Does anyone else rarely read "real books" or novels?
 

I say this because I just came to the realization that I haven't actually read a "real book" or novel since an English course I had in College.

I read comic books of course, but other than that and reading on the internet...I don't do any actual reading.

I've always enjoyed watching TV and movies more than books as a kid, and of course videogames take up the rest of my free time. So I never actually sit down to read a book anymore. Is anyone else like this?

Yeah, I'm also like this. Sure, reading is present every day...but just sitting down to read an actual book for fun is not my kind of thing.

It's been a while since it read a book, a year maybe. But when I find one I like, I really get lost into it, so I love reading books. Just often don't have the schedule for it.

I read pretty much constantly, but mostly magazines and comics, but I do read "real" books, just not as often. For some reason I prefer nonfiction stuff, like biographies, autobiographies, and history. It could be because I already get the fiction requirement covered in comics and movies, I guess.

I read very fast so I can usually knock off a 300-400 pager in a day if I'm really into it. But again, that's a lot easier to do with nonfiction. Fiction takes longer to read because your brain has to fill in more holes.

I read when I can fantasy is my fav. I'm currently reading, Eldest second book in the Eragon series I have read it many times, but enjoy it so much.

Whenever I'm not on the Internet or my phone I like to reread some of my books. I don't do it often and sometimes I just like to skip around in the books I've already read to read my favorite parts. I haven't bought any new books in a while.

This is so much like me it's not even funny.

I started reading memoirs of different people (German politician Albert Speer for example) when I was in Norway for 5 months. Previously never read real books. Reading real books can be a mentally enrichment, genuine interest as requirement, of course.

I try to read a book every 2 weeks. It used to be 1 per week but family/work started cutting in to my free time.

I've been getting more into literature in the past 3-4 years. Buying an e-reader last year made me read more as well.

As the saying goes, "Who has time to read anymore?"

I don't think I'll ever pick up an actual novel or fiction-based chapter book for the rest of my life. It just doesn't interest me.

I rarely watch tv, so I certainly have time to read.

Well, that's too bad, I guess. Your loss.

Plenty of people find the time to read novels now. It just depends on their interests. Some people prefer to read books over watching TV and movies, reading comics or playing video games.

To be fair back in the olden days books were the only "entertainment" people had. TV only started to become mainstream during the 50's, and even back then there were only like 6 channels.

But now in the days where there are literally hundreds of shows to watch, both old and new, tons of cartoons and anime, movies, and of course videogames, there is just little room for books anymore.

In fact even in terms of comics I only read TMNT and Usagi Yojimbo, I don't even read any DC or Marvel comics at all. Although I do like keeping up to date on what's happening in them so I read online summaries and character bio's from time to time.

The only time I ever read outside of when I was a very young kid was when I was forced to for an english class in High School and College. After I graduated I had no desire to pick up a book again. I do plenty of reading on the internet every day anyway. Although I don't agree with the catch phrase, I've seen people say, "Books are for schmooks." online. Now I think that's a silly saying and bit ridiculous, but I wouldn't have seen that online if not.

I've always got a book on the go. As soon as I finish one, I'm on to the next. Hate not having a book to read!

Heh, and yet there was always somthing good on.

My problem is that ever since Waldenbooks shut down I don't have a local book store to go to anymore, the next nearest one is about a one hour drive. Sure I can just buy books online, but I have to know exactly what book I'm looking for to do that. With Waldenbooks I was able to walk down aisles, pick up various books, read the first coulple of pages to see if I'm interested in them...good times. My local Walmart sells books, but the selection is so small that it's not even worth looking most of the time.

I even went to my local "library" a few years back thinking I could checkout a few good books to read there. I asked the Librarian if they had any classic novels like Tressure Island and stuff, only to be told nearly all the fiction books had been either sold or were for sale. I ended up buying Alice in Wonderland, Heidi, Tom Sawyer, and the Wizard of Oz. How much did these five books cost me? $1. I repeat, I got five classic books, practically in perfect condition, for one single US dollar. My library turned out to be nothing more then a computer lab in disguise of a library. But, hey, at least I could checkout a VHS copy of the Marx Brothers, so I guess it's not all bad.

As for comics, I haven't been in a comic shop since the 90s when my local one closed. I guess thats the punishment of living in small towns instead of large cities.

