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Ask Slashdot: How Many Books Do You Read a Month?
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?
This seems to have gotten misplaced, /. polls are on the right.
My number for the former is respectable, probably 6-8. The latter? Not so much.
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.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
What's a book? I haven't seen one of those dinosaurs in years.
Haven't read a book since I was in my teens. I'm now 40.
I spend all day reading the internet, reading stories online.
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 the "alternative history" genre are annoying.
With shortage of good science of fiction, I've found delight in re-reading the books by Mark Twain, Jack London, O'Henry, Dreiser, which I enjoyed in Russian, in their original language, now that I can read it comfortably.
How much do I read? About 2-3 hours a day — while in transit to and from work and before sleep...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmw...
"...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."
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I'm at around 90 or so each month right now. The kids love em and it only takes a few minutes for each one.
I generally don't read a lot of books, but I do a lot of reading online. There's still a lot of information that can be conveyed with the written word, but it's now easier to get a lot of information online. That said, right now I'm reading The Power of Broke by Daymond John.
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.
-EL
I liked sci-fi, but couldn't find any books full of pointless and gratuitous sex and violence. I'm no prude but about the fourth time I picked up a space opera and the entire thing came to a halt for a 3 page torture scene or a 5 page sex scene I got tired of it. If I wanted naughty bits there's the internet and I could do without detailed descriptions of horrific pain in my life. I assume they're doing it because they're trying to do something you can't do in film. But it's still annoying as heck. What I want is more stuff like what Greg Egan writes and less Peter Watts (to be fair to Peter, you know what your getting into).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I read somewhere between 1-6 books a month depending on available time, energy and length of the book..
With reading i'm actually referring to listening to audio-books.. It makes it a lot easier to take in information while being out walking and such.
I'm only allowed one.
the books are very short
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 the World-Record Largemouth Bass, Monte Burke (2006)
Yup, I am reading Blindsight now. So far so good.
Also Gary Kasparov's new book, Deep Thinking: Where machine intelligence ends, human creativity begins
As well as two books on the reformation (500th anniversary of Martin Luther)
Total, probably 5 books on the agenda right now.
Like a few others here mention, I have migrated to audiobooks as of late. My commute to work is between 25-35 minutes each way, and I spend the entire time most days listening to my latest book. Actually, I've become so accustomed to doing this that I feel anxious when I _don't_ listen to something while driving, as I tend to feel that just listening to the radio or music is somewhat a waste of time. I do really enjoy music, and I listen heavily at other times, but I can do so without effort at anytime of my life; reading a book is a very time-consuming process that requires you to be relatively idle, while music has no such limitation.
At any rate, I wholly recommend audiobooks for those who were once readers that find themselves with less time for one reason or another. I tend to work about 11-12 hours each day, which leaves just a few hours per night once I get home before getting some sleep. Audiobooks work very nicely into my schedule. I am currently listening to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but my last book was East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
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.
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, Cloud Foundry the Definitive Guide, and Ansible Configuration Management.
But none of the books are finished or even anticipated to be finished as I'm figuring out something related to work or personal projects.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
I dont read at all, so zero.
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.
I just finished "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline, because I almost always read the book before seeing the movie. It was good, and I'd recommend it as a fun time. I hope the movie is just as fine.
I read about 4 books a month, depending on the volume and intensity of work. I'd much rather read a book than watch TV.
Usually one or two. I was an avid reader growing up. My family had a rule growing up, "Only as many books from the library a week as you can carry in one trip", which we then circumvented using baskets. I went through a bit of a dry spell for a while after that. Then I discovered Overdrive, putting the library in my pocket. I was pretty skeptical on digital books, and still believe they'll never replace digital, but on the flip side I now have an appreciation for digital books and their strengths and recognize that there are some ways an analog book will never be able to replace digital. They're just different.
Books I've read in the last five years (The highlights) -
* The Discworld series. - I feel a bit remiss in not doing this earlier in my life
* Authentic Happiness - Life skills here. Who doesn't want to be happy?
* The Million Dollar Real Estate Agent - Actually a lot of very valuable business and life skills information available here
* Business Analyst Body of Knowledge (BABOK) guide - Continuing to grow my career, pursuing CBAP Certification
* Watermark's Guide to the CBAP Certification Process - See previous entry. This is taking a lot of my time right now
A wise man once told me your value is in what's between your ears. Reading a book a month is a personal goal.
