connoisseur series500 Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 As I was mentioning in another thread, I've always been an avid reader since childhood. There are approximately 3,000 (Hardbound!!) books on my shelves at home: history, literature, poetry, natural history, art, military history, etc. Yet I'm lucky if I am able to read a book now every 3-4 months! I get my share of magazines and have been catching up on my Smithsonian reading, which I always enjoy, but I can't list that as an excuse. What ARE my excuses? 1. Work saps the shit out of me. Everyone probably has that excuse as well. 2. I've got all these jazz cds to listen to. Sure, but why don't I just read when listening? Is that possible? 3. I've got to keep up my chess studies. For ex. my next tournament is a week away. Now here's a big time-sapper. But the truth is that I've been playing hookey on my chess studies as well of late. 4. Got to help my kid do his homework. This does take a lot of my evening time. 5. I get sleepy when reading now that I'm older. BINGO! This one is big with me! 6. My evening time is spent romping with my woman in bed. Umm this is starting to get personal. At my age? We do some...ah let's just change the subject... 7. My face is in front of this computer all evening posting at Organissimo. Here's another valid excuse in my case. 8. My Sundays are shot during football season. There's another valid reason. I'm too tired to come up with other excuses, but if you add all these up it starts to make sense. I am going to have to find a way to build up my reading time again. Quote
Bright Moments Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 paul, i think it's the computer. i sit in front of it and suddenly 3 hours have passed! Quote
Peter Johnson Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 I'm too lazy to read. In fact, I can't believe I even opened this thread! That being said, the thing that gets me about recreational reading is that I read and write all day at work (being that I'm involved in the legal arts, so to speak), so some nights opening a book is the last thing I want to do. Nevertheless! I do love the good captivating recreational read. Conn, I find that if I hit the public library on a rainy Saturday (in Philly, I'm talking about the main branch--100 year old building, long oak tables, dark rooms with bright reading lights, marble floors--you get the picture), I can "get into" reading as a sort of event, and I rediscover my love for it. Just combing the stacks, picking a section--mythology, fiction, biographies, whatever--turns it back into discovery, rather than a "maybe I can knock out five pages before I fall asleep tonight" ordeal. Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted December 5, 2003 Author Report Posted December 5, 2003 Interesting comments, Pete. Since my home is like a library, I might walk up to the bookshelves and just select something in random fashion and head to the toilet. Ooops wasn't that another thread? Quote
Jazzmoose Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 Mine's the same as Evan's...if it wasn't for this damn board, I'd be reading as much as I should...but what can I do? Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted December 5, 2003 Author Report Posted December 5, 2003 What I really want to know is Ghostie's secret. I get the impression that Ghost of Miles is CONSTANTLY reading. He even reads that turgid political stuff. (Yuck!!) Tell us your secrets, Ghost. Quote
Dan Gould Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 Well, my excuses are similar. Its gotten so bad that for Christmas, I plan to take that Miles biography, So What with me on the plane, and it was a present from last Christmas! And yet, I've got three or four books on my list again ... it just doesn't stop. Quote
vibes Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 I think my problem is addiction to being connected. I'm so obsessed with getting the most up-to-date information, whether it's on a computer or my cellphone or someplace else, that I can't put electronic devices down long enough to finish a book or even get very much into one. In fact, in the last year or two, the vast majority of books that I've been able to finish have been in electronic format. Anyway, I read a ton online - various news websites, a few bulletin boards, etc., but can rarely break myself away from the computer long enough to read a real book. It saddens me sometimes, because reading is pretty much all I did in my free time until I went to college. Between work and online time at home, I think I'm in front of a computer 16-18 hours a day now. Quote
Son-of-a-Weizen Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 There are approximately 3,000 (Hardbound!!) books on my shelves at home Sorry Sonny, but neither "MAD's Cradle to Grave Primer", "Politically MAD" or "MAD Clobbers the Classics" were ever released in hardback form --- so you've basically got a bunch of worthless, inane scribbling on your hands! I'm tempted to say that the kid factor is the major impediment to cracking open the requisite number of books.....but that would be a lie. I've gotten lazy and it's too easy to bop around this place. In a couple of months, I'm going to spew forth a daily torrent of anti-organ venom and hopefully get bounced out of here for a week so that I can finally read Eugene Corti's epic novel The Red Horse. B) Quote
BeBop Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 I've got the other problem - and it's no better. I read constantly. I subscribe to 71 magazines (hey, down from 92!) and read each, cover-to-cover. I also read four daily newspapers, though not always c-t-c. And I manage to squeeze in a book or so each week. And then I do reading for work. I'm sick. But I love it. Quote
Rooster_Ties Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 that Miles biography, So What Szwed totally knocks it out of the park. Easily one of the best jazz biographies I've ever read, and one of the best written ones too (I can't stress this last observation about his writing enough). Don't put this off, Dan -- you'll be kickin' yourself for not having read it earlier. Quote