Well, to be fair, being forced to read books you don't like can really turn you off from reading.

Yeah, I read books. I try to read 6-10 books a year. Just finished Flowers for Algernon and started A tale of 2 cities. But holy crap is Tale of 2 cities boring. I've never been a fan of Dickens but I kinda wanna will myself into finishing this book.

I read a lot. Mostly in bed at night. I've always read a lot of books and comics. However I stopped reading comics in my late teens, which is around the time I really started to appreciate more sophisticated writing. I don't care if people enjoy comics or prefer them to "real" books, at one point I preferred trash fantasy to "real" literature as well, but I honestly can't stand them anymore. Everytime someone tells me about a "good" comic story, I can't help but sorta inwardly roll my eyes at the prospect, as sh*tty as that sounds. Kind of like when people talk about "good" video game stories.

Often TV shows and movies take a backseat to games for me, but reading is something I never stop doing. In fact at this point I think I probably read more regularly than I play games. I read every single day, but I can't say the same for games, or really any other kind of entertainment.

Written word is king, yo.

I'm a pretty binary reader.

I read comic books. Quite a few. Some have literary merit, but I have an enormous soft-spot for silly superhero stuff and eat it right up. That's my genre intake.

And, as far as genre goes, that's it. I don't touch it in prose. Nothing against it, but it's not my thing.

For prose, which I read regularly, these days I lean more toward short story collections and small press than anything, and lately I've been diving into more slipstream and experimental writing. But solidly crafted, urgent realism is still appreciated. I like to keep up on recent literary novels as well, though as a format I prefer short fiction. Basically, I read the kind of writing I want to emulate.

I'm a fiction writer and will be teaching and attending an MFA program in the fall, so keeping up on modern literary writing is basically going to be my job for the next two or three years, and hopefully beyond as well.

We've apparently had very different experiences with TV.

I ... really can't imagine reading Dickens for pleasure, but I know some people do. His work was serialized and he was paid by the word, and you can absolutely tell.

I also read at bedtime lol sounds kinda childish, but I always pick my book up and give it a good old gander.

I also read comics, something I actually got in to in my early 20s more so than when I was younger. Anyway, I can't imagine my life without reading a "real book" as the OP put it. I read one after another.

I don't read to many "real books". I've read Hannibal Rising all the way through, but can't sit through the movie at all. After my wife finished the Twilight, Hunger Games and Fallen series, I read them all. I've been reading an Assassin's Creed book lately.

For the most part though, I read comics.

I'm a very avid reader; I'll read the back of a cereal box if there's nothing else around. I remember I got an award once in primary school for being the person who borrowed out the most books in the entire school. :lol:

Bookworm achievement unlocked.

I am reading The Three Investigators most of the time.
My favorite so far is: "The Devils Music"

I used to read everything i got my hands on, now not so much it takes something really good to keep my attention. The last thing that i read is 1984 a couple of months back and what a bunch of crap that was, every copy of this book deserves to be burned...
I mostly keep to audiobooks, those are awesome...

Does anyone here like Jim Butcher's Dresden series? Seriously, even people who prefer mostly comic books really enjoy them - I'd highly recommend them to anyone who's thinking of giving them a try.

I used to read all the time, and though it was/is mostly fantasy, horror, and sci-fi, I was reading almost every day. Lately, though, I've mostly been reading fan-fics and the occasional comics when I can get them. I have a Kindle, and when I first got it, I was on it every day, reading new books as fast as I could find and download them. Now, I don't remember the last time I picked it up.

One good thing about it is that I did find a lot of interesting books on subjects I'd never gotten into before, like Australian and Japanese mythology and folklore, Japanese history and culture, spider biology, herbalism, Celtic history and folklore, and a lot of occult and esoteric studies I've been wanting to catch up on. (Since I'm Wiccan, I enjoy reading about the history and practices of pagan/occult cultures and sects around the world, and different schools of thought on such matters.) I also read some books I'd never had a chance to from some of my favorite fantasy authors, and even a few erotic fantasy novels, which got me into that genre a bit. Since a lot of what I write falls into the category of either fantasy or romance (or both), I really enjoyed finding new books in these areas.