I know you're trolling and you're not actually msmash, but this would be an opportunity to revive something Slashdot used to do. Users were able to submit book reviews to the editors, and if the reviews were useful enough, the editors would post many of them as stories. You can find many of the old stores listed at https://slashdot.org/archive.pl?op=sections&keyword=bookreview. Periodically posting stories like this is sometimes interesting to see what other users are reading, but how about bringing back book reviews?
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.
...worth of forum posts surely?
Twinstiq, game news
His amazing short stories and lyrical poetry help me a lot to escape my mundane life. His latest book's publication date has been pushed back to January 2018, I can't wait!
In the meantime I ordered a case of his signature Pumpkin Spice farts in a jar, Autumn Edition. Before they caught him!
I used to read a lot. I was even an early adopter of e-book readers. Now, I just read magazine articles, either in print, or online. I don't seem to have the attention span for longer things anymore, including movies. I don't think that it's age-related. It's more a function of too many things in today's world that demand your time, and you feel guilty devoting too much time to just one thing.
0. Last time I read a book from cover to cover was college.
They didn't teach me letters while I was in the state school.
I read about 5-10 books for pleasure each month. That has gone up and down over time mostly based on what books are interesting. I think shorter books are more fashionable these day so I read more books but longer books are typically what I read so when something new comes out I might read fewer books. Also not all fiction has the fully developed plots of other works of fiction so some books take two or three evenings to read and others can take the whole month.
I also read for work/improve skills... I don't think I have ever "read" books. I skim and read chapters important to me. I also read more papers and increasingly blog posts than I did 10yrs ago (about the same as 5yrs ago), as they are more in depth and useful than many books on some subjects.
I just rearranged my home office/den to encourage reading books (vs. online articles mostly). I swapped out the couch (on which I had a tendency to flop) and added two recliners with readers (so my wife or a kid would join me). I also rerouted some speakers to provide better sound to the whole room.
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 Shattered or Hacked online but don't see a reason to pay for them).
Bear - The Life and Times of Augustus Owsley Stanley III by Robert Greenfield.
Highly recommended!
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
If it doesn't all fit on one screen, I lose interest.
None, I have a child
3 to 6 Sci-Fi and Fantasy per month, depending on available time, size of book, and if I "Just cannot put it down" kind of book. No, my reading habits have not really changed since the 7th grade when I discovered Robert A. Heinlein, and "The Red Planet" (50+ years of reading)
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...
The last book finished: "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves"
https://www.goodreads.com/book...
i am a binge reader, i might find a topic that really grabs my interest and i will read everything i can about it, or an author i like and i will read as many books as i can that they have and when that is over i am done reading for a while, until the next urge to read something pops up,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Currently reading the SFWA's "Greatest Sci-Fi 1928-1964" edited by Theodore Sturgeon that I found in a used book store.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
On average, 3-4 books a month. Sometimes a lot more, sometimes a little less. I also read a lot of comics off of Marvel Unlimited and I'm currently using a 3-month free Texture account (thanks Rogers!) to read a bunch of magazines.
These days I suppose I manage an average 1 per month per year for the last several years. Granted, it only takes a few days to get through something sizeable. Back before 2010 for an uncertain number of years before that, probably five per month. What happened? Time and priorities. I find it exceptionally difficult to put down a book once started and when I finish one I am desperate to repeat the process. I did grow up with a large and diverse library. My dad ensured I took advantage of it. I still consider Chaucer to be punishment. I also had a set of encyclopedias which I spent a substantial amount of time with. I also had all of his college textbooks, which I still refer to. I didn't really get started on the library, encyclopedias, and textbooks until about age six. I can't tell you how much I read in my adolescence, but I can say it was an enormous amount. Right now I am about to start re-reading some Lovecraft and Kafka, just because. I also just received a copy of Fatwa that I still need to get started on.
As a consequence, I was a total abject failure for the time I spent in the public school system. The level of boredom was hellish. I suspect I was considered an idiot. By the third grade it appeared as though I had yet to master basic multiplication. I was sent to the counselors office over it. She pulled out a big stack of times table flash cards. The situation peaked my interest and I nailed them all in under a second. Confusion within the schools administration ensued, but nothing productive came of it. At age 7 I discovered that the school was required to send a student home if their body temperature was 99.1 or above. I quickly discovered biofeedback through conscious intent. Needless to say, I always had a body temperature of 99.1. Well, at least when in the nurses office.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Five Thousand Three Hundred and Sixty Three
sometimes 2. I'm currently re-reading Solaris by Lem. Last book was The Orphan Master's Son (excellent).
