General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIs there any data across the planet that gives us a percentage of citizens who have read
a single book (outside of their main religious text) that was not linked to their school syllabus?
The only book a lot of folks have read in these parts is the bible.
Ignorance is encouraged across our planet.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Walleye
(44,807 posts)
electric_blue68
(26,856 posts)thiis was HS. Classmates talking about 2nd, and 3rd meanings?! I was like GAHhhh! I just didn't get it.
I did appreciate reading Black Boy, at least on other ?fictional book focusing on African-Americans. This was 1967-70. An one ? psychological, or social philosopy book.
Almost sure I'd recognize the name. I can "feel" some possible idea walking around in my head.
Franz Fanon otoh was a bit much at the time. I might even agree w some stuff, maybe not the approach. So far back the memory is fuzzy.
Johonny
(26,179 posts)75% of U.S. adults say they have read a book in the past 12 months in any format, a figure that has remained largely unchanged since 2011.
Three in 10 children live in households that do not contain a single book.
Intersting
llmart
(17,622 posts)I just always assumed that people with children made sure they had children's books to read.
I grew up poor and there were seven children. We always had books in the house.
Ms. Toad
(38,642 posts)From 2000-2019, or so, the only time I read a book was when my work sent me on a business trip. Since that stopped in 2013 when I changed jobs, that means 6 years with no books. I simply didn't have time (I was working 60-80 hours/week in the first time period, and 80-100 in the second). Then a former student gave me a gift certificate at Amazon that was large enough to buy a Fire tablet. I started with the free Kindle Unlimited subscription, and have maintained it since then - so now I average 1-2 books a week. (I started that while I was still working 80-100 hours a week by "reading" during drive time.
But the second statistic shocks me. I can't imagine not having a household without a single book, especially since it is households with children. Who doesn't have early picture/reading books for their kids? (I can't imagine not having adult books - but I can imagine that more than I can imagine raising kids without books.)
LeftinOH
(5,648 posts)A few passages, maybe. For many bible "readers," it's kind of like an encyclopedia -- nobody reads it from beginning to end, they just look up the stuff they're comfortable with.
😀
unblock
(56,198 posts)
Igel
(37,535 posts)But not audio versions.
Audiobooks are digital compilations of radio shows.
malaise
(296,118 posts)You are still involved with the book
Ms. Toad
(38,642 posts)I've read an average of 1-2 books a week for the past several years. All audio books. I don't know too many radio shows that carry a storyline over 8-15 hours.
My grandmother, who was blind for the last decade of her life, was an avid book reader. You do realize that audiobooks have been around since the 1930s, just in different formats.
ShazzieB
(22,590 posts)This is flat out false. Audiobooks contain the text of actual books, read by a professional actor or other killed reader. Some are read by the author, in cases where an author has the ability to do so.
I prefer reading books to listening to them, only because that works better for the way my brain is wired. Because of my adhd, I absorb information most effectively when reading it off of a printed page (either paper or electronic). However, I also enjoy audiobooks on occasion. One of my most recent favorites was Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (read by Richard Thomas, a fine actor who some may remember as John Boy Walton). I can assure you that it is a real book, for which Goodwin won a Pulitzer Prize, and the word "unabridged" on the packaging tells me that it includes the full text of the printed book.
walkingman
(10,865 posts)people to join a library club during the summer. I can remember bring home 6-8 books at a time and loved reading. Between neighborhood baseball games, reading, and riding my bike summers were heaven but I always looked forward to going back to school in the fall.
I think if you get in the habit of reading it becomes a lifetime habit. So many distractions these days I doubt many kids read books - phones, social media, video games, etc. No wonder there is so much depression and suicide these days.
malaise
(296,118 posts)We went on Saturdays and during the holidays
Response to walkingman (Reply #5)
malaise This message was self-deleted by its author.
dad did not let us watch a lot of TV but we could read lots of books
Torchlight
(6,830 posts)When on a similar line of thought last year, I was directed over and over again by search engines to Unesco's site. Once deeper into it, past the feel good stuff, there's a lot of scholarly and academic theses and position papers regarding worldwide education, literacy rates, etc.
