I like most of what he has to say. I applaud his earnestness, sincerity, and passion.
He seems to feel the way I do about smart-devices: they’re not for seriously reading anything. There’s a vast difference when a simulated, imitation, book-like gadget can interrupt your read (bleep! blip! burp!) versus a printed book which by its very design foils all intruders. It’s worlds apart.
I read an hour at lunch and around two hours late at night, so I may be close to a hundred pages per day.
But the most important advice is the one concerning phones. I know some people who seem to have their phone attached to their hand, constantly checking texts and taking phone calls. It’s just about impossible to read much when you are distracted by electronic gadgets.
My eyes are bad, so ebooks where I can adjust light and print size easily are much easier to read. I still read print books and love them, but it is much easier to read on electronic devices.
Books are books though and I find little difference between the two as far as the quality of the experience. I grant you really can’t do an easy chair, a brandy, a cat, and a fireplace that well with a pad, but who reads that way outside of movies anyway?
In recent years I have reread well-loved books on edevices and they mean just a much to me, plus many books would simply be beyond both my means and my current living conditions in hard copy. Over next weekend I’ll do my yearly reread of ROADS and A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES on my pad and might in the right mood throw in Valentine Davies MIRACLE ON 34th STREET and I expect to enjoy them as much as any hard copy.
I understand that is not true for many, but it is for me. That said I read on a comfortable 11 inch pad and not my phone or a PC screen.
Regarding how many books I read at once I generally have no more than four going at a time and three of those science, history, or other non-fiction works while I read one novel at a time. Most fiction reading goes fairly fast and there are few novels that take me more than four hours to read from start to end including truly long works. Something like a Carter Brown or similar 50k novel of an earlier era I can read in just under fifty minutes uninterrupted. Most pulp fiction reads much faster and it really isn’t fair to many pulp stories to read them with the same attention you would pay to more serious works. They were meant to be read fast.
Time to sit down and savor is another matter, but frankly a lot of my escapist reading doesn’t call for that really. There are books I have taken longer to review than read in such cases.
I agree with much of what the article says though there is no one path or strategy. Truth is I would need a strategy not to read more than one to read.
@ #2 @ #3, I’ve never objected to the development of reading devices as aids for anyone afflicted with eye trouble or perhaps, inability to hold a book upright or turn paper pages.
But I think it extraordinary that the entire print industry should have been rashly overturned for the sales of computer gadgetry, sweeping away all our existing infrastructure which had been built up over many centuries. Truly a Pandora’s Box. The result: K-12 in constant uproar, journalism nearly dead, government undermined by fake-news. The emergence of e-books shoulda been handled with more regulation. US literacy shouldn’t be steered by Silicon Valley.
These days, my reading is about evenly split between ebooks and hard copy; I don’t do audiobooks. Ebooks are very convenient for me here in Mexico; I can have something from Amazon instantaneously. But I still buy a lot of physical books and have them shipped here. My ebook reading is on an iPad. If I can read a book for free or very cheaply as an ebook, and / or it’s not readily available in an affordable hard copy, that tends to dictate my direction. But I’ll tell you, every time I have shifted from reading an ebook to a physical book, ordering a copy while my read is ongoing, I have been VERY glad of it. Sometimes I will even pick up a hard copy for the collection AFTER I have finished reading the ebook.
We read mostly on the Kindle, Jackie exclusively since problems with her thumbs make holding a book open almost impossible for her. I’ll take any form I can get, though it is easier with hundreds of books on the Kindle.
I don’t do page counts, but I’ve been reading at least one short story a day (current average is two a day) since August of 1995. You can do the math. I usually have several books going at once – a mystery, one or two short story collections, maybe a non-fiction book.
My reading has beendominatd by John O’Hara, long and short form. Read and reread. This is supported by Scott Fitzgerald, Louis Bromfield, Rex Beach, James Jones, and in the past Edison Marshall, and James M. Cain. I have read a significant number of Bess Crawford stories by Charles Todd and most of Louise Penny’s work. These last two are done for me and I am now working on my own stuff.
Thanks, everyone, for telling us all about both what you’re reading and how. I’m hoping that this online essay on reading (suggesting 100 words a day as a worthwhile goal) will get me started reading again, but in spite of best intentions, I managed only 50 pages yesterday. That was 40 pages of Ross Macdonald’s SLEEPING BEAUTY and the 10 page prologue of a SF-murder mystery (I think) by Janet Kagan from 1988.
When I first got my Kindle a few years back I went wild with it, but as time went on I gradually lost interest in it. I can see the advantages but it’s still awkward and clunky and at the moment, it’s as dead as a brick, and it’s been that way for a while. I have a strong feeling that it needs a new battery, but don’t we all?
I’ll try to get to a hundred pages of reading today. Fifty pages was only a good start.
I currently have – not counting library books – 668 “books” on the Kindle, but a number of them are actually complete collections of various authors (Wilkie Collins, Edith Wharton, Trollope, etc.), so many more actual books.
About my Kindle, after not using it for a while, I left it “charging” overnight, but it was still black and totally lifeless the next morning. Time to let the local Geek Squad take a look, unless anyone has any other suggestions.
December 14th, 2024 at 3:34 pm
Good advice.
December 14th, 2024 at 6:30 pm
I like most of what he has to say. I applaud his earnestness, sincerity, and passion.
