Ask Slashdot: How Many Books Do You Read a Month? 173
joshtops writes: Hi fellow readers. I wanted to ask you how many books do you read in a month on average? Also wanted to understand if that number has changed over the last five years. Also, what are you reading this month?
/. polls (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems to have gotten misplaced, /. polls are on the right.
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Total, or non-IT related? (Score:2, Insightful)
My number for the former is respectable, probably 6-8. The latter? Not so much.
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Do Slashdot screeds/rants count as a book?
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I read anywhere between 10-15 fiction, usually SF or Fantasy books a month. Add to that the occasional non-fiction book. I find that I don't read IT books anymore, I get most of my education these days off the web, either howtos or videos. The only books I would buy, IT wise, are reference books, and many of those have funny animal illustrations on them. :-)
Books worth of reading? (Score:3)
I read a lot. I read on a large number of topics. I'm constantly reading. I never stop, in a practical sense.
I do read books. I'm now reading The Smear by Sharyl Attiksson. I just don't have the time to dedicate to reading a set or large number of books every month.
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>I read a lot. I read on a large number of topics. I'm constantly reading. I never stop, in a practical sense.
Same, except I don't read books. I read articles, blog posts, news, graze parts of technical books. I've tried many times to read a book for fun as an adult but nothing holds my interest.
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Exactly. I am constantly reading, but books are for jails, prisons, and exploiting college students.
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I read the DNC talking points daily, then come here to repeat them.
I still have not gotten around to reading the Obamacare bill.
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Maybe 5-10 week. Just got recommendation from work colleague about "Fast Metabolism" books by Pomroy; reading 3 of those. For fiction authors currently active, Jim Butcher for F/SF, Lee Child for action, Barbara Ehrenreich for social observations, Mary Roach for science, Jarred Diamond for anthropology.
Strand reproductions of Sherlock Holmes are great but a large number of other Arthur Conan Doyle stories are better. As a teen reading Heinlein, I had no idea how heretical his ideas were, which somewhat wa
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I spend probably 6 hours a day reading, and I'm not counting slashdot or news/current events.
In the past year I think I read 2 "books," so a per-month number wouldn't have meaning. I read from books frequently. 10 years ago, my answer would have been maybe 10 per month.
Less information is hidden inside expensive books now, there has been a massive democratization of knowledge. Still incomplete, but ongoing! I don't have to buy 6 big books and read through them to find out if they explain what I want to know
Science Fiction (Score:1)
Having carelessly gone through the treasure-trove of writings by Asimov, Lem, and Strugatsky brothers in my youth, I was on a dry-spell for some time until I discovered Heinlein — whose hard anti-Socialist (and anti-Soviet in particular) stance made him a virtual unknown on the rusty side of the iron curtain, when I was growing up. But that supply drained quickly as well...
Stephenson is the only modern author so far, who, in my opinion, can match. But he can only write so much and his diversions into
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I am really enjoying Asimov and Heinlein. Can you recommend a good book to start Stephenson ? Never heard of him.
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The best Stephenson is
Snow Crash
best by far for starters.
If you want massive, go Cryptnomicon, also very good.
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The already recommended "Snow Crash" is quite awesome. But my new favorite is "Anathem"...
His "Seven Eves" was a disappointment, if you still have unread Asimov or Heinlein, don't bother.
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I never cared for Asimov, but the poster's advice on skipping Heinlein is extremely poor advice.
In his early days, Heinlein wrote some of the best science fiction ever published. IMHO "Puppet Masters" and "The Day After Tomorrow" have never been equaled.
You should also read his "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," both classics.
Heinlein got weird in his old age and, to me, his work devolved, but he never
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You basically "have to" read Snow Crash if you read sci-fi, it is the modern classic that coined the word "avatar" as used on the internet. So start there even if it isn't his best book.
If you like it, at least half of his books are as good. The other half might be less accessible, so YMMV.
If you do really like it, don't leave out Interface even though it has a co-author who mostly wrote it, because it is really funny given various current events in the world right now. It wasn't written as a comedy.
The o
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Is that Neal Stephenson? If so i already have Crypto-nomicon on my hold list in overdrive :) Looking forward to it
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Well, Robert Louis was a great writer (and poet) too, but his last name is spelled with a "v" instead of "ph".
