I am a fan of Orhan Pamuk. I love Snow, Istanbul and My name is red. I also read historical books. The latest one is The Last Mughal. In science ficton, I love Michael Crichton. Have read all books.
Do you read?
21–30 of 105 posts
Re: Do you read?
#22I'm trying to read more as of late. Sure, I read a lot online but it's usually smaller articles and quick tidbits from my RSS reader. My girlfriend has even urged me to read atleast 20-30 minutes before bed but most of the time mental, and sometimes physical exhaustion just kicks in and .. oh god bed is so comfy :) I always find a lot of great PDF books but it's hard to read them on the PC. I really want a Kindle, bu…
AirSharing + http://www.pdfsam.org/ makes an iPhone/Touch a pretty good lay-in-bed reading platform. I have SICP, Patterns of Software and other books split into chapters and I can read them a little at a time.
Re: Do you read?
#23I love books and reading, although I'm finding as I get older I'm much more willing to "bail out" of a book. I also find myself in multiple books. Quite honestly I think this is due to a decreasing attention span. I think there are two types of reading. The first type is conversational or fun reading. It's like having a dialog with the author. The second is structured reading, where the goal is information transfer a…
Are these lectures online somewhere?
Re: Do you read?
#24I read and I read fiction for the most part. I want to make the case though that fiction is not necessarily non-educational and is rather uniquely educational or educates in a unique way. One common excuse for fiction reading is to suggest you learn passive facts about the setting as you progress pleasantly through the story, but that's not a particularly strong argument in favor or reading fiction. Sure I could pick…
Most good fiction is written with some message. It's not "just a story", but an illustration of a thought, experience, or feeling.
To top it off, I read because it's fun. Why does everything have to have some Franklinesque color of self-improvement?
Re: Do you read?
#25I'm either crawling or racing through Infinite Jest at the moment. Comments on the book are withheld until I've both finished it and have had about a year to digest.
I'm also reading GEB, The Interpreter of Maladies, and Confederacy of Dunces, but, really, I'm reading IJ.
Re: Do you read?
#26I love reading.
I usually read something to help me further my knowledge base, right now that means a lot of teamwork and business books. I usually read on the Kindle, highly recommended, it makes airplane travel a godsend.
My favorite book is definitely Ender's Game. The psychological twists and turns in that book (plus a very cool concept and game) makes it mesmerizing. Once I start it, I can never put it down until I finish.
I read about 2 books a month, all books are worth reading, everyone has something valuable to share. You just need to skim through the fluff.
Re: Do you read?
#27I don't just read books; I wallow in them. I remember well the acute pain of not knowing how to read and the relief when my mother taught me. I was five, and I just haven't stopped reading since. I'll be 38 in a couple of months.
I'm reading Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, because O'Connor is wicked and funny. Favorite book? As others have pointed out, this is a ridiculous question -- my favorite kind! Some books I love: Lolita, As I Lay Dying, The Ghost Writer, Goodbye, Columbus, Blood Meridian, Anna Karenina, Where I'm Calling From, Huck Finn, Dubliners and on and on. I read mostly literary novels, but I read fairly widely -- genre stuff (skiffy, crime), history, philosophy, pop science, whatever's good. I average around 1 book per week, but I read in jags and sometimes go a couple of weeks without reading anything but blogs and news.
I'm sure there are any number of studies that will show the benefit of reading, but I much prefer to classify books with whiskey and cigarettes. How do you measure the utility of whiskey and cigarettes? I like the Romantic idea that books are bad for you. You know, the kind of thing that destroyed Emma Bovary and robbed Señor Quixote of his sanity. Maybe I just need to manufacture a vice. I don't like cigarettes, and a beer (and a book) after the kids are in bed is about all I can handle these days.
Re: Do you read?
#28I love books and reading, although I'm finding as I get older I'm much more willing to "bail out" of a book. I also find myself in multiple books. Quite honestly I think this is due to a decreasing attention span. I think there are two types of reading. The first type is conversational or fun reading. It's like having a dialog with the author. The second is structured reading, where the goal is information transfer a…
Are these lectures online somewhere?
Watched this one last year, which is the history of spoken English http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=2250
The current one is the evolution of language in general, but, of course, the audience is assumed to be English-speaking (he does use many other languages as examples however) http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=1600
Enjoy!
Re: Do you read?
#29Anywhere between a book a day and a book a month (with occasional extreme outliers in either direction), depending on work pressure, nuisance from small child, etc. The ready availability of reading matter on the internet -- interesting but mostly unimportant, coming in small digestible chunks, the reading equivalent of fast food -- has a pernicious effect on the amount of real reading I do.
Definitely worth it. Probably worth it even in purely financial terms since some of what I read is job-related, but the main reason is that I (1) enjoy reading and (2) have omniscience as a primary goal in life.
I usually have several books on the go at once. The two I had open most recently are Chris McManus's "Left hand, right hand" (a book about asymmetry, especially in human beings; recommended) and Peter Winkler's "Mathematical mind-benders" (a selection of mathematical puzzles ranging from tricky high-school level to harder-than-IMO; highly recommended to those who like such things).
Re: Do you read?
#30reading "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
just in time to get a kick out of the "brave new obamian world" video