Literature - a lost pleasure?

[November Rain]

Have just started reading 'A Boy's Own Story' by Edmund White. In the foreword of my copy, he writes these lines about putting his mother in the book

"Moreover, she realized that few of her friends would ever read such a book (or any book). In America the best way to bury a secret is to publish it."

His mother's friends were socially fairly high class. The book is based on his adolescence in the 50's and was written and published in the late 70's/early 80's, so this is hardly a new phenomena.

I also don't mean this to 'America bash'. I just happen to be reading an American book which states this.


It got me thinking, though. How many people read for pleasure, these days? I regularly take a book with me when I go anywhere I might have time to kill. I read on public transport, whilst waiting to be served in banks, in restaurants, anywhere & everywhere, but I rarely see anyone else doing the same. Even on aeroplanes, I open a book, most people I see put the movies on.

I couldn't live without books (literature, rather than biographies or text books - I must admit). They're as much a necessity to me as food (though I buy second hand, rather than new )

Do fewer people read these days? Are magazines and TV/PCs/DVDs all that the soundbite generation can manage? Or is everyone reading, and I'm just not seeing it?

[dirtydog]

They're as much a necessity to me as food (though I buy second hand, rather than new

Hopefully I have always bought new food, the idea of second hand food doesn't bode so well, anyway onto books, if I am travelling then i will have a book or 2

[kingwilly]

How many people read for pleasure, these days? I regularly take a book with me when I go anywhere I might have time to kill. I read on public transport, whilst waiting to be served in banks, in restaurants, anywhere & everywhere,

I do.

I was reading outside the bank today waiting for it to open.

Do fewer people read these days?

I think so.

Are magazines and TV/PCs/DVDs all that the soundbite generation can manage?

and internet and cell phone and ipods etc

I finished World without end by Ken Follett last week, and today finished The Insummountable Mountain by Richard Dawkins.

both were great.

[ChiangMai noon]

The Insummountable Mountain by Richard Dawkins.

i have that and just about everything by dawkins.....(in audio book format).

like to listen to it in bed while dropping off to sleep.

[Jet Gorgon]

I'm with ya, NR. I have tons of books. Just reread some from storage that I will give to the library. I love to read. It's more personal. I envision the characters (never the same as the movie version) or muse over topics or question the idea or philosophy. Flicks are fine, but a book you can take anywhere. And they even work when the power goes out.

Rarely saw Thais reading a book.

[ChiangMai noon]

i prefer audio books because you don't need to have your eyes open.

[Jet Gorgon]

^ Depends who's orating.

[Rural Surin]

Sound bite generation as well as short-attention span generation...lost is the simple ideal of being still, without the obsession of fabricated stumulation. These instincts are akin to the mindless/obsessive consumption existence. Intution is disguised as something else - even lost without repair.

[ChiangMai noon]

^^

not as to whether you need to keep your eyes open, but a good narrator is vital.......in that regard the Brits are a country mile ahead.

Stephen Fry is brilliant.

Dawkins is nice to listen to reading his own stuff, very soothing lilt to his voice.

i have a number of good audio books horribly spoiled by a nasal american monotone.

[Jet Gorgon]

^ Agree. I'd like to hear John Wayne do MacBeth tho. Oh ya, they stole an idea like that from me in Dead Poet's Society.

[kingwilly]

i prefer audio books because you don't need to have your eyes open.

I do not disagree,

[Rural Surin]

^^

not as to whether you need to keep your eyes open, but a good narrator is vital.......in that regard the Brits are a country mile ahead.

Stephen Fry is brilliant.

Dawkins is nice to listen to reading his own stuff, very soothing lilt to his voice.

i have a number of good audio books horribly spoiled by a nasal american monotone.

Interesting to note regarding audio books. Whereas I feel that when one reads, you create your own 'mind's eye and sound' without {perhaps} subjectivity. The sensation of a manufactured and coerced stimulus that dominates the auto-book leaves one vacant of original imagination. I shouldn't look forward to the day when all communicative interaction is limited to cyber-electronics.

[November Rain]

Interesting to note regarding audio books. Whereas I feel that when one reads, you create your own 'mind's eye and sound' without {perhaps} subjectivity. The sensation of a manufactured and coerced stimulus that dominates the auto-book leaves one vacant of original imagination. I shouldn't look forward to the day when all communicative interaction is limited to cyber-electronics. __________________

I'd agree with that. I'm not a fan of audio books, because you're too much at the mercy of the narrator as to how your vision is created. I once bought a Stephen King novella trio read by the author himself and was dissatisfied, because the way he'd read it wasn't how I would have pictured it. It's all subjective, as RS states.

[NickA]

Do fewer people read these days? Are magazines and TV/PCs/DVDs all that the soundbite generation can manage? Or is everyone reading, and I'm just not seeing it?

I read quite a lot on the toilet and in bed.

[ChiangMai noon]

at the mercy of the narrator as to how your vision is created

not if it's a simple narration of a non fiction book.

perhaps more so regarding fiction, but again depends very much on the narrator.

i often listen to the hobbit and the lord of the rings trilogy narrated by Robert Inglis.

not sure if my vision has changed with time, but he brings middle earth to life for me, except the fukking silly singing bits.

btw, you really ought to pop into multi media from time to time NR, you might find some stuff about multi media in there.

[November Rain]

btw, you really ought to pop into multi media from time to time NR.

I do. But if you put a thread like this in there, only 5 people respond. Did consider putting it in there.

[ChiangMai noon]

^
by far and away, the best forum on the board IMO.

[kingwilly]

^ by far and away, the best forum on the board IMO.

bollocks.

its ok,

but that's it.

[ChiangMai noon]

^
IMO...

[NickA]

^
EMO..

[kingwilly]

not if it's a simple narration of a non fiction book. perhaps more so regarding fiction, but again depends very much on the narrator.

do you listen to any of Stephen Hawking narrating his books?

[ChiangMai noon]

^
are you taking the piss willy?

[kingwilly]

why?

I liek his books

[phuketbound]

Great OP, NR. I love to read, and when I get off the internet for a minute (which is rare), then I will read. I especially love reading on vacation, sitting in a hammock listening to the waves crash against the shore.

I haven't listened to any audiobooks. I would rather read, but I'll give them a try sometime. I think that if I read something it would come alive the way I want to envision it. As opposed to an author reading it, and using a different emphasis. Does that make sense?

[kingwilly]

Who would win in a battle of wit?

Dawkins or Hawking?

Hawking has written more stuff, but its all abstract physics stuff and noone can prove him wrong, Dawkins writes about real stuff.