SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
How many books did you read last year? Also, what was the best book you read?
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 68 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I don't want a pickle,
I just wanna ride on my motorsickle.
And I don't want to die,
I just want to ride on my motorcy.
Cle.
-- Arlo Guthrie
(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Tuesday January 03 2017, @06:16PM
I always wondered how many people had books spoiled for them by high school literature class.
Before I went to high school, I was a voracious reader. I would read anything and everything. I had read most of Tolkein's works, plenty of Asimov and Clark as well as hundreds of other books I can no longer remember. Then, four years of high school literature classes turned reading into a chore. Dozens of books to read while analyzing and dissecting each chapter. Spending weeks reading and discussing The Catcher in the Rye, The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, The Great Santini and the "local color" of William Faulkner showed me just how awful reading can be. I think it was the 15 pages analyzing the thematic elements of The Scarlet Letter, their relationship to the earlier sermons of John Winthrop and their sources within 17th and 18th century Puritan society that finally demolished any desire to read for pleasure.
To be fair to my teachers, the point of the exercise was to teach analytical reading concepts which it did accomplish. At the time, I always hoped we could read a book I was interested in like Asimov, Clark, Tolkien or similar writers. In retrospect, I am glad they did not because my affection for those writers would likely have been ground to nothing by having to write 20 pages on the symbolism of Rama's shape or the tragedy of man in I, Robot.
In all the years since high school, I have read maybe 7 or 8 books for pleasure, though one of them was an Alien vs Predator novel and another was a Star Wars novel so I am not sure that they count as books exactly. These days, I mostly read technical information and news. I'm not sure if I am missing out or not but I just lost the interest in picking up a book.
I wonder if anybody else had a similar experience.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Thursday January 05 2017, @03:34AM
As a librarian, I have to say, "If you're readin', you're readin'..."
...and, you might go back and re-read The Hobbit or some of the books you remember from early on--I recently rediscovered Red Planet, and Have Spacesuit, will Travel by Heinlein, and the Time Traders and Witch World by Norton, which I don't think I'd read since Elementary or Jr. High, and had a blast!