Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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/
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)
I used to read voraciously. I can remember as a teenager a couple times running out of books at night, panicking and just compulsively going over ingredient labels in the pantry.. it may have been a bit of a problem. Anyway, I kept reading into my 20s but these days other than audible and new books in a few fiction series I started reading years ago I don't really read for pleasure at all. I could probably count the number of books on one hand and I used to go through a book every day or two. Mostly, I spend time online now or listen to podcasts or audible.
15 to 20
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!
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.
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.
-EL
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
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
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".
#DeleteFacebook
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.
sometimes 2. I'm currently re-reading Solaris by Lem. Last book was The Orphan Master's Son (excellent).
...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.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
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.
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 should have read a book cover to cover when I was college...
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
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!
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Nope
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
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.
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 ?
Because you don't read enough books. That's your punishment.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
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
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.
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?
I prefer to read e-books. I can read when I have time, and swap to letting fbreader read to me when I'm driving or working out.
Cheap storage VM.
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.
Which podcasts?
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.
i don't see why not. Care to elaborate?
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
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
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.
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!
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
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 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.
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.
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 over in small, disorganized, unconnected events. Some of my favorites are Zelazny, Asimov, Heinlein, LeGuin, Leiber, Niven. Some I have changed my mind about, seemed good at the time but now I can only stand to read them if in the mood for cheesy writing and plotting, such as Brooks' Shannara stuff. McCaffrey's Pern has held up better, but what I find irksome is the deus ex machina in so many of her plots. I am thoroughly sick of unlimited time travel into the past. It is the ultimate tool to fix any problem or issue. Just pop back in time and nip the problem, whatever it is, in the bud. Another problem I have with so many stories is that they are too pat. The protagonists overcome problems entirely too easily, their plans no matter how harebrained tend to work out successfully. Yeah, in real life, if we are ever shot at, it won't be by a squad of stormtroopers who are such bad shots that they couldn't hit the Death Star if it was in front of their noses.
In the 1990s I dropped out. For me, what drove it was in large part the price. I can't forget that in the early 80s, a paperback was $1.95, and I've seen prices of $0.75 on books printed in the 60s and 70s. Dropping $2 on a paperback didn't feel like a big deal, but still, I stayed cool and never bought more than 5 at a time. By the end of the 80s, paperbacks were pushing past the $5 point, and that's when I quit. That's about double the rate of inflation. Would still browse, and saw prices just keep on climbing to about $7, at which point I stopped even looking. I used to be familiar with most titles in the SF/Fantasy section. Now I'm not.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Basically same for me. ... a book from 2) might be translated 5 years later ... sorry, I read about books, and like to read them ASAP ... simple paper backs are now at the $10 edge
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
4) price
5) even ebooks have often absurd prices, close to the hard cover price, obviously people are paying such prices
So I switched to english, about 15 years ago, did not buy a german (translated) book since a decade or longer.
Right now I mainly get cost free ebooks, e.g. from oboooko.com
If they have sequels in the price range of $0.99 - roughly $3.99 I buy them often. In rare cases I payed more. E.g. the 'In her name' series of Michael R. Hicks. One of the best books/story lines I have ever read.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
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.
Bobiverse is Dennis E. Taylor, I believe. Just finished the trilogy. Enjoyed it quite a bit.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay