Anyone read any good books lately?

Stephen said:
That rings true with me, Roger. I struggled to get through any reading book at school because I found them sooo boring. I'm still the same today. That and the fact that my attention span is, to this day, quite frankly awful! I much prefer factual books that I can pick up and put down when I feel like it.
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AH HA!! Let me focus on that phrase ". . . reading book at school . . . " sometimes the books that are selected by learned academics are of course, so boring. Number of words, types of words, and reading for meaning; all escalate the boredom factor.
 
Lol am I the only one who actually enjoyed reading at school? My entire personality is built on the fact that at a very young age, someone with authority told me that the more books I read, the more free pizza I would get! Lol Did they do the Book It program where you guys are? Where everyone who read a certain amount of books would get a coupon to take to Pizza Hut and get a free personal sized pizza? That was the best part of school for me!
 
I'm in complete agreement with Adanors comment about reading at school. The choice of books and the fact you have to analyse them to the enth degree really sucked the fun out of reading. I'm not a massive reader now, simply because I don't have the time with work, but I always read on holidays. Usually autobiographies and biographies, I've got the authorised biography of Tony Hancock to read next which I'm really looking forwards to.
 
Adanor said:
AH HA!! Let me focus on that phrase ". . . reading book at school . . . " sometimes the books that are selected by learned academics are of course, so boring. Number of words, types of words, and reading for meaning; all escalate the boredom factor.
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I honestly believe it wouldn't of mattered what kind of fictional book they'd have shoved in front of me at school, Adanor, I still would have been bored. My experience with 'reading books' used to go as follows:

1) Stephen opens the book in feigned anticipation.

2) Stephen turns to the first chapter and starts to read:: 'The sun's rays glinted off the frosted windowpane as little Tommy peered out...'

3) Zzzzzzzzzzzz


4) Stephen wakes up outside the Headmaster's office.
 
I arrived at school more than ready to read, with all the tools for decoding words except the one that allows putting sound together to form familiar words. I learned that in the first reading lesson, planted my face in a book, and have rarely looked up for the last 73 years.
 
I think there's something about reading a book that's unparalleled. You can completely lose yourself in a book, you lose track of time and your imagination creates a world. Although there are many great films I just don't think this happens watching TV.

I remember my A Level English Literature teacher telling us that we can often watch a film and it can take an hour or so before we realise we've seen it before, but this just wouldn't happen picking up a book we've read before.
 
Marianna said:
I arrived at school more than ready to read, with all the tools for decoding words except the one that allows putting sound together to form familiar words. I learned that in the first reading lesson, planted my face in a book, and have rarely looked up for the last 73 years.
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My mum started to teach me to read at age 4 and I always loved books, but didn't enjoy analysing them in English Lit lessons. I usually have a couple of books on the go and own over 1600.
 
WellyMan said:
My mum started to teach me to read at age 4 and I always loved books, but didn't enjoy analysing them in English Lit lessons. I usually have a couple of books on the go and own over 1600.
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New York State education, at least in English and history, apparently was much less rigorous than yours. I can' t speak for the rest of the country because each state is different. I don't recall ever having to analyze a book. We were only required to read a book and write a book report outlining the subject and describing the main characters. I was able to rush through the assignments in order to get back to my current novel. My entire family of four maxed out our library cards every week, and I read everything that everyone borrowed.

Now I borrow eBooks from the public library to avoid holding a print book in my arthritic hands. The local public library offers two eBook services, Libby, a service of OverDrive, and Hoopla, a service of Midwest Tape. Libby allows access to the library system of which my local library is a member, as well as two neighboring systems, for a total of all the public libraries in 14 rather large counties, as well as New York Public Library, 254 miles away. Hoopla is limited to my local public library, but has a large collection of older, out of print, books, of the type that I enjoy - British authors, mostly settings in the UK, a few set in Western Europe.

The Kindle Fire 7 in the right type of case can be propped up at several different angles and the font size can be adjusted for aging vision.

I usually read a mystery or a novel every two days, then return it way ahead of the due date and borrow another.
 
My mother brought home the Bobbsey Twins, and later on, Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys. Those books took the edge off of Dick, Jane, and Sally and all of those other primers. Yes, I learned to read with the actual Dick, Jane and Sally primers.

My library offers an interlibrary loan program called Iliad and I've gotten some books through that program.
 
Barrychuckle said:
I think there's something about reading a book that's unparalleled. You can completely lose yourself in a book, you lose track of time and your imagination creates a world. Although there are many great films I just don't think this happens watching TV
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I totally agree with this Barry . I would add Radio to this, plays and serials on Radio are some of my favourite types of entertainment because you have to use your imagination .
 
