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My husband is the only one in his family who reads. His parents grew up in the valley and the entire family were migrant farmers. There were no books in their houses and no library available to them. So they get a pass on the no reading thing.
However, I can't excuse my husband's sister (a grade school teacher!!!) or his cousins who don't like to read.
I don't get it. I always wonder what those people do in airports and doctors' offices and other places they have to wait.
My husband doesn't read for the same reason. He says that he reads too many textbooks to be interested in any outside reading. That seems just really strange to me. Like comparing apples and oranges.. I read to relax and escaped from school work, he seems to think it is more of the same....
I also have several students who say they don't like to read. I have a theory about that. When I read, a movie screen literally pops up in my mind and I am not seeing the words in the book, but what is happening in the story. I have been asking people who say they don't like to read if the same thing happens for them. They have all said no.....
I'm curious about something. Are you a very fast reader?
I think book lovers should not judge others who don't like to read. Reading is just a hobby. I love it, but others may prefer music and can't tear their ears away from their IPod. To each his own.
I am amazed by people that I know that can read, but always say they do not have time or do not like to read. I guess I cannot imagine a life without reading and books. I always find the time anywhere. Has anyone else experienced this phenomena? Just curious.
Yes, the ones I met like this were people heavily in retail therapy or into the social scene. I would go over to their houses - there wasn't a book on a shelf or a newspaper anywhere, or even a magazine! Those people did not discuss current events or things in the news, either. They discussed what other people in our social circles were doing.
I just couldn't imagine not having a single book in the house. This was before the internet, too. And a few of them, if they went anywhere, they played music in their cars. No talk radio of any kind.
I am not the world's smartest person, but at least I look at a newspaper every day; I love books and magazines. I love libraries. I even read the backs of cereal boxes. I too cannot imagine a world without books. Even from the library.
I don't get it. I always wonder what those people do in airports and doctors' offices and other places they have to wait.
On a cross-country flight once I sat next to an older lady who sat clutching her handbag throughout the entire flight. She didn't flip through SkyMall, she was on the aisle, so she couldn't look out the window, and she didn't fall asleep. She must have a rich inner life, because I can't imagine what she was thinking the whole time. I finished a whole book on that flight.
Sad to say but I worked a blue collar job for 30 years and most of the mechanics that I worked with read nothing more than the sports pages of the paper. A few might occasionally have a copy of Car & Driver, Sports Illustrated, Cycle World or Golf Digest but that was about all. One guy could not believe that I could read an entire book in one day and thought I was pretending when I sat in the break room reading nearly a page a minute, getting through 25 pages during a half hour lunch break while eating.
The weird thing is I was a very poor reader in the early grades and was almost left back a year in school. Then the summer after 5th grade circumstances conspired to push me in to reading because many of my friends moved or were away for much of the summer. My parents were voracious readers and one thing that came in to the house each month was the Readers Digest Condensed Books. I read the intro of Mitchner's Hawaii and was hooked. Went out a bought the whole book and spent the summer reading it. By 8th grade I was reading at sophomore college level.
I wish I knew what made it "click" for me so I might pass it on to parents and teachers but I really can't figure out just why I got so lucky.
Despite the fact that there must be at least 200 books on the "waiting to be read shelves" I bought another 6 yesterday. I go to my book dealers the way some people go to their drug dealers.
Good for you, zugor. One of the reasons that Andrew Carnegie supported so many libraries was that since he worked his way up from the bottom, he believed that if working-class people had access to the same books as wealthier people, they could educate themselves and be just as successful.
I am not a reader of books, as a matter of fact the last book I picked up was "The fingerprints of the gods" good reading material, I guess, about 5 or 6 years ago some 400 pages? and still have not finish the book, I have read about 8 to 10 books since the beginning of times, I read magazines a little or the newspaper, however I do listen to music all the time and consider that my escape plus I can do it as I am doing something else too.
I do love the Discovery channel or educational programs, lukily my wife is a reader and my daughter picked it up from her plus I do encourage her to read as much as possible too.
On a cross-country flight once I sat next to an older lady who sat clutching her handbag throughout the entire flight. She didn't flip through SkyMall, she was on the aisle, so she couldn't look out the window, and she didn't fall asleep. She must have a rich inner life, because I can't imagine what she was thinking the whole time. I finished a whole book on that flight.
I am a voracious reader whose read books tall and short, fat and skinny, boring and fun but one thing I simply cannot do is read a book on an airplane or in a car. The latter because I'll up-chuck all over the floormats and the former because I just cannot concentrate on a book while on an airplane. I don't know why, but reading on an airplane is just completely out of my capacity. I can read the words on the pages but for some reason I simply cannot digest what is being said. In my home, at work, anywhere else I do read I do not have that problem. On airplanes... I'm a dud.
I am amazed by people that I know that can read, but always say they do not have time or do not like to read. I guess I cannot imagine a life without reading and books. I always find the time anywhere. Has anyone else experienced this phenomena? Just curious.
Unfortunately, that is a good description of my brother and my uncles. You would have to be illiterate to be more unlettered than they are.
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Just curious.