The last "real" book I read was Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, after seeing the movie based on it. Loved the movie and the book. I have avoided the Hunger Games books like the Plague, as well as the Twilight series. (I tried to read the first one, but literally threw it down before I got through the third chapter! Gah, my eyes!! I wished the truck would have actually hit Bella in the movie. Girl dies, vamp cries. End of story.... Yay!! )

You and me both - paranormal romance makes me break out in hives. I want werewolves to go back to being monsters, not shirtless prettyboys.

About werewolves, thank you! I like them savage and very monstrous. I feel the same way about vamps. No sparkles, please! They're supposed to sizzle when the sun hits them! I haven't seen the Twilight movies. My better half's sister said she made the mistake of buying the first book a few years ago and a day or so later she took it right back to the bookstore! It was when the books were brand new. She said she didn't know what she was expecting, but she wasn't expecting a creepy old vampire hitting on a High school kid. She also said she got really bored with the author taking up pages upon pages to describe how perfect Edward was. I seem to remember her saying there was a whole chapter devoted to that. If I had to read that in braille, my fingers would probably fall off like the guy from Futurama's Scary Door.

Yeah, she's lucky she stopped reading when she did. Sadly, this awful wish-fulfillment type of writing seems to be amazingly popular. Don't even get me started on Laurell K Hamilton. :lol:

We need to have some good classic werewolf novels being written again, like Gary Brandner's "The Howling" or Whitley Strieber's "The Wolfen". At least werewolf movies seem to be slowly returning to a more horror-based format.

But yeah... I definitely couldn't live without reading books. I'm the kind of person who has a kindle or paperback with me at all times - I do not leave the house without taking something to read with me. It's like, "wallet, keys, glasses, book - ok, we're good to go."

That's me. Now that I have the tech, books go with me just about everywhere.

In that case, I'd like to recommend two good books- WerewolveSS (as in Nazi SS) by Jerry and Sharon Ahern, and Howl-O-Ween by Gary L Holleman. Both are pretty violent, horror-based, more traditional werewolf tales. Although, granted, Howl-O-Ween has a werewolf protagonist, but he is torn between his animal nature and the need to stop the books main bad guys. He's also a hired bodyguard/bounty hunter type, and the book has some other fun supernatural goodies too. WerewolveSS is about a secret German experiment during WW II, involving turning a regiment of Nazi soldiers into unstoppable killing machines. The experiment was "scrapped" owing to the end of the war (and the fall of German's regime); cut to- present day, when a faction of neo-Nazis somehow revives the plan, and chaos ensues.

yea I barely read T^T.....but when I'm made to, I usually love the book!

unless it's an informational book.....I fall asleep on those.

Man I've got to revise my statement from February. Anymore I've picked up some e-books and have been reading much more. I've been reading Stephen King novels after watching the movies (so far I've gotten through Carrie and Misery), continuing the Eragon series after the second book which I left off on years ago and reading The Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which has been a good read so far.

Cool, I'll grab them on my next Amazon order (since bookstores over here are pretty suckful). Thanks for the suggestions! :)

Ah, kudos on picking up some Stephen King - I can't say enough good things about that guy. Though I have to be in the right mood to read his stuff, as the way he describes the everyday cruelties that people do to one another can be depressing if I'm feeling a bit emotionally vulnerable. But I love the way he scares the pants off me! :lol:

Seriously, you should read "The Shining" - it's a million times better than Kubrick's movie (the made for tv movie of the book was a marked improvement, IMO)... but yeah, that book scares the bejesus out of me every time I read it.

The only thing I usually read outside of comics is the Lord of the Rings, which is usually just once a year. Unless a book is a seriously amazing read I just can't stay focused.

Don't know if those two are on Amazon, but check them out if you can! Also, I love the older King novels, though his Gunslinger series just didn't do anything for me. Hmm, so The Shining scares the heck out of you? funny, but "It" does the same for me. It's all in that twisted little bit during the end. (Hint- the creature's TRUE shape and what it's been doing down there all that time....) When Bill's wife sees the truth and what else is down there, it just gives me chills. The TV movie didn't do that part of the book justice, IMHO.

Oh I plan on it. I've heard a lot of good things about The Shining. I plan on going through The Shining, It, Pet Sematary, and Mr. Mercedes, which has been on the Hot This Week list on ITunes and caught my eye.