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.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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 as a family man I can't seem to get them cracked open.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
What about really low fractions?
I definitely read less as an adult than i did as a kid, and less while in a relationship than when i'm single. In fact these days my "reading" is mostly restricted to audiobooks during my commute. When i'm at home my leisure time is usually spent watching TV or playing FF14 with my SO.
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 get really engrossed in a book i'll find excuses to listen to it at other times.
On audiobook i just finished up Martha Wells' novella "All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries)" and stated James Alan Gardner's novel "All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault". My SO and i also listen to audiobooks when we're in the car together, currently we're listening to Sharon Shinn's "Unquiet Land", and when we're not too tired we'll read to each other a little before bed, for which we're currently on Lois McMaster Bujold's "A Civil Campaign".
In theory i sometimes actually read a physical book on my own time at home as well. I picked up "The Last Deathship off Antares" a couple months ago because i wanted to see how it compared to my memories of reading it as a child, but despite it only being about 200 pages i still haven't managed to finish it. (There's always something else to grind out in FF14...) I'm going to have to do something about that soon however. I read the first two of Brandon Sanderson's "Stormlight Archive" books in physical format, so I'll need to change my patterns a bit if i want to continue that habit when "Oathbringer" comes out next week.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I used to read about eight a month. But for the past two maybe three months. Maybe one total. I've been slammed at work. I barely have time to pass out at night while watching Plex. Friend of mine and I exchanged books. I gave her The Slap and she gave me Grendal. Grendal is like 1/4th the side and she's finished her book and I'm barely 10 pages into mine.
Just another second banana
But I would say about 150-250 pages per month depending on the text size, which is usually less than 1 full book.
Just finished reading Michelet's La Sorcière, which took me about 8 weeks to go through at about 300 pages.
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 book after I've read as much as I'm interested in. The actual number of books varies with how much time I have to devote to it. But in the last 30 days, I've probably read a good portion of 20 to 30 different books.
C.S. Lewis said to think that all the best ideas are the newest is chronological snobbery. How many people have read a book more than 100 years old? How about more than 500 years? How about more than 1,000 years?
The original meaning of liberal arts was the study of things that make for a free person. That is the meaning that needs to be recaptured. The genuine study of ideas throughout history. But do not trust that colleges or government schools are going to teach it properly. Nobody needs to pay a professor six figures to pick up a book and read it themselves; just commit to being a reader.
Read philosophy, history, economics, science, and great works of fiction (including philosophical novels). Read people you agree with and disagree with. Read many different authors from many different cultures and perspectives. And read old books just as much as new books.
This frees the mind to use logic, empathize with others, understand the interconnectedness of ideas, and pursue freedom and prosperity.
Let's see:
The books of Deuteronomy, Job, Judges, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Peter, and Proverbs
The Hole in our Gospel, Richard Stearns
Friendship Evangelism By The Book, Tom Stebbins
Rocking the Roles, Building a Win-Win Marriage, Robert Lewis
So, something like 3.1 - 3.2 books.
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.
...omphaloskepsis often...
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 picks up.
Late last year I'd become addicted to the Honor Harrington novels. Best depiction of space combat I've read or seen anywhere. But by the fourth or fifth novel the author got lazy, cutting-and-pasting the same stuff over and over again. So I dumped it.
Also read recently "Dome City Blues" and "Angel City Blues". I'm a fan of cyberpunk and hard-boiled detective novels, and these novels stroke both.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Well, for what it's worth, I used to read a lot of SF. But that decreased significantly with my starting use of the Internet in 95, then took a much greater hit with a kid 4 years ago. And work. And extra activities. From a book a week to one a month to now only a few a year. And what I just started yesterday is the 4th and final book in the Destiny's Crucible series by Olan Thorensen, a pretty good mix of SF, alternate history and game of throne.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
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 it's more like 2-3 a month.
"Predictably Irrational" I'm reading right now.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
For all the geeks the Bobiverse series (1-3) by Taylor Dennis. Theta by Sasya Fox with plenty of twists and turns. The Last Good Man by Linda Nagata with a military bent. Awaken Online: Catharsis by Travis Bagwell.
