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Same here (though I'm retired I have little spare time for anything). For example I bought a copy of Trigger Mortis when it first came out. It is still sitting unopened on my bookcase!
He started the habit at the age of eight and for the past fifty seven years the printed form has been one of his best friends. He also attributes his reading habit as having made a significant contribution to a successful and happy business and personal life.
One of his favourite interview questions was always ‘what do you read?’ A failure to respond enthusiastically and knowledgeably didn’t bode well for applicants.
Avid readers demonstrate curiosity, knowledge and powers of concentration. All great strengths.
When it comes to general books I don't read much fiction anymore outside my regular favorites, so most of my reading time is usually focused on leafing through the reference books, history texts and that sort of thing that I have littering my bookshelf simply because I'm more interested in learning about the world around me at this point in my life than anything else and nonfiction materials are the best way to do so. I've always loved history, so my interest lines up with that in my reading and I always strive to teach someone something new about the world when I talk to them if they share the same passion.
You are so correct to have this attitude. Literature, Art, History and music is really the food of life and the internet together with its associated technology can be a great supplement but can never replace.
I agree wholeheartedly, @PussyNoMore. Literature, film, history and music (and art in all its forms) make up most of the enjoyment I get out of life, and with a love of travel that can touch on all of those experiences. Without enlightenment you're doomed to a dimly lit room forever, and I couldn't imagine a more soul-eroding existence than that one.
But finding a gerne / intrest. The Harry Potter books be a good read.
Later i tryde some othe ones.
And read comic books, papers, magazines, reviews, subtitels, internet.
But i am visual person and mabey more then earlier read people.
My movie serie taste is changed and that also count for feeling and intrests.
Iam bored very fast and Bond be some kind of teacher. I have some kind of creatief job (food) who i feeling is not enough and surfifer. Never be a person with good social skils, a litle better then first but i whant more. I am not happy with my home, i whant out of it more then ever.
Iam not good in writing off my frustrations or days , frustrated and more critical then ever.
Out of creative i made a Bond trailer , but also disapointed i can't more then this. I try to make some videos of Bd, dvd and cds i bought. But i dont have rest and intrest any more. Whyle i like filming and photos.
I'm a fast reader, which is a blessing and a curse; books I'm enjoying are over too soon, but at least I get to read more of them. (That said, I have a To Read pile of >50 at the moment, to my shame.)
I'm the same way, @SaintMark. Heading out to a bookstore, or a place where there are bargains for books are a big danger to me, as I usually walk out with arm-fulls of books.
Just kidding ;)
I actually wished I read more. I have quite a bit of books sitting on the shelf, collecting dust, that I have yet to read. I have almost every Star Wars book (new canon) and I've only finished one of them. I also have a few of Asimov's books that I have yet to read. I just tend to find better things to do I guess.
@QsAssistant, I just think it's down to reading taking the most effort, focus and attention out of most of what we do. Sitting down and staring at the TV is easy and preferable to some, as days can be long and it's hard to squeeze in reading on top of it. I feel this at times for sure, and that's why it's easier for me to read nonfiction than fiction. Instead of tying myself to a long form fiction book I can pick up a reference book, read a passage or two about a particular historical oddity and leave the text learning something relatively quickly without getting caught up in a plot and risking forgetting it all if I'm too busy to come back to it as I would with a fiction book.
That's no bad thing. In fact, I think it's preferable to fiction the more I get older. Maybe it's the non-fiction writer in me that yearns for facts and ultimately, reliable and interesting sources for articles.
Yes, when it comes to writing what we do @Dragonpol, having a wealth of practical and real knowledge to lean on is vital. I'm happy to indulge in fiction at times (I am currently marathoning Fleming, mind) but my mind desires real world knowledge at the moment and not lore that has been created in the mind of another.
I recognise that and yet anytime I am in a city or anyplace they have a bookshop there is this undeniable draw towards it.
Really lethal to my intentions of not buying any new books are secondhand bookstores because the idea is that a bargain is just too good to ignore and this issue is the volume of books already in my possession that have yet to be read.
Charity shops are my undoing. It would be more sensible to buy one book I really want to read, at full price, than four books I wouldn't mind reading for £1 each, but sensible and book-buying do not seem to go together.
It is an addiction but one that keeps your mind healthy and fit.
I have it too. I keep trying to justify it to myself like that, too. My family doesn't approve but I guess that I just can't help myself at this stage.
Luckily, my mum is much worse than I am. And she knows more about which Biggles books I own than I do!
My Mum really hates me buying books and thinks I have way too many. It makes me happy, buying and collecting books though. What can I do? I could be buying drugs instead!
That's how I am too, @SaintMark, and bookstores are probably my favorite public places to go. The smell of the places, especially if they're old wood lined shops, the scent of all the freshly printed books, the feeling of being around so much knowledge; it's like nothing else.
@Dragonpol, my kind of reader: the voracious kind. Or at the very least, a voracious buyer of books who plans to be a voracious reader. I think when I get my own place all money to be spent on furniture will have to be allocated to getting about six shelves to put all my books and films on; necessities first! And any company can always sit criss-cross on the floor, anyway, so what's a few chairs and a couch off the budget?
I realized the madness eventually and took a step back. I no longer keep a count nor murder myself every three or four days when I fail to start a new book. Now I actually re-read things, which is a joy. Many people have said as much to me (that they prefer nonfiction as they get older).
I still love fiction, but I prefer the sensational stuff. I read all sorts of non-fiction. Micro-histories are excellent if not for reading outright then at least for casual browsing — just picked up one on the history of chocolate!
And as far as the pile of unread books go, I have a massive one and with absolutely no guilt. I gave that up around the same time as I did 'keeping score,' having stumbled across a very wise passage in the book Antifragile which was discussing the writer Umberto Eco, and how he separated into two categories the visitors to his personal library of 30,000 book — those who asked how many he read, and those who understood it was a research tool: "Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you don’t know as your financial means, mortgage rates and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menancingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books."
In the same token, it's absolutely true that the more one reads the more a thirst for knowledge is created, meaning that with every read book we complete we seem to find ourselves buying five more to replace it with. It's also a humbling thing to be a reader, looking at your shelf and thinking, "God, there's so much left to get through." There's a feeling there of much more left to learn, of exciting knowledge untapped and waiting for you. Much like with films, we have ones we can't believe we haven't seen yet, but it's a beautiful thing to have areas of cinema left to experience with fresh eyes and enthusiasm. To feel as if we've seen or learned all there is to learn is a fool's lifestyle, and one should never feel they have it all figured out. The challenge in life is understanding that there will always be things we can't know or prepare for, but the secret to not letting that bug you is to treat those experiences as learning ones, new ways to get knowledge we wouldn't otherwise to carry to other areas of life.
Treating existence like a massive tome with pages left to scour helps to disconnect from the earnestness with which we can often treat it. Boiling it down to the act of leafing through pages, like the leafing through of life to learn and adapt to the "text" or experiences of life in those pages ahead, takes the edge off considerably.
As we talked about recently in another thread, @Strog, it's always vital not to take oneself too seriously. Earnestness can lead to jadedness, cynicism, dissatisfaction and a distinct absence of a sense of humor. It's a fight I can mount with myself at times, but hopefully I can let more of the frivolous side take over as opposed to the other.
Nearly always non-fiction although I am reading some Lovecraft atm.
I have a constant thirst for knowledge and learning,always have,so naturally reading is the best outlet,i love it.
Great book.
The modern generation ....