I like to read. I learned to read at a very young age, and I spent much of my childhood lost in a world of books.
When I went to college, I had to read for school. I felt guilty if I read a book for fun during the term. That typically meant that I read three or four books over spring break. It also meant that I watched TV as a break from schoolwork. I watched a lot of TV. During those years, I shifted from being a reader to a watcher. I could read the classics, or I could watch the BBC production or the newest movie adaptation. I chose the latter.
I read less and less after college, focusing mainly on magazines as my written material of choice. Part of the issue was my day job: I was an editor on academic journals and a trade magazine. I did a lot of reading on the job, so it was really hard to get any energy to read anything during my off time.
I think I was lucky to read one book a year for quite a few years in a row.
Thankfully, a friend of mine changed that when she got me to read Twilight. It’s not the best written book out there, but I love vampires and teen angst. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for Gossip Girl goes vamp. I moved on to the Black Dagger Brotherhood and Sookie Stackhouse books. Reawakening my love of reading also reawakened my dream of being a writer. Hence the birth of this blog, which helps satisfy my writing bug and my ridiculous celebrity obsession.
I want to know your story. Do you prefer to get your classics served up by a Hollywood director or in their original black and white format? Do you spend your time reading or vegging? Me? I multitask, reading or writing, watching TV or a movie, and watching the dogs all at once.
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I like books better than movies, but sometimes I just don’t have the brainpower to read.
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This is a stupid question. Movies and TV serve up a predefined reality for viwers–books force them to create their own. Books will obviously be better because the movies you create will incorporate your own experiences and needs. Movies just might make us all dumber while making us think we are smarter because we now know the story of Beowulf or whatever.
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I love both and force myself to make time for both!
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One of my favorite assignments in high school was to compare the book and the movie adaptation.
Like Leslie, sometimes my mind is too tired to read.
Like Rob, sometimes I think we have dumbed ourselves down by our reliance on technology.
And like Lulu, I really do love both.
Here’s a follow-up question: Do you anticipate or dread movie adaptations of your favorite novels?
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I find I’m doing the same thing now too. I used to devour like 5-8 books a week as a kid and in high school. I still love reading a really good book, but I find I’m doing it less and less now that I’m at school (actually, I do basically no rec. reading at school) and have so much reading to do for my coursework. I’ve definitely noticed a trend as I shift away from books to tv, and to the internet as well. It’s easier escapism for me. I find that when I do read books for fun they’re kids books, or well, adolescent books on like fantasy stuff. I’ve been really into Tamora Pierce, which I’m revisiting from my childhood. It’s all really fluffy stuff, no deep philosophical meaning or commentary or the human condition, but I guess some reading is better than no reading.
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Lea, That was exactly what I did. I quit reading any books that taxed my brain at all. I read a lot of Mercedes Lackey on my breaks! I love them because you can read a book in a day or two, and they are involving, well-written stories that don’t require me to soliloquize about themes and symbolism.
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