I specifically remember reading on the site that if all adults completed secondary education, globally the number of poor people could be reduced by more than half. An incredible investment opportunity, I'd think.
https://www.unesco.org/en
malaise
(296,118 posts)Thanks
exboyfil
(18,359 posts)I have a job where I am at a desk for 8-9 hours/day. I exercise 3-4 hours/day (part of that time is in front of the television but most of it is listening to audiobooks).
I am working on a list of Stoker nominated novels (trying to read or listen to them all - about 180 total). I find that the ones I read (they don't have an audiobook version) doesn't get closed out very fast, but the audiobook ones do.
I keep telling myself I am going to read more, but it just isn't happening as much as I would like.
malaise
(296,118 posts)You’re still exposing yourself to content.
Skittles
(171,716 posts)you are entering another world! 
Ms. Toad
(38,642 posts)It was literally the choice between not reading at all, and reading audio books. So I went from reading zero books a year (for about 7 years) to between 100 and 150 a year. Now that I've retired, I'm down to under 100, since my main "reading" time was during my commute.
Those who dismiss audiobooks as not reading are inherently suggesting that people who are blind don't read books. I can remember my grandmother, who was legally blind for at least the last decade of her life, being an avid book reader.
exboyfil
(18,359 posts)While listening reduces the quality of reading. It is still a great use of your time though, and I, like you listen to something like 150 audio books a year. Before unabridged became more readily commercially available I listened to a number of audio books specifically produced for the blind. It is a wonder of our modern age that the blind have this as another avenue to read. I am not slighting it at all.
Ms. Toad
(38,642 posts)If I'm doing something else that requires brain-power, yes.
But if I'm doing something which is primarily or exclusively physical (gardening, walking, cooking, cleaning, highway driving) no. In fact, doing those other activities while reading may increase the quality of reading. There is some evidence, for example, that combining physical activity with reading increases retention. It's actually one of the techniquest I encouraged when helping my students study for an exam that requires a significant amount of retention (along with doing the same activity when focused on learning a specific subject being - thinking about the activity then helps recall the content of that particular subject (it gives you a thread to pull on to recall the subect, so to speak).
Reading is reading - as far as I'm concerned the mechanism is not relevant. I can just as easily be distracted when I'm reading with my eyes as when I'm reading with my ears.
MontanaMama
(24,722 posts)Also listen to audio books because sometimes my work job and home job has me running in all directions. Audio books are a good way to keep my brain busy when I'm walking the dog, cooking dinner or driving to and from work.
malaise
(296,118 posts)but I was a voracious reader of books, magazines, newspapers, even comic books.
llmart
(17,622 posts)Also, the backs of the cereal box while eating breakfast.
malaise
(296,118 posts)except oatmeal cookies and granola bars and I was grown up by the time the bars showed up. Mom said I spat out porridge from as early as she could remember. My siblings loved cereal but I hated it so I never read the boxes 😀
To this day I am not a milk drinker, although I like milkshakes, ice cream and cream in my sugarless coffee.
I don’t ever remember myself drinking a glass of milk.
Kaleva
(40,365 posts)"The more education people have, the more ignorant they may be. Ignoring our ignorance and assuming we know much more than we actually do seems to be a universal human tendency. "
https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/youre-more-ignorant-than-you-think-you-are/
Earth-shine
(4,044 posts)I listen to a few podcasts regularly and watch MSNBC.
electric_blue68
(26,856 posts)my library card as my e-book availability suddenly vanished - I was like wth? Let it alone for a few days then same thing
Finally 😄 dawned on me to call my library. Have to go in to renew. Will do that soon. Yeah, I'll also look around to see what I might want to borrow that isn't available as an e-book. Both mostly science fiction, non-fiction usually sciences & ocassional history.
Actually I was reading a fair amount of non-fic as e-books, more than I ever did with actual books.
I still like physically holding a book, magazine etc.
malaise
(296,118 posts)These days I donate books - finished with most of them and they aren’t ornaments.
electric_blue68
(26,856 posts)roommate situation. I was so sad.