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 articles online. How-to's.
Lately Youtube videos and audio books eat up a lot of my time since I can listen to them during my daily biking commute 70 minutes round trip.
Probably I scan 30-50 a month and deeply read 10. I just grab an arm of books at the library 2x a week and sit down for a couple of hours and pour over them. Diverse topics, usually on things I know nothing about.
I grew up when there were no personal computers (so no web surfing, no social media, no Slashdot, etc.), no console or computer gaming, and only 3 TV channels with no way to time shift shows by recording them.
So I read books voraciously. Primarily sci-fi and other fiction.
Today I spend 4-6 hours a day reading news sites. I play games on my computer. And I can watch my favorite TV programs whenever I feel like it.
I read zero books because:
1. I'm tired of reading after perusing my news sites.
2. I have so much other entertainment.
3. I find books rather boring (in comparison I guess). I'll sit and read a book for half an hour and find I am not really interested.
In the past 30 days, I've read nine and I'm half-way through a tenth.
Re-read Alan Dean Foster's Icerigger trilogy, Stephen Brust's new Taltos novel "Vallista," John DeChancie's Skyway trilogy, and the first two of Michael Moorcock's Elric series. Working on the third now.
CyberKender
Apparently Appointed Lord Mayor of There
How many phonograph cylinders do you listen to every month?
8-20, depending on depth and rigor
So yeah, I see clearly how this could have been formed as a poll. Yet here it is. As of writing this almost all of the posts modded up are complaining it's not a poll. With a whole bunch of score 2 or less making the same complaint. It's here, it's on the front page, a done deal. As such all of those complaints should be scored offtopic. Maybe by the end of the day they will. Stop being a bunch of wet blankets and have a discussion already. I gave my response plus context for discussion. With all of the heavy topics we engage in here, this should be a fun subject to discuss.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I've already provided my most relevant post on this subject. As this discussion seems to have been derailed by people complaining it's not a poll, I'm adding a bit more for hopeful discussion. Then I'm off to reply to comments from people not complaining.
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 to buy him a hard copy of Brave New World. My thinking was that while the book is intellectual, it is also fun and easy to read. I dropped by to deliver it as a random gift. After handing it over he made what I will only describe as a funny face while looking at it. He proceeded to open to a random page, glance it at and then toss it down on his coffee table proclaiming, "That is a lot of words." I later found out that instead of even trying to read it, he used it as kindling for a fire. As it turns out, he had and has yet to ever read a book in his life. This was something he eventually proclaimed with great pride.
Now, I could dissect that myself, but I would rather read other peoples comments on it especially their experiences regarding the literacy of people around them.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Estimated. I got my kids a library card and discovered I could use it as well so now I have a serious time problem. Reading now The Bully Pulpit about Roosevelt, Taft etc. Very good, 700+ pages and I've got another big book already checked out. It's like being an alcoholic again without the hangovers or the expense.
But as many as five. So much for Steve Job's 'Nobody reads anymore' proclamation.
Porn or non-porn?
For porn, I'm a voracious reader (online at Literotica). For non-porn, I'm also a voracious reader, going through several SF or fantasy books a month, and an occasional textbook.
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.
"How many books do you read per [time]?" is a poor question, because it's so dependent on the size of the books. Number of pages per time is still not perfect, because all pages are not the same, either, but they're usually pretty close. But books? I read mostly epic fantasy. 600-900 pages per book is pretty standard. Books with >1200 pages are not rare. My mother reads Harlequin romances that weigh in at 150-200 pages. I read about 2000 pages per month, or about 2-3 books. If I read my mother's books, I'd read 0 books per month.
Just finished Phillip Pullman's first volume of "The Book of Dust", which I've been looking forward to for about 20 years. "His Dark Materials" is probably my all time favorite work, and this long-awaited companion work did not dissapoint. I'm now looking forward to Brandon Sanderson's "Oathbringer", the third book of "The Stormlight Archive", which will be released on Nov. 14.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. - Bob Dylan "Subteranean Homesick Blue
Maybe one. I read six to eight hours a day, but not much from books. I go through about a dozen books a year. All nonfiction. All very dense and often very long.
I picked up a 900 page primary-source philosophy book last Christmas and am about 600 pages through it. Some subjects like that takes incredible amounts of time to really digest. Read a few pages, then take hours pondering the complex ideas presented, repeat.
