Getting to Know You, March 2021

[Dilvish the Deliverer]

5 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

I read quite a bit as a kid.  To the point where I was voted class bookworm in HS.  I still read, but it seems to be in fits and spurts.  I'll go a couple of months with only reading a book or two, and then I'll read someone new and suddenly I have to read everything they ever wrote (Patricia Briggs).  Or I'll dive into a new genre and read two dozen novels in a month (LITRPG).  Or I'll get the hankering to re-read an old favorite and read through the entire series (Honor Harrington or the Novels of the Change). 

 

When I was about 8 or 9, my dad joined the Science Fiction book Club and two of the first books got as his "welcome gift" were Dragon Riders of Pern and Dilvish the Damned.  You can tell by my Forum title that at least one of those books had a lasting impact on me.

[Rob Dean]

6 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

 

Certainly yes to the first...I was known to all of the librarians at my local public library and the school libraries.  The library was the first important destination I used my bicycle to reach. School was not perhaps as challenging as it might have been, so through junior high and high school I was usually carrying an extra book for some personal reading.  That was 40+ years ago, of course.  

 

Nowadays, I suppose it depends on what you mean by “much”.  Considering only books (which have always been accompanied by miscellaneous side reading in magazines, newspapers, and, more recently, the net), I started noting what books I had FINISHED in 2001 as a result of participating in an online book club.  I liked the habit, and have kept it up, so I have books counts for the last 20 years.  It’s never gotten better than 2001 when I finished 141 books (including rereads), and the worst years were 2016 (at 31) and 2010 (at 33). <Aside: 2010 was the year my son was skating competitively, so I know why I was busy...I really have no idea what the problem was in 2016.> 2019 and 2020 were both at 66, which is five and a half per month on the average.  (Is that much?)

 

This year, though, is different.  My wife and I listen to Getchen Rubin’s “Happier” podcast during our commutes. (We’re down to one day a week, but it is on Wednesday, when “Happier” drops.) She proposed a challenge to listeners to read 21 minutes a day for the year, since so many listeners have commented over the years on wanting to read more.  That seemed like a manageable goal, so I rearranged my schedule to start with a book in the morning with my first cup of coffee rather than scroll the news.  Reading regularly again has triggered a desire to do more of it, so I am back to squeezing additional reading elsewhere in the day and cutting back on net time, and have had a couple of serious weekend binges already.  So, at the end of February I had logged 23 books, a pace that would rival 2001.  This morning I’m reading Kindred by Rebecca Sykes, a 2020 survey of what we now think we know about the Neanderthals (not to be confused with Kindred by Octavia Butler, a time travel slave narrative, which I read last month).  The stack is getting a little deep; I’ve got bookmarks in a book on the French Revolutionary Wars, one on early colonial conflict on the Atlantic seaboard, and one in a collection of Cordwainer Smith short stories as well. (And I dipped into The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson for unknown reasons last night.)

 

Hmmm...I guess the answer is “Yes and Yes”. 

 

With two moves since 2013, my collection has been culled considerably.  The last time I counted it was under 800 books...

Edited March 2, 2021 by Rob Dean

[malefactus]

6 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

 

I wasn't much of a reader as a child. It was when I was in my late teens & twenties that I developed a love of books.

Lately my reading has picked up again, It has become an enjoyable substitute for TV.

[Glitterwolf]

6 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

 

I read A LOT as a child!

Love reading, the last few years I find myself to read less because there is also so much digital content that I read.

But I still buy books and read a lot especially about  Military History, Fantasy, Prehistoric Animals and such things.

[Chaoswolf]

6 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

Yes, I absolutely did.

Yes, but not as much, because 'free' time is a lot more scarce.

[ManvsMini]

6 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

 

Indeed, as a kid I'd save my money and go buy books. Friday was a night I could stay up late so that would be reading night. Reading for pleasure got put on pause with college and a few years of adulting, but I started on and off again about 10 years ago (around the same time I took up painting actually). Pre-Covid I was going to the public library for books every two weeks.

[Rob Dean]

25 minutes ago, ManvsMini said:

 

Indeed, as a kid I'd save my money and go buy books. Friday was a night I could stay up late so that would be reading night. Reading for pleasure got put on pause with college and a few years of adulting, but I started on and off again about 10 years ago (around the same time I took up painting actually). Pre-Covid I was going to the public library for books every two weeks.