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Heinlein - I don't know how many times a teacher confiscated a Heinlein book because I was reading it during class time. I did learn that telling the teacher that you could read your book and follow their lesson was not appreciated. Oh, to be able to read for fun on a consistent basis. I have two books from the Last Fleet: Beyond the Frontier that I haven't had time to read. If you like hard SF or military SF check out http://www.jack-campbell.com/ [jack-campbell.com]
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Heinlein - I don't know how many times a teacher confiscated a Heinlein book because I was reading it during class time. I did learn that telling the teacher that you could read your book and follow their lesson was not appreciated. Oh, to be able to read for fun on a consistent basis. I have two books from the Last Fleet: Beyond the Frontier that I haven't had time to read. If you like hard SF or military SF check out http://www.jack-campbell.com/ [jack-campbell.com]
I learned very early on to put the school book in my lap and the book I was actually reading behind that book. I only did it when the teacher was at the front of the class lecturing.
And love Campbell. Read all of The Lost Fleet, Beyond the Frontier through Invincible, and The Lost Stars through Perilous Shield. I'm sure I'll get an Amazon gift card for Christmas, will probably use it to buy the rest of the Beyond the Frontier ebooks. And for military scifi dont forget the Old Man's War trilogy (much s
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I can relate on many counts (being on the wrong side of the Iron Courtain, discovering new authors after it has fallen, etc).
Recently I downloaded a torrent called "The Book Case" which contains over 15K books in electronic format. of course, I cherry pick, currently at letter G (Gerard Klein to be more precise) and going. Many books I have re-read, some more than 10 times (!). I also discovered excellent authors I had never heard of, to my shame, such as China Mieville and Dan Simmons.
Still reading as much
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Harry Turtledove has some good stuff that might be up your alley. You also might like Margaret Atwood.
As a history buff I really enjoyed the Southern Victory series. Only got through Blood and Iron (because there's so many books and I'm cheap) but they're all really good reads. And something tells me Jake Featherston would have done very well in today's political climate....
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Mr Plinkett said it best (Score:1)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmw... [tvtropes.org]
"...Point is, I'm still not sure what the [Trade Federation] ships were there to do. And don't any of you f[beep]gots tell me it was explained more in the novelization or some Star Wars BOOK! What matters is the MOVIES! I ain't never read one them Star Wars books, or any books in general for that matter, and I ain't about to start. Don't talk about them stupid video games, or novels, comic books or any of that fucking crap. I seen enough of that shit."
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Trade Federations are there to extract payments that they declared some party to owe, or to enforce an agreement that some party neglected to sign but will have signed before the Trade Federation leaves orbit.
This is not a shortcoming of the movies, or something learned from Star Wars "books." Don't read that shit, it is drivel. But if you read golden age science fiction, then you instantly understand who the Trade Federation is, and what they want. They're any monopoly that the rule of law doesn't touch; t
Context matters (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, my problem is I read several books every night, but if I'm counting unique titles in a month it is only single digits.
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Overdrive (Score:3)
Switches over to Audiobooks on Overdrive last spring. i'm not 'reading' anywhere from 5-10 books a month. Depends on the length, some books at 8-10 hours, others are 30+. listening at 1.4x i can get through an 8 hour book in a day.
Right now i have finished the "Robots" series by Isaac Asimov, and now on book 2 of the Foundation series.
Overdrive really changed my ability to get through books, i probably read more now in a month the i used to in a year. I highly recommend it to anyone who's local library is a member. The best part is that is completely free.
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I'm not a fan of the phrase "get through" when talking about reading or listening to books. It conveys the importance of throughput over digestion.
I usually read slowly, often a paragraph or a sentence at a time, to really think about what's being said and how's it's being said, and to revel in powerful moments. (I often joke to myself that it takes me longer to read a book than it took to write.) Often, when read, I toss a book around in my mind for some months, reading online discussion, and writing my
I kinda stopped reading (Score:2)
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They are a bit dated, but have you read any Asimov or Heinlein? I haven't come across things like that in any of the books i have read thus far.
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As a teenager, I read all of Asimov's sci-fi, his Azazel stories, and a lot of his science essays for the lay person. You know what? I have no idea why I loved his sci-fi so much, because on attempts to revisit it as an adult I find his prose so boring it's unreadable and I can't enjoy the underlying plot. Azazel's still good, though. Actually, I take (some of) that back... the stuff he wrote for the juvenile market as Paul French still reads well for the era.
Heinlein, on the other hand... great stuff,
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Big into both of them, also Phillip K. Dick.
