One in four read no books last year

Yahoo News ^ | Aug 21, 2007 | ALAN FRAM

[durasell]

Again, have it your own way. The argument could go on forever. However, if you believe there is a huge number of folks buying books outside of the major markets, then you’re badly mistaken.

[Mr. Silverback]

Don’t be too hard on the boy...Eagle Scout means a lot, and if the stuff he’s filling his time with (the time that you or I would spend reading) is outdoor stuff, that’s just as good.

[Mr. Silverback]

Sad to say, books are now a luxury item.

That's what libraries are for, mon ami.

[Mr. Silverback]

I think Shakespeare has single handedly kept more young adults away from libraries than every channel on the idiot box put together.

You may have a point there.

[Mr. Silverback]

I know they exist but actually I have never, ever seen anyone reading a comic book.

I've been known to buy them. I'm a big Superman and Justice League fan.

But generally I read nonfiction, mostly history.

[ThomasThomas]

Where are the pictures?

This tread needs more pictures.

[Mr. Silverback]

My wife, my oldest son and I are all reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy right now...one of the three has it open most of the time.

[durasell]

Luxury not only in the sense they are expensive, but also in the sense that the reader has the time to devote to a book.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

I developed the habit when I was a youngster, going through some difficult circumstances. It was my bound, rectangular ‘escape hatch’.

My first book was Tom Sawyer. The second was Huckleberry Finn. After that, it was Tomoe Gozen...

...and every Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian books in the series - - I just could not stop...

[BurbankKarl]

I think I have the entire The Corps series by WEB Griffin in paperback looking for a new home.

[Stegall Tx]

Our favorite thing to do on vacation is go to as many used book stores in Florida as we can find.

If you ever find yourself in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, take a side trip to Archer City (120 miles or so northwest). Larry McMurtry opened several used book stores there. The only time I’ve “dropped by”, I ran into him at the Dairy Queen while eating breakfast and again in one of the stores.

I see from a story on the internet that someone says he has become less available to fans, so that might not happen any more. Before I went, I swore that I wouldn't bother him if I ran into him, but it was hard not to say something.

It was an interesting day trip.

[Stegall Tx]

re:HGG - it’s interesting to see the evolution of that series. Between the radio plays, the BBC TV series, the published versions, and the movie, you can see quite a variation on a theme.

It’s the only time I wasn’t disappointed that a movie radically changed the story line of a book ... it actually kinda “fit” with the rest of a series that tended to disagree with itself.

In the end, I WAS somewhat disappointed to find out Adams was so opposed to religion.

[Tax-chick]

Don’t be too hard on the boy

Don't get me wrong ... I think he's a very superior young man in every way, and a great example to our sons. I just don't think a non-reader would work as a match for Anoreth!

(And anyway, she wants to be a general!)

[Tax-chick]

We got a set of 40 or so old sf paperbacks at a yard sale last fall. Burroughs’ Tarzan and space fiction, Conan, a couple other series. Daughter came home and asked for money to buy “a few,” but my husband gave her a 20, and she came home with the whole box. Claimed it was a misunderstanding ...

Great vocabulary in those old books - the authors assumed the readers knew some words!

[k omalley]

I’m re-reading “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoyevsky. I first read it in college many years ago. I paid 60 cents for it new so that might tell you how long ago.
Anyway, I had to force myself to put it down at midnight last night to get some shut-eye.

[Tax-chick]

I read that in college, too. Might be worth another try, someday :-).

I stayed up too late reading Michael Burleigh’s “Sacred Causes,” a work of 20th century history. I could spend the rest of my life following up the footnotes, if there weren’t so many other books I also want to read ...

[Eepsy]

Thanks for the tip. There’s nothing better on a rainy day than a good space opera and a bar of chocolate. I need a new series to tide me over til Bujold goes back to her Vorkosigan novels. Not that I didn’t enjoy the heck out of Chalion, but you can only read so much fantasy begore the longing for a little technology kicks in :)

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

That pretty much explains the 25% bedrock Democratic support.

[CajunConservative]

His book “The Road” is on the Oprah’s Book Club List so that means more of the general public will read that book and then usually that leads them to check out his other books. So he’s going to do just fine now that Oprah has said it’s a good read.

There’s another real issue that is problematic and that is reading uses a different part of the brain than watching tv or a movie. The written word stimulates linear reasoning on the left side of the brain, images are processed on the right side of the brain- the feeling side.

[martin gibson]

We’ve worked very hard to dumb down our population and to discourage even simple literacy. Anyway, there is no external, historical truth that isn’t the racist totalitarian creation of DWMs. Our public education efforts are showing fruit.

Here in Cleveland, the very same people who “administer” our public school system are the same people who will disparage “acting white” at every opportunity.

Our work is complete; a stupid, illiterate population with no sense of its own history and absolutely no capacity for rational thought.

We can just keep ‘em stupid with sex, Internet pornography and TV.