Taking a dump this evening reading a few pages from a book about nascar of all things. Realized I'd never seen Mrs. 4u ever read a book. So I questioned her, much hilarity and frustration followed. Is it just me or do people not read actual books anymore?:confused:
Internet, smartphones and tablets don't count, real paper, hardcover or paper back only.

Don't worry, they do. Even young people do. Even some undergraduates say they like the hard-copy thing. One gets tired of everything, even fancy gadgets.

I read everything. All the time. Lots of sit time at my job.

I have found that it takes just the right book to hook children on it. My gem was "The Jungle Book." Seems like Harry Potter and Vampires do it now. Or some series about talking cats. ( worst kind)

It just takes the right book.

I read books. I can also read outside of small cubicles too.

talking cats
like The Master and Maragarita by Bulgakov? :E

Talking cats you say....

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Is the cat really Eric Cantona in disguise?


Minor point= shouldn't the thread be called "don't no-one read nothing no more?"

My other half and I both read quite a bit and we got our daughter going at around 5 years of age and she is off running now, at 12. Our son wasn't even vaguely interested until last year and is currently busy with the "classics" like Huckleberry Finn, 20 000 Leagues etc in kid's format and is now even more avid than his sister, so there is hope for the printed word at Chez Unstable.:ok:

PS, Offer Madame Unstable a Kindle or similar and got told "No thanks, it's not the same".....borrox, got to find another idea for a birthday prezzie, now.

I read all the time, anything. I have three books on the go at the moment, if I sit down to have some cereal in the morning I'm looking for something to read while I have it.

Funnily enough its rubbed off on my kids as well. My daughter is always reading, she reads in the car on the way to school, at playtimes etc etc.

Don't worry, plenty of people still read. More importantly people are still writing and publishing, so there will be plenty for us to read in the future.

Have to say also that my wife is a secondary school English teacher, so she reads all the time as well. I bought her a Kindle for Christmas, initially sceptical, she actually loves it now. It doesn't replace real books (which we still buy lots of) but is very good for travelling and generally having around the house.

We don't have a TV. Mrs Radeng has a kindle: there are 3800 fiction books (all catalogued!) and 1800 non fiction - nearly all catalogued. Some are rather old, such as a 'Gentleman's Sketchbook', printed and published in Paris in 1824, and an 1890 'Electricity in the service of man'.

The usual complaint is 'There's nothing to read in this house!'

I read lots of books and not unusual to have at least 2 or 3 on the go at once. Rarely novels though. I could well do without television these days.

I love tv. I love books too. As long as they are airport trash fiction. I did serious reading when younger. Hurts brain too much now.

Sure, reading is a great pastime for travel. I find that on a typical short trip away, I can finish off a book of about 250 pages. (There is nothing worse than coming back with an unfinished book. You know it will stay unfinished no matter how good). Last weeks read was 'Unbelievable!' by Michael Winner. He is a treasure. If you think you know him, try one of his books. He is a very witty guy. I don't really get on with fiction, I like to be amused or educated. When travelling I go for amusement, and when at home I prefer education - a sort of nerdy Mastermind specialisation to the nth degree 'Mr Cheerio, your chosen subject is the post-war streetlighting of Birmingham Corporation' sort of thing. Used books on Amazon is fantastic for this.

I read everything. All the time. Lots of sit time at my job.

I have found that it takes just the right book to hook children on it. My gem was "The Jungle Book." Seems like Harry Potter and Vampires do it now. Or some series about talking cats. ( worst kind)

It just takes the right book.


You are so right - my boy found reading thanks to JK Rowling - his sister never did and hence never reads for pleasure.

As for me - it was this one - (I'd never have leaned the word 'miasma' at the age of nine otherwise)

http://i1.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/590/draft_lens9526241module84939621photo_1266245422Biggles_Flies_Again250.jp

Realized I'd never seen Mrs. 4u ever read a book.

Sadly the loss is hers - just hope that she never reads you the Riot Act!:)

Jack

As I child I read Biggles and then progressed to Naval novels (such as Run Silent, Run Deep and HMS Ulysses).
Then I moved-on to mathematics and physics and never looked back . . .