Reading through the comments, I wonder how much non-fiction readers can get from works while going through several per month. The only ones books that I have an 80%+ retention rate and can get through quickly are in the technology areas I specialize in, but there are only so many decent ones produced per year that the reading list is mostly updated versions which can be diffed in a few blog posts.
I expect to read and understand nearly all of the material in a work and remember it for at least a few years. Do other people value retention as much as I do or am I an outlier?
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 reading every damn page. For many of the book I'll read half the chapters in full, and glance over the other half. A couple of books a months I devour sequentially.
Perhaps one book a month I'd read out loud to my wife at bedtime. Perhaps such a book gets ten hours of oratorial attention. It's surprising what books work for reading out loud and what books don't. It's also surprising how much differently you end up understanding the author by the end of the process.
We're working through Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery (2014) by Henry Marsh as our bedtime material right now. At one point last night, I needed to read a phrase which involved several words in quick succession in the mold of "haemangioblastoma", with the middle word hyphenated at the end of a line. I just kill myself trying to read at an even pace no matter what confronts me. I could feel my panic rising a full line in advance. But for that confounded hyphen, combined with the distracting blue blood "ae", I might have made it. Blue blood is my personal kryptonite.
Marsh garden-pathed me a few times with awkward placement of small words like "is", but otherwise his style is a dream for reading aloud. There's almost always something intense going on, he frequently comments on it from an extremely personal place (not always flattering), but never dawdles over his confessions.
Pinker is regarded as a great stylist, and his words do flow more smoothly than most science authors, but I always find I need to suck in air by the barrel to get through his initial strawman construction. Then he'll finally get around to thoroughly deflating his strawman, often with fine insight. Unfortunately, the giant air suck finally disqualified him for reading out loud. Pinker doesn't seem to understand that the unwashed includes some mighty shrewd cookies, whose native instincts would put many academics to shame, if there was/were any possibility of a fair fight between man at large and organized highbrow.
Reading a book out loud is roughly equivalent to blitzing through a book entirely by eye three times over in terms of the intensity of impression you're left with, though you'll be left with quite different things.
Beyond books, I average about two hours a day of general reading online. All the content at edge.org, about half the items at aldaily.com, a quarter of the transcripts at TED (few of the actual videos are worth one's time, any more), the majority of American political coverage from The Guardian, the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Politico, and Vox, sometimes with excursions into The Daily Beast or Doubleclickbait (er, Business Insider). If once in a while something leaks over the WSJ's paywall, I read that, too.
I also deliberately seek out viewpoints from people like David Frum, George Will, Michael Gerson, and Michael Lind. I frequently listen to an EconTalk episode while cooking dinner, so I'm also up to my eyeballs in Classical Liberalism (with a mild, yet increasingly irritating neoliberal slant—if only because Russ is becoming progressively worse at preventing his slant from walking him back from the hard-nosed questions). To his credit, Russ is a voracious reader. He really does bend himself over every guest's book (he might employ a never-mentioned staffer who pre-winnows, but I wouldn't put money on this proposition). Has Coulter ever endorsed a book that wasn't edited by Winston Wilhelm Wordsmith II? Just asking. Th
I really didn't need everyone to say they don't read. Here and elsewhere, the misuse of what is the milk tongue for most of us makes it obvious. We're into some kind of 'bonics here - it's plain most are phonetically spelling, and know little grammar. It's silly to be proud of ignorance. Implied in most comments is that you want to share how clever or smart you are. Not knowing your own language, and being proud of it isn't a great way to convince me, or other readers that you are either one.
To the people who whine about pedantry - this isn't even close to that - this is reminding adults or near adults that many of us had better command of the English language when we were 6 years old.
Snarkily saying "well if you understood me it's good enough" doesn't cut it either. If I had to do extra work just to understand you, yeah, that makes an impression alright - one that says you expect me to do all the work, that you're a lazy asshole. Fine, you can talk/type, but I don't have to listen/read. It's obvious you don't have much to teach me anyway. Loose is not what you are, you lose. When doing something also, it's not to. Go out and try to have an effect, Learn your damn language - books are a great way - or shut up. Stop wasting our time. When this old you get, realize you will that time is the one thing you can't pay back, or get back.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
I'm lucky if I read 1 book a month (besides Graphic novels). ;)
I only have time to read in "bathroom sized" increments, if you know what I mean!
