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We have quite a few City-Data members who clearly read a great deal, collect books, and ask for recommendations. But the number of those posting on the Book Forum as compared to other general forums is significantly lower.
It got me wondering: What makes a person want to read, and how do our reading habits begin?
I can remember the first grown-up book I read, and I often joke that I read it because it was on a bookshelf at my 5-year old level: it was a book of legal torts for the State of New York. Yup, my pappy was an attorney.
I also recall the stories my mother tells of my reading at age 3 or 4, and how I was bored upon entering kindergarden (she was probably exaggerating ).
Anyway, as an adolescent, I recall going to the neighbourhood library, starting with "A" and moving along until I reached close to "Z" and reading anything from a novel, a biography or an art book. I also seem to remember, with some vividness, those early books I read.
After the library, I wanted to own books, and in particular those I loved, and thought I would cherish and read again and again.
How did you come to reader?
Last edited by ontheroad; 01-12-2008 at 11:23 AM..
I mostly read comics and still remember some of the drawings of the 1st Spiderman comic I have seen since I couldn't read.
I eventually started to read fantasy novels, because I and some American friends played Dungeons & Dragons. So in order to decipher the Players Guide I started to read the American D&D novels.
The first novel that truly has made an impression on me is Zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance which I read for English. It was as if that book was especially written for me since I struggled to find the answer if I wanted to make my life with my art or not. That book really helped me out in making my decision.
Now I only read books when they cross my path; I don't pick them, they pick me mostly by coincidence.
Often books fall into my lap, or cross my path. Here's one you might really enjoy by comic book writer, Neil Gaiman entitled Neverwhere. http://www.amazon.com/Neverwhere-Nov...0164000&sr=1-2. I'd rank it as my most enjoyable read of '05.
Have you read Gaiman's and Dave McKean's comics, theirs are the only comic books I read.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tricky D
I mostly read comics and still remember some of the drawings of the 1st Spiderman comic I have seen since I couldn't read.
I eventually started to read fantasy novels, because I and some American friends played Dungeons & Dragons. So in order to decipher the Players Guide I started to read the American D&D novels.
The first novel that truly has made an impression on me is Zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance which I read for English. It was as if that book was especially written for me since I struggled to find the answer if I wanted to make my life with my art or not. That book really helped me out in making my decision.
Now I only read books when they cross my path; I don't pick them, they pick me mostly by coincidence.
Gaiman is very good. If you like Gaiman, I highly recommend you check out the work of Alan Moore. He best known work is Watchmen, but he is also know because several Graphic Novels he wrote were developed into films - V for Vendetta, From Hell, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the comic is quite good. The movie is awful).
I was a big comics guy growing up and didn't really start reading novels for fun until I was out of school and traveled a lot. A good book always made flights go quick. It grew from there. Now I'm fortunate to live across the street from a library.
I grew up first as an army brat ( my Dad was an officer in the French Navy) then as a Diplomat's daughter so we were always on the move. Sometimes we moved 3 or 4 times a year and as such I never really managed to make friends and spent a lot more time with adults.
Books for me were an essential friend and a way to escape to a more stable world and I retreated to all the literary worlds offered to me with relish. I could be a pirate one day, a knight another then a seagull or a wolf. I could scale the walls of Acre with the Knight Templars, travel through Antarctica with Shackelton's expedition then be Roman footsoldier under Caesar. Where else can you do that but books ?
I started reading "proper" books quite early on and I always found support and comfort in them when my life was very unstable.
I never really had friends my age and being always surrounded by adults I guess I matured quite quickly.
I have always read and will always do so. I can not imagine life without books.
I was extremely lucky to have a privileged background going to very good schools where books were considered crucial. All the schools I went to had huge excellent libraries, so did the Consulates we lived in so it made it easier for me.
Being a loner , books are a refuge, a haven . I never understood people who do not read. I have been to so many people's houses where there are nO books, not even one. That to me is disturbing.
I love language, and languages . Books are just beautiful creations, an testament to the genius and imagination of writers ( not the bad ones of course!).
A good book is a friend that will sustain you through life.
My father read little in terms of "proper" books ( he read so many books on foreign policies, politics, economics, etc.. and every Newspaper printed ( or it felt like it, the house was always littered with them) that he never seemed to have the time to unwind and enjoy "normal" literature. I don't remember him ever curled up with a novel for example. I always felt sorry for him even as a child.
He used to buy me lovely things like nice toys, and then Jewellery and "girly" things when I grew up but he knew a true valuable present for me was a first edition or a signed copy of a book. Far better than any trinkets !
But my grand-parents read avidly, and I think stuck on an Island with no books I would just have to write some just so to be able to read them.
Books widen your horizons, enlighten you, move you . They can make you laugh or cry, they make you feel and think.
A book devoid of books to me would be like a world devoid of laughter, and joy, fun or love. Sad, empty and rather pointless in many ways.
Have you read Gaiman's and Dave McKean's comics, theirs are the only comic books I read.
Nope, but wasn't that a TV-series?
I think I saw an episode and didn't like it that much ( the actors and setting were too British for my taste). But I've read most of his other comics and read his novels American Gods and Anansi Boys which I really liked.
If you like Gaiman than you probably would like most comics in the Vertigo line.
Gaiman published the Sandman under the Vertigo banner. I believe you really would like that one. Not the typical superhero-stuff but more like Neverwhere, although in the beginning the DC Universe and the Vertigo universe where the same.
The Vertigo line is aimed at adults so the stories are more 'complex' than the 'typical' superhero slugfests. Fabels is another favourite of mine published by Vertigo. It is about the fairytale characters living in the modern world. Y the last man is another interesting series and it is more a sci-fi story. It is about the last surviving male in a world were all the other men had died through some sort of disease.
And Ex-Machina is a cross between Superman and the TV-series the West wing. It is about Mayor Hundred who becomes the mayor of NY and his big secret is that he can communicate with every technological machine. Very good political stuff.
My parents read a lot. I would see them reading. I think this helped a lot.
Ditto.
We were the kind of family that read the cereal box at the morning breakfast table. Also, we moved around a bit, I was kind of a shy kid; reading was always there if friends weren't.
However, I do tend to think that readers are born rather than made.
Readers read for the sake of reading. They want to soak up a book, be it fiction or non-fiction.
Non-readers only read if there is specific written material with a direct appeal.
OTOH--perhaps the internet seems to have somewhat blurred the line between readers and non-readers?
I enjoyed Neverwhere.
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).
the actors and setting were too British for my taste). But I've read most of his other comics and read his novels American Gods and Anansi Boys which I really liked.