Cheerio's book looks more like "Biggles Undoes His Flies Again". :p

My wife & I are avid readers. Our house has more books than we have room on bookshelves <sigh>. We both could read at 3 yo and our son is following in our bookwormish-ness. He's been reading since about 3 and now, at 5 1/2 and just finished pre-kindergarten at school, reads at a 3rd or 4th year level.

I've read ever since I learned to read as a child. I loved reading Rupert Annuals and then the comics of the day, as a young boy. I now own a Kindle which gives me everything as far as choice of books is concerned, though I still like to open a good book now and then.

I am an extremely avid reader. (Mostly of military history, biographies, and some fiction.) I have an iPod Touch, a Kindle Fire (thanks 11Fan!!!) and SWMBO has an iPod Touch, and iPad for work and a Kindle reader.

I spend some of my time reading from devices but often fallback to reading a paperback, or hard cover, book. Only because it's more enjoyable to read from a book. for me anyway.

I am an addictive reader. I can’t start a book at 6 PM because I’ll just keep reading until it is finished, usually 5 or 6 AM. These days I don’t dare pick up a book unless I am on holiday. I took Follett’s “World Without End” on our last trip, started reading in YVR, paused briefly for food in Tokyo and actually managed to put it down when we collapsed into bed in Bangkok. I read it all day between root canals and most of our second night in the Vientai and after a day of markets and dentals crowns finished while Christine slept the next evening (800 pages.) She was mad because I was so busy reading I didn’t even wake her up to go out to eat.

But I have now discovered I suffer from a new syndrome. When I have been reading I see life in words. As we travel or eat, or watch I hear the actual descriptive words running through my mind, and in the style of the book I have just been reading. After Bangkok we flew to Ho Chi Minh and I picked up a typical thriller, (Baldacchi) and this style followed me through Vietnam and Cambodia, no great problem. By the time we reached our beach resort in Lamai I was on the third book Mrs VJ had taken. Talk about chick lit. “He walked into the room’” is followed by five pages of feelings about it, including numerous repetitions that I would edit out of even the longest of my son’s essays. This lady has sold 500 Million books, how on earth did she get away with it?

There is only one thing worse than reading this lady’s over thought scribbling . and that is having her words in your head afterwards describing everything you do. I am desperate so I pick up Christine’s Jodi Picault: My Sister’s Keeper. Picault’s style is present tense with incandescent description and very edgy. I hate present tense describing past events but it is all I can find. I sit on the sunbed waving away the hawkers, “You want pedicure?” Who learns the word pedicure as their eighth word in a foreign language? They lean over and touch my toes “You have long nails, Pedicure?” The bed’s back slopes and I keep slipping down, the modesty panel of my shorts, which are hideous, keeps giving me a monstrous wedgie, Sit up, hitch discreetly, slide down, wedgie.

I look around and wonder if the white whales who arrived last night are paying double for that beach massage, they should. For God’s sake start another book before I describe the antics of the rather attractive couple down by the water. Jen Lancaster (Such a Pretty Fat) is amusing, less edgy, but also writes in the present tense. I guess that is supposed to be OK in a diary style book. (It, the book, would not be my choice but CD got it from her daughter who got it from, well I don’t know.) The humour is wry and self deprecating, I can manage that, but it is also paranoic and I am wondering about the rain, it looks black over there and I am sure the guy who sells the barbequed corn is trying to cheat us for ten Baht. Next day another of daughter’s books, A J Jacob’s , A year of living Biblically, is exactly what it sounds like with Jewish humour, some guilt and a wry look at religion. By this afternoon I am worried about goodness, Am I really a nice person? Do I gossip? Should I really bargain with the doughnut seller? And look how the yokes these people carry bend, literally, under the load as they trudge the length of the beach in the hot sun. If we all bargain with God when we want something desperately can we bargain with Satan too?

I am out of books so I am going down to the second hand book shop to look for some Stephen King. I should get home with a whole different life philosophy and not one I actually want!