He seems to feel the way I do about smart-devices: they’re not for seriously reading anything. There’s a vast difference when a simulated, imitation, book-like gadget can interrupt your read (bleep! blip! burp!) versus a printed book which by its very design foils all intruders. It’s worlds apart.
December 15th, 2024 at 12:05 am
I read an hour at lunch and around two hours late at night, so I may be close to a hundred pages per day.
But the most important advice is the one concerning phones. I know some people who seem to have their phone attached to their hand, constantly checking texts and taking phone calls. It’s just about impossible to read much when you are distracted by electronic gadgets.
December 15th, 2024 at 12:27 am
My eyes are bad, so ebooks where I can adjust light and print size easily are much easier to read. I still read print books and love them, but it is much easier to read on electronic devices.
Books are books though and I find little difference between the two as far as the quality of the experience. I grant you really can’t do an easy chair, a brandy, a cat, and a fireplace that well with a pad, but who reads that way outside of movies anyway?
In recent years I have reread well-loved books on edevices and they mean just a much to me, plus many books would simply be beyond both my means and my current living conditions in hard copy. Over next weekend I’ll do my yearly reread of ROADS and A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES on my pad and might in the right mood throw in Valentine Davies MIRACLE ON 34th STREET and I expect to enjoy them as much as any hard copy.
I understand that is not true for many, but it is for me. That said I read on a comfortable 11 inch pad and not my phone or a PC screen.
Regarding how many books I read at once I generally have no more than four going at a time and three of those science, history, or other non-fiction works while I read one novel at a time. Most fiction reading goes fairly fast and there are few novels that take me more than four hours to read from start to end including truly long works. Something like a Carter Brown or similar 50k novel of an earlier era I can read in just under fifty minutes uninterrupted. Most pulp fiction reads much faster and it really isn’t fair to many pulp stories to read them with the same attention you would pay to more serious works. They were meant to be read fast.
Time to sit down and savor is another matter, but frankly a lot of my escapist reading doesn’t call for that really. There are books I have taken longer to review than read in such cases.
I agree with much of what the article says though there is no one path or strategy. Truth is I would need a strategy not to read more than one to read.
December 15th, 2024 at 2:29 am
@ #2 @ #3, I’ve never objected to the development of reading devices as aids for anyone afflicted with eye trouble or perhaps, inability to hold a book upright or turn paper pages.
But I think it extraordinary that the entire print industry should have been rashly overturned for the sales of computer gadgetry, sweeping away all our existing infrastructure which had been built up over many centuries. Truly a Pandora’s Box. The result: K-12 in constant uproar, journalism nearly dead, government undermined by fake-news. The emergence of e-books shoulda been handled with more regulation. US literacy shouldn’t be steered by Silicon Valley.
December 15th, 2024 at 12:42 pm
These days, my reading is about evenly split between ebooks and hard copy; I don’t do audiobooks. Ebooks are very convenient for me here in Mexico; I can have something from Amazon instantaneously. But I still buy a lot of physical books and have them shipped here. My ebook reading is on an iPad. If I can read a book for free or very cheaply as an ebook, and / or it’s not readily available in an affordable hard copy, that tends to dictate my direction. But I’ll tell you, every time I have shifted from reading an ebook to a physical book, ordering a copy while my read is ongoing, I have been VERY glad of it. Sometimes I will even pick up a hard copy for the collection AFTER I have finished reading the ebook.
December 15th, 2024 at 10:55 pm
We read mostly on the Kindle, Jackie exclusively since problems with her thumbs make holding a book open almost impossible for her. I’ll take any form I can get, though it is easier with hundreds of books on the Kindle.
I don’t do page counts, but I’ve been reading at least one short story a day (current average is two a day) since August of 1995. You can do the math. I usually have several books going at once – a mystery, one or two short story collections, maybe a non-fiction book.
December 16th, 2024 at 1:15 am
My reading has beendominatd by John O’Hara, long and short form. Read and reread. This is supported by Scott Fitzgerald, Louis Bromfield, Rex Beach, James Jones, and in the past Edison Marshall, and James M. Cain. I have read a significant number of Bess Crawford stories by Charles Todd and most of Louise Penny’s work. These last two are done for me and I am now working on my own stuff.
Stay well, Steve.
December 16th, 2024 at 11:38 am
Thanks, everyone, for telling us all about both what you’re reading and how. I’m hoping that this online essay on reading (suggesting 100 words a day as a worthwhile goal) will get me started reading again, but in spite of best intentions, I managed only 50 pages yesterday. That was 40 pages of Ross Macdonald’s SLEEPING BEAUTY and the 10 page prologue of a SF-murder mystery (I think) by Janet Kagan from 1988.
When I first got my Kindle a few years back I went wild with it, but as time went on I gradually lost interest in it. I can see the advantages but it’s still awkward and clunky and at the moment, it’s as dead as a brick, and it’s been that way for a while. I have a strong feeling that it needs a new battery, but don’t we all?
I’ll try to get to a hundred pages of reading today. Fifty pages was only a good start.
December 16th, 2024 at 2:17 pm
You should be able to charge the Kindle.
I currently have – not counting library books – 668 “books” on the Kindle, but a number of them are actually complete collections of various authors (Wilkie Collins, Edith Wharton, Trollope, etc.), so many more actual books.
December 16th, 2024 at 5:55 pm
About my Kindle, after not using it for a while, I left it “charging” overnight, but it was still black and totally lifeless the next morning. Time to let the local Geek Squad take a look, unless anyone has any other suggestions.