Alexander Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 I'm in grad school, so most of the reading I do nowadays is class-related. I do manage to sneak in a few recreational reads now and then, however. I reread "The Lord of the Rings" triology recently (gotta get ready for the "Return of the King" on December 17th!) and I'm currently at work on Philip Roth's "The Human Stain" (haven't seen the movie, though. I had planned to read it when it first came out, as the review in the NYT book review was really interesting, but I never got around to it. The movie's release reminded me that I had wanted to read it, and I picked it up in soft-cover). Getting through books can take a while for me since I tend to read several things at once. At the moment, as I said, that mostly involves school books, but will also recreate by reading books of cartoons and comic strips (like the most recent Krazy Kat volume) if I don't feel like reading something heavy. And, of course, I read the newspaper every day. For me, finishing a book is a melancholy experience. As I near the end I start putting it off, reading other things just so I won't have to finish. There's always the question lurking in the back of my mind: What will the next book be? Sometimes the book just presents itself (I recently read an interesting cultural history of Halloween called "Death Makes a Holiday" just because I saw it at work), but more often I agonize over the choice for several days. I have a huge backlog of unread books that I picked up with my employee discount when I worked for Barnes & Noble, so there's no shortage of selection... Quote
king ubu Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 My problem is that I've got to real for University all the time (mostly stuff I'd rather not read voluntarily...), love reading good newspapers (I read the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily, in the evening get another swiss newspaper from my father, add Süddeutsche Zeitung every weekend, Die Zeit every week, Weltwoche almost every week, and on sundays it's the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and the NZZ am Sonntag...). So when the decision has to be made: read a book or listen to music, I most often choose the second option... and feel I've got much too little time to listen to music, too. ubu Quote
Alexander Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 2. I've got all these jazz cds to listen to. Sure, but why don't I just read when listening? Is that possible? It is for me, but it has to be something I know really well. If it's a new CD, I'm constantly distracted. Quote
Jazzmoose Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 Getting through books can take a while for me since I tend to read several things at once. I do that as well. I keep a book at work to read during breaks and lunch, there are two on the nightstand..no, three; I forgot about that "stalled out" Grapes of Wrath that's been there for a couple of months. Then there's one in the living room, and a couple in this room. It's a wonder any of it makes any sense, I guess. Then with all that, I'm still poking around on the shelves for "what to read next"... Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted December 5, 2003 Author Report Posted December 5, 2003 There are approximately 3,000 (Hardbound!!) books on my shelves at home Sorry Sonny, but neither "MAD's Cradle to Grave Primer", "Politically MAD" or "MAD Clobbers the Classics" were ever released in hardback form --- so you've basically got a bunch of worthless, inane scribbling on your hands! Definitely ESSENTIALS, Weizy. Obviously, I've got to sneak a few paperbacks into my bookshelves! Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted December 5, 2003 Author Report Posted December 5, 2003 I've got the other problem - and it's no better. I read constantly. I subscribe to 71 magazines (hey, down from 92!) and read each, cover-to-cover. I also read four daily newspapers, though not always c-t-c. And I manage to squeeze in a book or so each week. And then I do reading for work. I'm sick. But I love it. This is awesome! Here's a standard to strive for! As for the rest of you pedestrians: It's nice to hear we're having similar problems! Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted December 5, 2003 Author Report Posted December 5, 2003 that Miles biography, So What Szwed totally knocks it out of the park. Easily one of the best jazz biographies I've ever read, and one of the best written ones too (I can't stress this last observation about his writing enough). Don't put this off, Dan -- you'll be kickin' yourself for not having read it earlier. I read about half of this book while standing (or sitting) at the bookshop! He's got another one out now on Coltrane and "Love Supreme." Quote
Soulstation1 Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 would the rock's autobiography count as "reading"? Quote
Jazz Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 I've been having a hard time making myself read things I'm only half interested in. Probably because I'm a lazy jerk. Quote
AfricaBrass Posted December 5, 2003 Report Posted December 5, 2003 Here's my excuse: He never stops and he loves ripping the pages out of books. Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted December 6, 2003 Author Report Posted December 6, 2003 would the rock's autobiography count as "reading"? Boy, that's a tough question! Quote
jacknife Posted December 6, 2003 Report Posted December 6, 2003 My excuse for not reading.......well, see the toilet thread What do you guys read.... Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted December 6, 2003 Author Report Posted December 6, 2003 Hey thanks for bringing that back up, JK. It's one of my all-time favorite threads. Quote
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