Naturally, as a writer, I find this to be very bad news. Never read? There are millions and millions of people out there who never read? Who haven’t read a single book since high school?
I admit, there were times in high school when I thought they were purposely trying to get you to hate reading so that you’d never do any more of it. The stuff on our required reading list was dull enough to know birds out of the sky.
But to cut ourselves off from the entire wisdom and experience of the past, to strand ourselves in a kind of perpetual toddlerhood because we don’t freakin’ know anything–!
No wonder our civilization is dying.
That is unbelievable! I have so many books, that it’s become a storage problem. A number of years ago, I started buying books on the Kindle platform, and have hundreds of books in that format. I probably read between four and ten books, per month, and some of these are real tomes. One of my next projects is a Linux Administration Guide which is longer than the Bible.
I have read so many books, since I was old enough to read, my mind is a jumble with reminders of books, but here is one that jumped out at me just now: Mein Kampf. (I may have even misspelled, but I haven’t read it for years. The Mountain Meadows Massacre, for another, Several translations of the Bible, kid books like Nancy Drew mysteries, and similar, and I have given away so many books I can’t begin to count, and my house is still filled to the brim with more and I still keep buying them. Reading is my constant occupation since childhood and I know some people get a little irritated with me for keeping my “nose in a book” all the time. To be without the ability to read would be the worst thing I can imagine.
It would be true poverty.
I agree completely. Reading is a huge part of my life.
Lately I’ve gotten into the bad habit of reading one book and then starting another. So now I’m juggling several books at the same time. I also started writing what I hope to be a short novel, but who knows if it will ever be completed or not.
I was reading in a book about reading yesterday. The author was saying reading is one of the hardest things we learn to do – of course it comes more easily to some than others. The book said there is currently 43 million Americans who are illiterate. One survey revealed that 50% of people who get a four-year degree from college go on to never read another book for the rest of their lives. No wonder it is so easy for the Left to brainwash the public.
Reading is our only access to the experience and the wisdom–and the folly, too–of the past.
I’m hearing you Lee. I felt blessed and fortunate that my English teachers had excellent tastes in what they wanted me and my fellow students to read. And if that wasn’t enough, I went to the school library and read other insightful books that weren’t on the list.
People anymore can’t seem to be bothered by the written word, which as a writer is tough to bear or accept.
High school required reading: If “Silas Marner” could put you off reading, nothing could. But the stuff they, uh, “read” today is almost certain to be worse.