White whales. I took six months to read Moby Dick. Melville picked every single solitary word to carry a specific mood. I can't fathom how he dreamed up Ahab, except by living it out himself. Then I saw all three movie versions.


The right book puts you in the mind of another human like video never could. Children get that if you find a voice they can relate to. That voice might have been dead for 2000 years. I just finished the Book of Job. He was having a baaad day. Or many of them. But it all works out.

If you really want to set a mind on fire, find the right book. I think I have read The Jungle Book about two dozen times. Simple, elegant, wonderful. I give more copies of it to kids than any other book. Works most of the time.

Cheerio's book looks more like "Biggles Undoes His Flies Again". http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Aand...down goes the level of discussion to the base JB level....

Ripline Towers is, in fact, a two storey set of bookshelves with some bricks around them to keep them upright. I have a three-line whip on Madam Ripline to prevent further purchases of same (the books, that is) without a balancing trip to the Oxfam bookshop.

Thus is domestic hamony ensured.

O look, how ironic - no editing required for once!

Ripline

Slightly OT, but the thread seems more informative that the usual JB ones......

ChrisVJ's comments concerning first person writing styles have prompted me to mention "The Balloonist" by the American writer Donald Heiney writing as McDonald Harris. Recently republished with a foreword by Philip Pullman who says that he considers first person to be his least favourite style but that this book absolutely requires it. He also states that no two of Harris's books are written in the same style or genre, which he regards as a huge intellectual achievement for a writer.

I absolutely loved this book. Anyone who appreciates the master storyteller's art would hopefully agree, but I probably wouldn't have picked up on it if it were not for the Pullman connection.....

Ripline

ChrisJV - I can’t start a book at 6 PM because I’ll just keep reading until it is finished, usually 5 or 6 AM.
ditto! :)
Also for the rest. That's why my bedside books are the mysteries of Nero Wolfe - I remember the plots of most of them, also it's relaxing to have one's thoughts rolling Goodwin-style :p.

Does anyone read anymore...? And how!

I must confess to using a Kindle- I live in Luxembourg, and there are only 2 to 3 English bookshops, overpriced and with limited choices, so the Kindle is a no-brainer for me hereabouts... My eldest son (14) asked for, and got, a Kindle for Christmas- Being schooled in Luxembourg, he favours books in German, but I don't care, the imporant thing is that he is reading, and I've got him hooked on Stephen King :ok:

Before just moving 3 tons of bricks in the garden, I ordered two books just reviewed on BBC World, Lionel Asbo (Martin Amis) and The Road Is Red by Alison Irvine, reviewed as they were showing the demolishing of the tower blocks... Oh yes, I read :8

Maxbert

Part of the pleasure of reading, for me, is the feel and appearance of a book. I really enjoy a good quality hardback, with fine paper and crisp print. Contrariwise, some of the enjoyment of a new book is lost if the paper is poor quality, the spine gives way and the print smudges. Favourites are re-read many times.

I also use an iPad for holiday reading, but it's just a stop-gap. I'd never change my preference for 'real' books.

I read a lot, but I feel there is an underlying snobbery around the whole business of reading.

First of all, Kindles, E-readers, whatever you want to call them. I personally I dont own one but I dont see that there is anything inherently inferior in reading a book in this format rather than a "hard" paper copy.

Secondly, there is a school of thought that rates the "literary" novel as somehow being superior to more simple fare. Thus the whole works of, say, Somerset Maugham would be dismissed by the literary snob, whereas anything by Virginia Woolf would be automatically praised. Tosh I say. There is as much rubbish in the annual Booker short list as there is on the airport bookstall shelves.

By the way, Probes, The Master and Margerita is my Desert Island Discs choice, in Russian, with a very good dictionary. Might even get through it if the rescuers wait a couple of years!

Never stop reading, often one book per room I'm working through plus the Kindle. Mrs OFSO is the same. Have several BIG sets of bookshelves in the house plus lots more books we can't find a place for. So yes, we do read....