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Not to self-promote... well, actually, forget that, YES to self-promote, but my novel - Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief [ghostthiefnovel.com] - has no gratuitous sex or violence. There's actually no sex, but decent amounts of violence. I read it to my then-9 year old son as I was writing it. I'm working on the sequel now.
A couple interesting new series (Score:2)
Try the EarthCent Ambassador Series E.M Foner. It has no gore, and is generally positive and funny with friendly AI.
There is also the Old Guy Cybertank adventures by Timothy Gawne which I enjoyed as hard sci fi with an AI theme but it is not as positive (even if the main character is likable). It stars a sentient WMD and involves lots of military conflicts and other challenges. There is some incidental gore and craziness, but it generally relates specifically to the plot and so is rarely pointless in that s
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Bobiverse is Dennis E. Taylor, I believe. Just finished the trilogy. Enjoyed it quite a bit.
some recommended reading (Score:1)
It's good to just pick up a book that may not necessarily be related to your daily work or life. I hope you all find time to read one of these books:
The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports, Jeff Passan (2016)
For a Song and a Hundred Songs: A Poet's Journey Through a Chinese Prison, Liao Yiwu, translated from the Chinese by Wenguang Huang (2013)
Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle, Dan Senor and Saul Singer (2009)
Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for
Here's a more relavant question for Slashdot... (Score:1)
Why have I had to restart all the smartphones I have possessed if I leave the basement (with them), and would like to use the GPS?
The GPS application always complains of no internet access, even when it's on. And these have been "brand name" devices.
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Because you don't read enough books. That's your punishment.
Books (Score:2)
Over the past month or so, I've finished 8 sci-fi type books, all new ones vs picking up one I've read before. I also finished the latest hardback Walking Dead book (14) and read Watchmen again.
Most of the IT type books are references where I'm reading a chapter to work on something. A couple of the video courses are in process as well. I have Safari Online so my selections there are AWS Operations (video), Infrastructure as Code, JSON at Work, Ansible Up and Running, GIT Essentials (video), Jump Start GIT,
Read none, Listen too 3-4. (Score:2)
With work and side projects, in my downtime, its some tv and games. (orville,scif-fi shows, world of tanks). So that leaves my commutes and headphones at work. Also I have a large drive every 2 months, so I finish an audio book right there.
Mostly politics and hard sci-fi audiobooks and podcasts. Just finished Scott Adams older book and picked up his new one. Right now in the middle of "Forbidden Thoughts" which is very interesting hugo style collection of sci-fi short.
4-5 (Score:2)
It's decreased a bit in recent years because I have a more interesting but demanding job, but not a huge amount. 90% of my reading is done in the gym, the other when i'm waiting on a kid to get out of some kid activity or my wife to be done shopping.
0% of my books are physical, that's far too impractical for me.
Books'... (Score:3)
...worth of forum posts surely?
Just rearranged my home office/den to encourage it (Score:2)
With that in place, I'm reading about 3 books at a time now, typically one physical book I've read before, one new physical book, and one often from a PDF (I especially like to read political books like Shatter
History of Silicon Valley (Score:2)
Highly recommended!
Not as much as I'd like to (Score:2)
In May this year, I made a lifestyle change, and I now exercise 30 minutes every morning M-F 6am. While that was my "positive growth" change I made, I find I do read less now than before.
Not that I was ever an avid reader in the past, but I averaged two books a year. Now it's been two years since I last completed a book.
The last three books I recall reading are:
Freakonomics
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
3 to 6 Sci-Fi and Fantasy per month (Score:1)
4-5 books per month (Score:2)
I read a lot while travelling - on planes and so on.
I borrow paper books from a next-door library.
Currently reading: "Hunting Eichmann"
https://www.goodreads.com/book... [goodreads.com]
The last book finished: "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves"
https://www.goodreads.com/book... [goodreads.com]
less than 1 per month (Score:2)
4+ Books/month (Score:3)
Currently reading the SFWA's "Greatest Sci-Fi 1928-1964" edited by Theodore Sturgeon that I found in a used book store.
Books and more... (Score:1)
Current vs. former average (Score:2)
about one per month (Score:1)
Writing Instead of Reading (Score:1)
This past year I've been focused on writing books instead of reading them. (I'd like to do both but time constraints kept me from that.) I'm working on the sequel to my first book Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief [ghostthiefnovel.com].
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I used to read a lot of SF/Fantasy. Now I write more than I read. No, I haven't published any fiction. I write for my own amusement. It's way cheaper than reading.