Adanor said:
Dick, Jane, and Sally and all of those other primers. Yes, I learned to read with the actual Dick, Jane and Sally primers.
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I read those in first grade, too, under duress because they were so dull. Even to 6-year-olds those Scott-Foresman readers were an obvious attempt to indoctrinate, trying to teach middle-class life to all children, most of whom had no experience of it. For instance, of the three students in my first grade, one father was a laborer in the local lumber mill and the family lived in a house back in the woods with no electricity or running water, another classmate lived on a barely subsistence farm, and my father was the most prosperous farmer in the district, and the school trustee, but far from a middle-class urban existence, thank goodness.
 
The last book in the One of Us is Lying series is out and it's hanging out in my Amazon cart until I get the money to buy it, which will hopefully be soon. I'm so excited because I've been waiting a whole year for that book! Lol I've also got to pack up some of my old middle school favorites and give them to Sorenity because she's in middle school this year so she'll enjoy them and I need to make room for more books. I read some of them in high school because I actually skipped the 8th grade (I use to be a gifted kid) but I think they're still appropriate for kids her age.
 
Marianna said:
I read those in first grade, too, under duress because they were so dull. Even to 6-year-olds those Scott-Foresman readers were an obvious attempt to indoctrinate, trying to teach middle-class life to all children, most of whom had no experience of it. For instance, of the three students in my first grade, one father was a laborer in the local lumber mill and the family lived in a house back in the woods with no electricity or running water, another classmate lived on a barely subsistence farm, and my father was the most prosperous farmer in the district, and the school trustee, but far from a middle-class urban existence, thank goodness.
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I heard that the writer of Dick, Jane, and Sally got her inspiration for the primers while relaxing on the beach and listening to children speak.
 
Adanor said:
I heard that the writer of Dick, Jane, and Sally got her inspiration for the primers while relaxing on the beach and listening to children speak.
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Anyone who had the money and leisure to relax on the beach or anywhere else, had no idea how the "other half" lived!
 
Marianna said:
New York State education, at least in English and history, apparently was much less rigorous than yours. I can' t speak for the rest of the country because each state is different. I don't recall ever having to analyze a book. We were only required to read a book and write a book report outlining the subject and describing the main characters. I was able to rush through the assignments in order to get back to my current novel. My entire family of four maxed out our library cards every week, and I read everything that everyone borrowed.

Now I borrow eBooks from the public library to avoid holding a print book in my arthritic hands. The local public library offers two eBook services, Libby, a service of OverDrive, and Hoopla, a service of Midwest Tape. Libby allows access to the library system of which my local library is a member, as well as two neighboring systems, for a total of all the public libraries in 14 rather large counties, as well as New York Public Library, 254 miles away. Hoopla is limited to my local public library, but has a large collection of older, out of print, books, of the type that I enjoy - British authors, mostly settings in the UK, a few set in Western Europe.

The Kindle Fire 7 in the right type of case can be propped up at several different angles and the font size can be adjusted for aging vision.

I usually read a mystery or a novel every two days, then return it way ahead of the due date and borrow another.
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I vaguely remembered Eng Lit lessons when I was a teenager analysing novels we were supposed to read, but my memory may be faulty. Even though I've always enjoyed reading (fiction and non-fiction) I had no interest in taking English at A-level or degree level.
 
Marianna said:
I didn't either. My BA is in history, and my Master's is in Library Science, followed by a 2-year technical degree in Computer Programming.
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Did you have to say sssssshhhhhhh much in your library career, or is that something you just see with TV librarians :p !?
 
Lol I volunteered at my local library in high school. Ok, actually, I got arrested and had to do community service there, but the librarian was nice and said I was a volunteer any time someone asked who that was shelving books and decorating for the summer reading program, so we'll just say I volunteered. Lol our librarian didn't have to say shhhhhh a lot but she did have to go to the kid's section once and get onto some kids because one threatened to throw the other out the window! Lol I actually enjoyed doing community service there, I don't feel like that was much of a punishment for me, but I know that if I get arrested again, they might not be so nice so I try not to do that anymore! Lol
 
Barrychuckle said:
Did you have to say sssssshhhhhhh much in your library career, or is that something you just see with TV librarians :p !?
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I worked in the library of a corporate science research center. No children, but a lot of super-intelligent scientists and technologists asking questions that pushed me up a steep learning curve.

A friend who directed the equivalent to a public library on the US Army base in Munich, where troops assigned there could bring their families, once described her library as filled with children running around and shouting as part of a game led by the children's librarian. She said that was just as a library ought to be.
 
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