I stayed up until 03:00 this morning to finish reading a book. I hate it when I do that. I mean the damn book is not going to change overnight while I sleep is it, no. But I guess I hate to take the chance. :p

As I've posted here before, I have absolutely no idea what so ever how many books I have read in my life. It has to be in the tens of thousands and I don't believe I'm exaggerating in the slightest. I was judged to be a poor reader when in the second grade and was placed in a 'special reading program'. There the teacher* discovered that rather than I being a poor reader, I was a 'bored' reader because I was actually reading at a much higher level. Then, depending on one's viewpoint, she did me the greatest favor that could be given a young child or ruined me. She taught me to speed read.

When I was single, I kept every book I read once I moved out into the world after university. Because I was a pilot, I mostly bought paperback books; cheaper and easier to carry on the road. Then I got married. When we moved into an apartment (flat) I moved in all my boxes of books. My new bride was not impressed when I all but filled the spare bedroom of boxes of paperback books. But she loved me, then, and used my books as an excuse to buy a three bedroom house. So we and my books moved to the new house. Years passed and my oldest, and only son at the time, decided one day to count how many books I had. I think his mother put him up to it. He was probably 10 or 11 then, he's 43 now, so he and a friend of his counted my books. They stopped a just over 1,000. Even I was taken back.

Then we moved into a bigger house and strangely most of my paperback books disappeared. Very cleverly, at the time anyway, I managed to be on a week long trip when the move occurred. I guess that was her revenge for me being out of town for the move. Anyway, times goes on, she goes on and now it is just me, my son and my books. My son didn't care how much room my books took up in the house, just as long as he could get to the pool table.

So I keep buying, reading and keeping books, again mostly paperbacks because of the ease of carrying them around while on the road. Then I get married again...

At first my new (and still) wife is not real happy about all the boxes of paperback books and now about a hundred hardback books she is now the co-owner of. However, she loves to read as well, so we strike a deal. We give most of the paperback books to Veterans homes and those types of places, keep the paperbacks we'd like to read again and keep all the hardback backs.

So now we have two wall sized bookshelves filled to the breaking point with hardback books, boxes of paperback books stored in the attic and the garage, plus both of us have 'nook' e-readers now.

And no, I've not a clue on just how many books I have stored in my 'nook'. I just wish that these e-books were around when I was still flying, talk about making life easier.

TTN, e-readers certainly have their place, but a book is far easier and quicker to riffle through if you want to back-track and re-read something, plus you don't have to recharge them. Some books are really beautiful, particularly if they have illustrations where the quality of print and colour can be remarkable; that element is missing in the electronic version. You'll probably find an underlying snobbery to most creative functions if you look hard enough ....... but people who really enjoy reading do it for the pleasure, not for the social kudos or point-scoring.

TTN, e-readers certainly have their place

I agree one hundred percent. When one of our favorite authors releases a new book, we'll buy the hardback first edition. But when traveling, one cannot beat the e-book/reader type of thing. Makes life so much easier.

Yes I agree Rather be Gardening. I had an old and tatty set of Nevil Shute's novels, each one of which I had bought in my early 20's. They were well thumbed and had been read over and over. One day I saw a pristine set of his novels in a charity shop - the type issued as a "come-on" by book clubs in identical hardback bindings. I bought them and donated the old paper backs to the shop. Big mistake. The books have the same content, of course, but I still miss the old familiar "originals".

but people who really enjoy reading do it for the pleasure, not for the social kudos or point-scoring.

Maybe. I have a friend who buys the Booker winner every year and always claims to enjoy it. Frankly I don't believe her!

Nevil Shute's novels

It took a while and some money, but I have the entire collection of Nevil Shute's (Norway) first edition books.

They are not in a box stored away somewhere. :ok:

“He walked into the room’” is followed by five pages of feelings about it,

Yeah! "The doorbell rang insistently". Damn' doorbell. Substitute adverbs of your choice.

Does anyone here have Gerald Durrell's animal books. With the pen-and-ink illustrations? I wanted to be him for a very long time. What a life!