As a teen I had a hopeful view that if it was published and in print, it had to be at least okay if not good. Of course I ran into a few stinkers. But most of the books I read were decent. The whole concept of a UBG that I first encountered in Tolkien was at the time marvelous and novel. Before that, evil was just kind of scattered all o
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Basically same for me. ... a book from 2) might be translated
But I live in germany and used to read in german. That creates several problems:
1) sometimes bad translations (how can one be so stupid to mix up a gravity field with a magnetic field? That was a book of Arthur C Clark, I doubt he made the mistake)
2) only the best sellers get translated, so if in a series of C. J. Cherryh one book does not sell good enough, it is not translated, in other words: you can not read/buy the whole set of sequels
3) time
0 - 1 (Score:2)
I used to be an avid reader.
Now I drive two to three hours a day, I have a toddler at home, and my wife sees me reading and interprets it as time to get close and engage in activity around me because I must feel lonely.
Audiobooks I do on occasion while driving, though I do tend to listen to political podcasts instead. I did listen to a Kevin MItnick one a couple of months back.
I have literally something close to 100 industry related e-books I've gotten from the Humble Bundle I really want to dig into, but
This seems like an odd topic for Slashdot, but... (Score:2)
It depends on the lengths of the books involved, but i spend about 40 hours on my commute per month, which works out to one really long book, 2-4 "normal" books, or a larger number of short stories or novellas. However if i
have had a hard time lately (Score:2)
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Quite a few, but not from cover to cover (Score:2)
I do not read fiction (I just don't enjoy it), so I tend to read a lot of technical/programming books. Since they're usually pretty expensive, subscribing to one of the many publisher's unlimited ebook websites has really opened a new world for me. It used to be that I had to value a book's content quite a bit before I could read any of it, when I had to buy each one separately. Since it's usually not necessary to read each one from cover to cover, i tend to jump around a lot, and don't mind dumping a bo
Will there be a prize? (Score:2)
It's NaNoWriMo month, November, and my writing friends are frantically trying to finish a novel in a single month. There are no prizes, no accolades, only bragging rights if they succeed (or lie about it). I suppose that is what Slashdot is reduced to- clickbait for bragging rights. We can all claim we are taller, smarter, ours is bigger, and we read more books.
one or two (Score:2)
One or two a month. It used to be a lot more. In the last five years the number of books I read a month has dropped dramatically. But I read a lot of online tech magazines, and I follow four webcomics (Stand Still Stay Silent, Gunnerkrigg court, Schlock Mercenary, and currently finishing up The Red Fox's Tale.)
Currently reading John Rin's "Live Free Or Die", a novel that takes place in the Schlockverse, a few hundred years before the beginning of Schlock Mercenary. It's a little slow. I'm hoping it pic
You should have done a poll (Score:2)
"A few", and dwindling (Score:2)
I mostly read at night in bed. In my 20s I'd go through a book every other night, up way too late. As I've gotten older I just can't keep my eyes open that long and find myself reading less and less before having to turn out the lights.
Of course the size of book matters. I read mostly fantasy and scifi. I went through a kick reading lots of smaller scifi books, and even these days I'd go through 10 or so a month. Right this moment I'm re-reading the Wheel of Time series, though. At 800+ pages per book
0.25, roughly. Not enough. ... (Score:2)
"Predictably Irrational" I'm reading right now.
My reading list. (Score:2)
When I'm working or in school 1-5
Generally I can clear a 400-800pg book in a day. It really depends on what is available and how much free time I have. When various authors are not being very productive my number of read books drops. When the schedule is busy I'm reduced to letting the kindle read the books too me (it is much slower than if I read them myself)
What do I read. Lots of fiction. Some non-fiction. Technical and engineering books. Political web art
Non-fiction for the win (Score:2)
Edison Rocks (Score:2)
The front page is fine (Score:3)
On literacy (Score:2)
A word on literacy in the US from a limited example. A little over a year ago, I discovered over the course of a short discussion that a good friend of mine had a background in literature that was woefully lacking. A few days later I got it into my head
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That's terrible. I know in some sense that there are people who don't enjoy books, but I don't understand how. I mean, if you look around, there are books about everything. Unless a person is totally uninterested in everything the world over, it seems like there ought to be a few books for them.
