Quote:
Originally Posted by slayda
I'll relate two incidents about reading from my college days: - I took a speed reading course & the class was asked "How many books have you read in the last year?" All answers were in the single digits until it got to me. Since I spent some time studying, I estimated my reading was down to about 50.
- Later after college while on a business trip to a very small town in the west a friend (who was also a reader) told me about another coworker who had made it through college without reading a single book, even for school work.
I found both of these to be totally astonishing. I can't imagine life without reading. |
I have read over 150 books in the last 6 months. Because of my nook I can actually get a number. I go through periods where I read a book or more a day and then slow down to a book a week or so. When I was a kid I used to conceal books on my person regularly. Mostly because I read in places where it was considered verboten. I read in the bathroom after I finished my meal but before the rest of the family did, I read during church (my Dad was a preacher and an English teacher), I read in class (sitting in the front row in Math class reading SF), I climbed trees and read 30ft off the ground. Basically I read everywhere. I also learned a certain amount of stage magic concealing books and other items.
I took a speed reading course in Jr High as part of a G&T program, I think everyone of us were avid readers and all of us read quite a bit. I find that the curve for reading is not a bell curve at all and has a definite second spike on the high side. People are readers or not, the non-readers may read a bit and fill out one bell curve normally but the avid readers are a different group altogether and have their own normal reading curve.
Unfortunately we have come as a society to value stupidity and ignorance. We elected a president because he wasn't a smart man and because he was someone that "the comman man" would like to have a beer with. We are constantly barraged by images in our media how smart people can't relate to everyone else and just have no "common sense". Smart people are given "make overs" and told to keep their vocabulary and thoughts to themselves so that they can be successful. It is sad. But that is why we have less readers nowadays.
OTOH, go to a large college campus and you will find communities that have lots of readers in them. At least I did when I went to VT.