1 in 4 adults read no books last year

I read a lot more than my family does.

My father reads absolutely nothing. I once caught him with a copy of the DaVinci Code and went nuts on him. All this time of no reading, and he STARTS with Dan Brown?

My sister reads nothing but Greek philosophers and Ayn Rand. She's an ass.

It kind of surprises me, though. 0 books. I see a LOT of people reading books up here. I don't know about the REST of the country, though. =/

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by a lurker

My god, I've never heard of a more carefully cultivated, affected taste. It's so bad too. I hope you taunt her endlessly for this.

How can you not taunt a girl like this?

She worships Plato and Socrates, thinks that they are some sort of ancient gods.

Last I saw her, she was reading "Socrates in Love," which I almost threw in the campfire upon spotting it in her handbag. Before that, it was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is a step up from anything with Socrates in the title, suppose. Her boyfriend at the time stole the book from her - for good or for bad, I am unsure. I hear a lot of people out there enjoyed this Motorcycle Zen shit. Me? I don't need a book to explore values. I AM A HEATHEN LIKE THAT. O, I almost forgot the God Delusion, which convinced her to become an atheist. She's vulnerable like that. My being an atheist for years and years and being pretty vocal about it always caught plenty of criticism from her. BUT SUDDENLY, A BOOK TOLD HER TO BELIEVE IN NOTHING. So she did.

Needless to say, my normal sub-intelligent taste in books makes her :frownyface:. I am a barbarian to her. I have no passion for philosophy therefore, I must be a complete moron. I pity the man who puts up with her in the future. (Presently, a 34 year old Brazilian who can hardly speak English. Smart of him, since they can only communicate in a primitive sign language at this point.)

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Originally Posted by a lurker

I think it was inferno.

Inferno itself is devastatingly boring. I'm glad someone else thinks so. I felt like such a bastion of American stupidity for not liking it at all.

In all honesty, though - if it hadn't been for Pang, I would have probably never loved a lot of the books I read today. If there's ever any doubt about Pang and his knowledge of literature, it should be shot down immediately.

And yea, Divine Comedy. Ugh. She likes Voltaire's Candide, though. So she can't be entirely discredited.

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Originally Posted by a lurker

haha Sass. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Similarion was like that too; actually, I don't think I would've made it through Lord of the Rings if I hadn't watched the first movie ahead of time.

Let's be honest, here. Tolkien drones on and fucking on. He takes for fucking EVER to get to his point. It's awful.

I had a hard enough time not falling asleep during The Two Towers. I kept hoping and praying for the second half of the book to appear in between the pages sometime soon. No one gives a shit about the elongated version of the battle of Helm's Deep.

The first part of the Silmarillion reminded me a little too much of the Bible. I put it down after the first 20 pages or so. ;_; (I feel bad about it to this day, since my friend Sarah finished it. But she never finished high school and she's not the brightest. SAD)

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Originally Posted by Devoxycontin

The books one is forced to read for classes in HS and sometimes even college can make a person bitter. I've been reading non-fiction current event type stuff for the most part. The stupid fucking "classics" that I was forced to read in order to get good grades in highschool could have sworn me off reading forever. Shit, Ethan Frome was an exercise in futility.

A lot of high school "literature" is a bunch of crap, but then you get the occasional awesome teacher who thinks that reading something interesting AND educational is important. (Charles Dickens WHAT THE FUCK)

At the same time, a lot of people have to read a bunch of bullshit throughout their educational career. It comes with the territory sadly. You're not going to like the majority of what you read in a academia, or so I observe from pretty much everyone I know.

However, I'm surprised that you don't distinguish between "pleasurable" reading" and "this is bullshit" reading.

Frankly, reading a GOOD book is sometimes better than going to the movies or whatever. I think it's the matter of finding a style that you can really get into. Which I admit is extremely hard on occasion.

I was speaking idiomatically.