Another fave is Michael Perry who writes prose about small-town firefighting and EMS duty. His style is so good, I read it two pages at a time and then wait for later.

I prune my books heavily. There is a four-foot Shelf of Fame where only the very best books go. If I don't get an emotional rise every single time I see the title, it goes out the door.

I did "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" and "A Separate Peace" in one sitting recently. I just could not stop. Anyway, rambling a bit. There is something about getting into someone else's reality, and comprehending it, that rocks my world. It matters to read.

I actually don't think I've picked up a book since I got the Kindle Fire. Laying in bed at night is when I usually read, and because it's so light and I don't need to have a light on, it's the perfect solution for reading until the wee hours of the morning and not disturbing SWMBO.

When, I was young I used to read the books only related to the WWII and aviation . Currently, I’m reading mainly newspapers.As a matter of fact in Northern Rhodesia at a time, we had lot of time for swimming, flying, and for reading. At latter, I always thought about the people I had read about in the books while the others played tennis.

Realized I'd never seen Mrs. 4u ever read a book.

I find this surprising; she's the 'Mrs' and you've only just realised she's not into books - how long have you been together? Maybe it's just because I'm never without a book on the go myself that I'd reckon that's something you'd find out about your partner earlier rather than later.

OLD METL, those Gerald Durrell books were great favourites when I was a kid, have now bought a couple for my son who's mad on nature and critters that scuttle around in it.

Wife and I both love to read (and fancy ourselves as writers too, but that's another story), and the kids both devour books as well, even with the ever-present lure of TV, computer games and so on.
My mum and dad were both v.keen readers - no doubt some encouragement from them early on, but it's also something that has to do with how your brain's wired up, I'm convinced.

Just checked, and I have 10 unread on the Kindle, and the new Pratchett to download on Thursday. Holidays in 3 weeks, so must resist the temptation to read them now. (Dickens, modern crime fiction, two Isabella Bird travelogues)

MrsP borrowed the Jo Nesbo books from a colleague and suggested I try them. Problem is, that she doesn't read as quickly (or often) as I do, so I've finished the first five in the time it's taken her to get halfway through the sixth. HURRY UP, WOMAN!! I'm currently re-reading Pratchett's "Jingo" as I wait.

Always read for at least half an hour before going to sleep - have one non-fiction and one fiction tale on the bedside table. Some books are keepers, some I give to the charity shop, where I usually buy some more ...
My dad was a big Hammond Innes fan, and I recently read the "Strode Venturer' for the 1st time - featuring RAF Gan! Surprisingly topical now ... rather like a lot of John Wyndham's stuff.

Not touting any company, but I recently bought the new IPad, my first.

I've come to marvel at one of its features - ITunes University. I've downloaded a complete Physics course, lectures and text, to peruse at my convenience. Also have Civil War History, Anatomy, Holocaust studies - each of them taught by luminaries from MIT, Harvard and the like. You could get a college education for free doing this.

Cyber education, I'm convinced, is the Next Big Thing. Pensioned and tenured professors, diversity departments, and $200, proprietary and mandated textbooks are a passing dinosaur.

Education is the next bubble.

Bandaide wrote:

Cyber education, I'm convinced, is the Next Big Thing.

For sure. My wife's niece is currently working toward her Masters Degree all being done on line and from the comfort of home.
Might not work for everyone but it sure does for her.

Got about 6 books on the go at the moment - several on the kindle and a few more real ones to read - probably the greatest number of purchases for "extras" (over and above the essentials such as food etc) for me in a month are books usually from amazon.

Don't read much fiction but it's more documentary or "self-development" - I have virtually eliminated watching tv and listening to radio - it's far nicer and more educational to sit and read a book.

the wee hours of the morning


11 Fan that's usually about 1.30 am and again around 5.30 am in my case :(

Last two books read:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Counterinsurgency (Kilcullen, can't wait to get Accidental Guerilla)

Thanks to flights to and from the east coast, I had time to read and ignore all else. Makes for total immersion, which I like when I read.