 

I just got around to getting back to doing it, but my public library has been doing curbside book pick-up through most of Covid.  You just have to browse the catalog (I almost said card catalog, showing my age...) instead of being able to browse anything.  The Neanderthal book I’m reading was borrowed from the library.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Rob Dean

[Thoramel]

7 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

 

Yes to both, though it tends to look a lot different than the reading I did as a kid.I tend to read a little less than I did as a kid. And the content is different. Back then I read fiction, mostly science fiction, almost exclusively. Now I read a two or three scientific journal articles a day and about one novel a month. And that novel could be anything from just about any genre. 

[Cranky Dog]

7 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

Did I read? Yes, a lot! My parents had library cards for all of us, and we used them.

 

Do I still read? Very little. Almost nothing for entertainment. There's this Internet thing that appeared in the last few decades that keeps grabbing my attention. It's also one of the reasons I think I have adult ADHD, my brain doesn't want to sit down quietly anymore.

[Crowley]

8 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

Didn't read much until I hit 6th grade, then read voraciously until... really a couple years ago when I started working on my CPA. Haven't gotten back into it, which makes me sad.

[CashWiley]

20 hours ago, Morihalda said:

 

I was absolutely thinking of your snazzy suits when I made this question haha. 

 

I'm gonna save up some money this summer and slowly start building up a proper wardrobe through purchasing or sewing! I'm still wearing tshirts from 13 years ago >_> there are usually just other things that come first.

Hah! Nice, thanks! Pro-tip: all my suits are off the clearance rack. I've never bought anything that wasn't AT LEAST 70% off. Also, I learned to sew from my grandma, though I've forgotten most of it, I can still mend and do a couple basic stitches. I was just thinking about sewing a couple wool sleeves for my guitar stand to protect the finish on my bass, last night!

 

 

[BadgersinMeadows]

8 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

 

I read a lot as a kid. Loved it, and was known in my grade as the kid who liked to read. Reading has slowed these days, but once I get some time I'll be glad to read again. 

[Jasper_the_2nd]

8 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

Yes, as a kid I read all the books.  Literally (no pun intended) every book I had access to. All my books.  Then everything in dad's bookcase (mostly sci-fi back then). Then whatever books my older sisters brought home from school.

We lived out in the country so there was no handy library, but we had the Bookmobile (is that a thing anywhere else?  Is it still a thing?) which was a converted school bus that was a traveling library.  My only issue was that you were only allowed to check out six books per visit (I think it came ever two weeks?) and those would only last me from Tuesday when it came until maybe the weekend.  I consumed books at a crazy rate back then.

Now, I still like to read but have a hard time finding time.  Like many others I have too many other distractions.  And what used to be my favorite time to read, bedtime, now that I'm old(er) I usually can manage a page or two before I doze off, where I used to read for hours in bed. A week or so ago I actually had a good reading night, mostly because I was getting to the good part at the end of Sanderson's latest, and made myself stop at 1 am (or so).  And was exhausted the next day....
I have been getting more reading in lately, which I'm really enjoying.  Unfortunately it is because my back/leg are acting up so I've been going to physio and having a lot of soaks in the tub.  I'm tending to use devices to read e-books these days (I use my old phone for tub reading...I hate damaging books, so wouldn't want a real one near that much water and humidity). While I love the feel and look of real books, the convenience of having them on your phone is hard to ignore. Plus the phone hurts less when I doze off reading in bed....

[redambrosia]

8 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

When I was in 1st grade I had trouble learning to read, so much so that there was a parent teacher conference and I was sent to summer school. The summer school did the trick apparently, because the next year I read everything in the children’s section of the library. I then moved on to novels and non fiction. So yeah, I read a lot when I was little. 
 

Sadly, in the last decade or so my reading has gone down. I still read, but it’s nowhere near the voracious quantity that I used to achieve.

[CashWiley]

8 hours ago, Morihalda said:

Tuesday, March 2: It’s National Read Across America Day! Did you read much as a kid? Do you read much now?

I read VORACIOUSLY as a kid. I practically lived at the library. Which I've now worked at for 21 years.

 

I read a lot of non-fic now. I still love fiction, but I think I got burned out by so many bad starts, too many tropes and authors working out their issues or advertising their politics, not enough truly interesting stories. 

And of course art books! My newest is a ZdzisĹaw BeksiĹski set and a book by the Rockwell estate about his life.