I wouldn't worry about Wooderson's book takes. Some people just don't enjoy reading. I don't understand that point of view, seems like you're missing a chunk of life if you haven't read anything that really interests you or, god forbid, changed your thinking or behavior. I read a lot, have never really felt I was wasting time.

lenC, fantastic post. I was going to add something but I think Hoya might when he was on about some big post coming, he's a better writer than I am.

Seems like it would be easy enough for you to incorporate an hour of audiobooks into your gym routine. Don't use them myself but I've understood that the level of comprehension is similar enough to the real thing.

I also encourage you to google the benefits of reading to children. I would gladly receive the takes regarding that idiot caterpillar in this very thread.

This seems embarrassing to admit but I'm really not ashamed of it at all. As a kid born in 1988 being able to read the Harry Potter books as more or less the same age as him growing up was the best thing to happen to me growing up.

I went through a huge classics phase in college reading catch 22, crime and punishment, fear and loathing on the campaign trail, and other dense ass bomb writing I probably couldn't even get through now because I'm out of lit reading shape. I remember if I read a super poetic paragraph, esp if it was Joyce or Nabokov, I'd literally get hyped and have to jump up and walk around for a couple minutes before I sat back down and kept reading. I'm a ****ing nerd lol

Don't forget short stories!

Great for those with shorter attention spans who like for THINGS TO HAPPEN and/or are looking to KILL SOME TIME.

I'd recommend checking out the works of TC Boyle, Raymond Carver, and also just picking up a nice solid COLLECTION with multiple authors.

The thing is the wire, were it a book, would actually be pretty bad.

I actually don't have any beef with short stories. Don't think id read any in my personal time but didnt feel they were the waste of time that novels were when assigned.

Also to that post that said books and tv take same amount of time.

Game of thrones season 1 was about 480 minutes of episode. The book is 694 pages. If youre right about 2 minutes per page (which is a really brisk and focused pace) that's still 1388 minutes. So it still takes 3x longer to read the book than to watch the show. Thats precious and valuable time savings. Not to mention the show is probably 100x better given that all youre missing out on is pages and pages of descriptions of stuff. Books are like 60% descriptive fluff that u can just see with your own eyes.

And thats just TV. Take a movie and it's an even bigger difference.


The Shining had a 126 minute runtime. The novel is 447 pages. 7x longer. Sorry but TV/film is just a much more efficient way to tell a story.

Like its a free country you guys are free to spend your days reading but show me someone who reads a lot of books and 9 out of 10 times theyll have a sad life.

Osis reads like 4 books a week, is a total lowlife, and has a trust fund. #crushingit

Nothing in this world can ever take the place of the way a book smells. The crackle of the paper when you turn the page, seeing a word you've never seen before, but being able to understand it's meaning because you can draw from your high school Latin class. Being able to hold the book and feel the weight of it, and understand the hard work the author put into this. The author probably spent a year writing it just for me to finish it in a day. There's something romantic about that. I'll never own a device where I can read a book electronically because I don't want to ruin the relationship I have with paper.

Two minutes a page? Average reading speed is 250-300 words per minute, which is about how long a page is.

I used to (and somewhat still do) feel that love for physical books, but man, if you like to read Kindle Paperwhites are GOAT. The convenience of taking your whole library anywhere you want + the ease of instantly downloading any book you want + ability to read it with one hand, that all ended up surpassing my love of physical paper and I'm now a believer.

And it's totally unsurprising that someone as ignorant and intellectually lazy as Wooderson would hate books.

I've also found another benefit to reading that hasn't been covered - I've got issues maintaining attention for long periods, and reading is almost like forced meditation. It forces me to keep attention, otherwise I've got to reread passages over and over. I think that discipline bleeds over into other facets of life, for me at least. Regular gym + regular reading is vital.

It takes hundreds of people months and thousands of man hours to watch a 48 minute tv episode. Pretty romantic iyam.

What does "intellectually lazy" mean exactly?

I know I'm about to get hit with a life burn, but citing The Shining is perfect.

That movie was so shallow compared to the book, felt rushed and I actually find the movie horrible. I read the book first tho. I didn't really enjoy Jurassic Park because I read it first as well.

I read a lot of Crichton and King in junior high. I actually don't read hardly as much now and fiction holds little appeal to me. I would like to read through the classics tho, I loved everything Dickens. I'm sure you would like The Princess Bride TuT, The Eyes of the Dragon (King) too.

It's crazy to go back and read something as thin as Forrest Gump and see how much they omitted from a 3 hour movie.

The Shining, Jurassic Park, and Forrest Gump are all elite movies. There's very little chance that objectively speaking, reading those books is a better use of time than watching the movies.

I mean ive made my feelings known so no need to hit you with a life burn but it does make sense that in general people with objectively worse lives enjoy reading more.

Its a way to escape their lives. Its a defense mechanism and habit that probably developed in adolesence because in their books they werent getting bullied. Its the same reason most of these often depressed alcoholic writers chose to write books in the first place. To create a world better than their own.

People with great lives whose time is very valuable realize reading is mostly a waste of time. For avid readers thats a benefit because burying their head in a lolbook beats whatever else theyd be doing.

Hahahahahahaha

I would've been better off burying my head in books than chasing pussy with personality disorders.

I don't know the last novel I read. I think it was John Grisham's King of Torts I bought in a hospital gift shop over a decade ago.

I attribute much of my success to reading early and often. Superior vocabulary and creativity easily achievable results.

I read and my vocab is decent. Plenty of stuff out there to read that aren't 25 hour commitments with tons of boring fluff. Im not bashing reading im bashing novels as a massively inefficient and crappy medium for it.

Never read the shining so can't compare, but I don't think Kubrick was ever making the shining novel into a movie. He took a loose plot and did his own thing. And it was pretty deep iyam.

This is worth a read: http://www.collativelearning.com/the%20shining.html

I must admit to having 6 books on my nightstand I still haven't opened and 1 I have been trying to finish for over a year. Hard to read when tired and Big Brother is on 3-4 nights a week.

For example, you can read like 500 completely different wikipedia pages and learn a ton in the time it takes to read a book that includes dozens of pages of worthless descriptive fluff.

Woody,

Just curious, how much time do you spend reading 2+2 daily?