I still had a small medium collection that as stored. Half ruined in a water damage incident.
Took the rest with me and the small amount I had in the apt when I moved again. Next move had to leave more again. Now I have a few, and will get the small amount my sister is holding for me as I continue organizing where I am now.
Some fiction, nature, art, craft books. Maybe two "The Art of _______" books: l drawn and painted screen & action shots production, models, costume, scenery & accessory drawings. 🥰 Love them!
malaise
(296,118 posts)As I get older I wonder when did we accumulate all the rest of this shit that we had to have 
electric_blue68
(26,856 posts)At least 40 - 60% of my "stuff" is art, jewelry making, occasional other crafts, and related.
I learned yarn crafts thus adding in my late 40's, early 50's yarn/needles/hooks.
About 5% - 10% are small craft objects given to me, or that I bought earlier.
Celerity
(54,410 posts)It is superb.
https://www.bookdepository.com/Texaco-Patrick-Chamoiseau/9780679751755
"Chamoiseau is a writer who has the sophistication of the modern novelist, and it is from that position (as an heir of Joyce and Kafka) that he holds out his hand to the oral prehistory of literature."
--Milan Kundera
Of black Martinican provenance, Patrick Chamoiseau gives us Texaco (winner of the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize), an international literary achievement, tracing one hundred and fifty years of post-slavery Caribbean history: a novel that is as much about self-affirmation engendered by memory as it is about a quest for the adequacy of its own form.
In a narrative composed of short sequences, each recounting episodes or developments of moment, and interspersed with extracts from fictive notebooks and from statements by an urban planner, Marie-Sophie Laborieux, the saucy, aging daughter of a slave affranchised by his master, tells the story of the tormented foundation of her people's identity. The shantytown established by Marie-Sophie is menaced from without by hostile landowners and from within by the volatility of its own provisional state. Hers is a brilliant polyphonic rendering of individual stories informed by rhythmic orality and subversive humor that shape a collective experience.
A joyous affirmation of literature that brings to mind Boccaccio, La Fontaine, Lewis Carroll, Montaigne, Rabelais, and Joyce, Texaco is a work of rare power and ambition, a masterpiece.
WarGamer
(18,613 posts)I started consuming books when my Mom took me to the library and I'd check out 10 books at a time.
As I became a more accomplished reader, I read more complex texts including War and Peace and History of the Third Reich at 12.
I was big into Hemingway for a bit before High School... to be honest, the books assigned in High School were all yawners after what I'd already read.
NOTHING better for a young introvert than reading...
malaise
(296,118 posts)We read a lot of Jane Austen in school. Dad’s aunts and uncles in the US introduced us to Baldwin, Hughes and others.
WarGamer
(18,613 posts)LudwigPastorius
(14,725 posts)Every January we'd get people coming in trying to cash out their Christmas gift certificates. I'd always ask why, and they'd say, "I don't read books". Unfortunately for them, we didn't exchange certificates for cash.
One lady ended up buying $50 worth of fashion/makeup/celebrity magazines.
malaise
(296,118 posts)Nothing should shock us anymore.
We had an uncle who gave us books every Christmas. Some of my siblings would just give me. They wanted other stuff.
DET
(2,499 posts)My mother was a voracious reader, and she passed the love of books on to me. I used to buy and read one or two books a week when I was working. Now we have hundreds of books that we need to pass on just to clear out the basement. But people don’t seem to read anymore.
I love my iPad, but it’s really seems to have had a negative effect on me cognitively. I want to read everything all at once, and I have a hard time time focusing on works that take time - like books. I don’t know if it’s a function of getting older or the easy availability of written material now, but I have to wonder what kind of effect technology is having on younger people, especially with social media. You can’t stop progress, nor would I want to, but sometimes progress seems to be really setting us back.
