read but it's dense philosophical stuff which I put off, and the "for fun" stuff I'd like read gets bumped further down

i do that too. it's very annoying. i feel like a have to read AND enjoy reading this and that. and then end up not reading at all.
also the dense/ interesting stuff takes a long time to read, and i'll then feel even worse and start to think i'm not enjoying it enough, like a smarter person would, and that i'm the slowest reader of all time. it helps throwing in between every once in a while. about three weeks ago i had a cold and read "l.a. confidential" in two or three days. made me feel good and that "i still got it".

also lately i enjoy reading books in english a lot. my english improved much over the last few years. currently i'm reading a french book for the first time in my life - a biography of Carl Theodor Dreyer, which exists only in french and danish. reading in a foreign language releases some extra feel-good hormones for me, i'm already happy when i even understand what it's about.

and i have that thing, where i think of a book, i have to immediately start reading it and when that first urge passed, i'll put it aside, where it stays for usually very long. at pretty much any given time, there are surely about 50 books lying around, of which i've read about 50 - 100 pages.

[Teebore]

I wouldn't be here if I didn't.

[Bored, Esq.]

I mostly read history, biographies and poetry these days. I read 2-3 hours a day.

[Bored, Esq.]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... umphed.ars

"I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle."

Etc.

[Necrometer]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... umphed.ars

I skimmed the fuck out of that article...

The web may have pushed me past the point of no return, but I stopped reading for pleasure before I was even a teenager (i.e. before there was GOOD internet) because I was going nearsighted. Then undergrad was a boatload of non-pleasure reading... But yeah it'll be interesting to see what happens to the younger generations.

[neckbeard]

I read way too much news lately. All the while something is nagging me to go read a book. I think I read more audiobooks that real books lately. I think it still counts as reading.

[Introvert]

I really wish I did more often. My main problem, as Ross addressed, is that my mind wanders too much. I've caught myself more than a few times where I just finished reading a page or two but was thinking about something completely different and have no idea what I just read.

What really baffles me is how some people can read and listen to music at the same time.

[Bored, Esq.]

The web may have pushed me past the point of no return

Well, I think the point is that one's brain simply adapts. If one goes back to reading regular stuff and stops spending so much time on the web it'll change back...I don't believe there's a "point of no return."

RE: younger generations, they're totally fucked. But we already knew that...and the younger generations are ALWAYS totally fucked.

But...one can look at it in a different way also...I mean, things like huge, long historical novels were developed for a very specific audience, namely women who had lots of time on their hands and who were bored to death...so a cultural production is created to fulfill a specific need. If the needs change the art changes. We started to see this a long time ago with the way movies were edited. People not only have shorter attention spans these days...they process/parse information and meaning much faster. They don't need two hours of drama in a film to "get" a point, they can see it in 15 seconds.

[caldwell.the.great]

They don't need two hours of drama in a film to "get" a point, they can see it in 15 seconds.

I don't know about this. Some can see 2 hours worth of a film and not get the point at all. Certain modes of communication do look extinct. Or they're on the verge. Give them 15 seconds of something and they might think they have the point.... but I doubt it. What kind of points can you fit into 15 second segments anyways? That one dish detergent is better than the other? That a pundit likes this over that because of X, Y, or Z?

I always try to imagine condensing Kierkegaard into 15 second segments.

[Dr Yail Bloor]

i only read fuck books