Less now (Score:2)
I read about 10 a month. :-)
Before I retired, I read around 35 a month, but I had a job consisting mainly on waiting for an emergency to happen. Retirement is a series of emergencies.
I read now everything that Amazon gives me for free for under 10 bucks a month, much cheaper than buying books.
excess roughage intake (Score:2)
I place about 16 holds a month at the local library, for myself and my wife, of which about four are usually DVDs (representing the entirely of our household TV consumption). Perhaps half of the books are common interest, and the other half divides evenly between my interests and my wife's interests.
How much of a book I actually read depends on the book. The least substantial items get a quick, thirty minute once-over. Sometime I just want to assess the strength of the author, which does not require readi
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thanks for the link to edge.org - now something else to keep in my list.
In return I gift you the entire collection of Manas - Explorations in Ethical Thought
http://www.manasjournal.org/pd... [manasjournal.org]
It's obvious (Score:2)
To the pe
It's dropped (Score:2)
currently completing 3-6 monthly, depending on workload.
It would've been 6-10 in the past but as the need for glasses grew my pleasure reading time declined
Currently open and in progress:
Spider Kiss/Harlan Ellison (1st time)
Complete Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle (re-reading the collection)
Sorcerers Ascension/Brock Deskins (new, amazon freebie)
The World Until Yesterday/Jared Diamond (1st time)
Man & Spirit: The Speculative Philosophers (re-read)
The Center of the Cyclone/John S. Lilly (re-read)
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John C. Lilly - whoops.
5 - 10 (Score:2)
I'm just lazy in updating my /. signature.
I mostly read free ebooks, as most ebook shops have free books all the time. I'm on several mailing lists that promote free ebooks.
Regarding the 'first post', I would not mind if questions like this, especially with hints what to read, are asked/posted once a month.
The last really good big thing I read was a triology from Andreas Christensen, Exodus, Rift, Alive. I believe the first one is Rift.
One or two (Score:2)
Around six, on average (Score:2)
I read roughly two meters worth of books per year, which comes down to six or so per month. Obviously it depends a lot on the books themselves: a 1500 page monster will take considerably longer than a pocket. And collections of short stories take forever, since I tend to stop after each story to ruminate on it.
This number is considerably higher than five years ago, because back then I was mostly reading magazines. I decided to give up on that particular hobby and start reading books again - in part because
Fifteen or so (Score:2)
~0.33 book/month (but wait...) (Score:2)
This is because I've been reading Journey To The West in dual translation/facing pages. It's in six volumes, and it takes me about 3 months to get through one of them reading the Chinese original and trying not to depend on the English version unless I really get stumped.
0. (Score:2)
Wait, do magazines count? I read some articles in those. :P
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Hardcore History unfortunately ruined podcasts for me because it was the first one I listened to. And so far, nothing else compares within several standard deviations. Stuff You Should Know, Radiolab, Freakonomics, 99% Invisible, Stuff You Missed in History and Tested are the bulk of the rest.
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panicking and just compulsively going over ingredient labels in the pantry
I don't think I ever panicked over it, but gosh yes, I remember those nights at 3am sitting on the kitchen floor reading soup labels... "what am I doing here? What time is it? Was I going to make a snack? Oh yeah, I'm out of books!"
I hate podcasts, but maybe 15% of my reading got replaced with videos.
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For anyone looking to try audiobooks, check if your local library is part of the Overdrive (or other) system, which gives you access to a large library for free.
I like audio books for all the tedious day to day tasks. I can listen while driving, commuting, doing dishes, cleaning the house, doing laundry. Basically anything where i dont need to listen to someone else speak or concentrate hard i can listen to book. Makes menial tasks much easier to get through for me.
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...music is somewhat a waste of time. I do really enjoy music...
I consider occasionally enjoying myself a good use of time. If you need to justify it, recognize that you're more productive when you're generally in a positive state of mind and that making time for leisure helps that.
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Same for me. And as we're getting older we start to forget things, so in a way we can say we're currently reading "minus 0.2 book per month".
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You did seem to manage to write using these letter things on this website though. As for reading the question, I am not even going to ask!
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While we have 5000+ books in the house between my wife and me and a kid. But I had pretty much stopped reading entire books due to the dust in them increasingly bothering my eyes -- until I took over my wife's abandoned Kindle about two years ago. She prefers paper books and says she remembers them better.
We had also essentially run out of shelf space too, another reason I tried really hard not to buy any more books.
Since starting to use the Kindle, I've been reading books again -- maybe a couple a month on