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)
-a.e.mossberg
I'm not proud of it; I'm even embarrassed. But I definitely average less than 1 books per month. The sickest, darkest part: it's less than 1 per year.
Used to read all the time. Then I got a smartphone. Now I'm on the web or playing Clash of Clans all the time, instead. Lame. (Lamer than an iPod!)
Those cardboard things you see in museums?
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.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I read about 15 fiction books per month, 3 technical non-fiction, and 2 ish general studies.
Plus a dozen magazines, and countless blogs and rss feeds.
Probably a good 2 hours per day, adding the individual pre-work, lunch and post-work periods. Often more on the weekends.
I slowed way down in the last few years, but was unemployed this summer and got back into the groove.
I like reading non-fiction and historical fiction. I am a military history buff.
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 I had so many unread books lying around. At the current speed, it will take another four years or so to get through the backlog.
This month I read the Witcher saga. Of course I can't help comparing it to the games, which I also played. In the book Geralt bows to anyone and everyone (unlike the game, which informs you he has a reputation for never bowing to anyone), and is a hell of a lot more sexually repressed. His combat style, full of pirouettes, is easily recognizable, but he seems to completely forget about his ability to cast signs during the course of the story.
The first two books basically read like a collection of side quests from Witcher 3. The next five books are the main quest, which centers on the war with Nilfgaard, and focuses on Ciri more than on Geralt. I found I didn't really appreciate the writing style: too much of the story is told from the point of view of various future historians, there is too much attention to minor characters who usually die soon anyway, the story jumps haphazardly through time and space, and the author has an unpleasant knack for throwing in tiny details that have huge repercussions, winking to the reader to show how clever he is. These are not major irritants, and the whole saga is certainly worth a read, especially if you liked the games as well, but I think it would have been more enjoyable had it simply focused on Geralt and his adventures as a witcher.
I used to read 1-2 books a week. Now I struggle to find time to read 1 every month or two.
P.K. Dick all the way. Asimov. Frank Herbert. Shogun and Tai Pan by James Clavel
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.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Wait, do magazines count? I read some articles in those. :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
0, I read ebooks.
As of 2010 I'd read about 3000 (SF) books in 30 years... That's about 8 1/3 books per month. In 2010 I switched to Kindle on iPad and have since read about 1400 (SF) books... That's about 16.66 books per months (but Kindle books are smaller). (You didn't ask but my fav's are Larry Niven, Robert Sawyer (excluding H. H. & H.), James P. Hogan, and lately Hugh Howey (Silo!), Christopher Nuttall, Phillip P. Peterson & Bella Forrest.)
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 sense and is not especially dwelled on. Well, OK, now that I think about it, about a billion humans get turned into slime by space aliens in one story, but it did not seem gory at the time as it happens so quickly (even as it was tragic). In one story two cybertanks do have a cybertank child together but the description is handled tastefully. And there are vampires. Oh well, as much as I personally really want there to be one more Old Guy novel, try the other series first if you want something fluffier without any sex and violence... :-)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Two or three works of fiction per month. I do re-read books every so often - revisiting old friends.
I think the Kindle was a fine invention :-) Makes it so much easier to carry an entire library. I don't have to limit myself to the books I can carry.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003CTEFLG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
From Arthur C. Clarke, the brilliant mind that brought us 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Stephen Baxter, one of the most cogent SF writers of his generation, comes a novel of a day, not so far in the future, when the barriers of time and distance have suddenly turned to glass.
When a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses cutting-edge physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see one another at all times—around every corner, through every wall—the result is the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy, forever. Then the same technology proves able to look backward in time as well. The Light of Other Days is a story that will change your view of what it is to be human.
I read maybe 0.4 books a month at the moment.
Currently reading a very relaxing tome about the Yom Kipper war!
Being a slow reader, how do you guys manage to read more than 4 - 5 books a month? How do you find interesting books worth reading? Right now I am reading - "Astrophysics for people in a hurry" and although I find the book interesting, I know most of the stuff already and think that "A short history of nearly everything" is way better. Having read Sheckley, Asimov, Clark and others, I find it hard to find new sci-fi that is original and interesting. I think of reading the "Wheel of time" series, but I guess it will take me a year the least to finish it. Maybe having too many hobbies is preventing me to read more.