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)Last edited Thu Mar 30, 2023, 11:41 AM - Edit history (1)
When we have too much to choose from, it can paralyse us. Same thing with buying something you're not entirely familiar with at the grocer's. You see 30 different choices for a product you've never tried before, like, say, balsamic vinegar, and your brain locks up because you have no idea what to pick. You have no frame of reference about brands or what they taste like--nothing. Only a recipe calling for it. So you say, "Forget it! I'll find a substitute online or from my cookbook."
And that's for something with only 30 choices. Books are even tougher, because we don't have 30 fantasy books to choose from, but millions of them. Where to even begin?
What helps me choose what to read is having a "big" goal, then hashing out the details of making it work after that. Lots of ways to go about it: Decide to read all of the Man Booker winners that you haven't already. Or read an author's entire ouevre or every entry in a mystery or sci-fi series, like every Nero Wolfe book or short story by Rex Stout (that would keep any reader busy!).
If you want more variety than that, the 52 book challenge or Book Riot's Read Harder will not only help you narrow down what to read, but also encourage the expansion of your reading horizons. Nearly all of the good challenges will list fiction and non fiction options, books by writers of marginalized communities about those communities, or in genres/topics you normally wouldn't read. At the very least, these challenges will have you look at what to choose in a new way, like reading a book about a character who's a travel writer, which is one of this year's 52 book challenges. That's an ingenious way to look at it--and fun, too! And that you're expanding your horizons on top of all else? What's not to love?
If you want to know more about the "challenges" out there, here are links to two of my favorites:
52 Book Challenge
https://www.the52book.club/2023-reading-challenge/
Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge
https://bookriot.com/read-harder-2023/
I don't know if that interests you, but these challenges have made my reading experience richer and tackling my TBR pile much, much easier to manage, too.
malaise
(296,118 posts)And mom - they always had books around.
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)I got it from my mother, who, even though her family was poor, they valued reading. So my grandmother was a voracious reader. My mother is one. I'm one (read every book in my primary school library by 3rd grade). And now my son is a voracious reader, too.
I was so shocked the first time I heard someone brag about not having read a book since high school that, before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "And you're proud of that?" I couldn't imagine thinking such a thing, never mind admitting it to another human being with such arrogant insouciance.
Maybe it was impolitic of me to reply that way, but, good grief, how is it not insulting to brag about not reading to someone who's just said they enjoy reading? It was not only shocking to me, but also a slam against me for being a reader, however indirect the implication.
NowISeetheLight
(4,002 posts)As a kid my Mom would take me to the library every week. Some of my earliest memories are of being 6-7 years old and wandering the stacks. I used to sit on the floor of my bedroom as a kid and read the World Book Encyclopedias my parents bought me for my 10th birthday. I was very reclusive after being assaulted by a teacher at 10. Didn’t tell anyone then but dived into books even more. Into adulthood and I’d read novels in 2-3 days. Everything from Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead during my Republican days to adventure and true history after that. Even now I enjoy sitting for hours reading Wikipedia articles and watching YouTube documentaries. Being educated is one of the greatest gifts we have available to us. People who have the intellectual capability to read and learn but limit themselves are hurting both themselves and their children.
malaise
(296,118 posts)
ShazzieB
(22,590 posts)I would love to know what percentage of all the people who claim to fervently believe that every word of the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God have read more than 10% of it. I suspect it's not a very high number.
I am not anti-religion, but I am anti-hypocrisy. It really annoys me when people claim to believe in something they only have a superficial familiarity with.
malaise
(296,118 posts) 
Jedi Guy
(3,477 posts)When my mom was pregnant with me, my dad read to her belly. When I was an infant, some of the first toys my parents gave me were books with laminated pages so I couldn't damage them. When I was growing up, my parents had a rule that the one thing they would never refuse to buy for me was a book.
As an adult, I read before bed. It helps quiet my mind so I can shut down and go to sleep. Now that my Dad is retired, he reads 2-3 books a week, and his personal library is quite impressive. Mom doesn't read quite as much as she used to, but still an hour or two a day, probably.
Mind you, I'm not always reading high literature. I tend towards fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc. I've read a fair few of the classics over the years, though. But I can't imagine life without books.