Got a Book Suggestion?

I have a close friend who is almost 39 years old. He has NEVER read a book in his adult life.

He is FOREVER asking questions about how things work, where things are or what happened somewhere … His opinions are based ENTIRELY on the scraps of news reports he catches.

I cannot understand how someone CANNOT read. he claims he has no patience to do so …. But for me its is borderline UNNATURAL! 😮

Get rid of the TV. That frees up all kinds of reading time.

When i was younger, like from when i learned to read through high school, i read alllll the time. especially in middle school, that’s about all I did. Now I am always so exhausted and I just can’t seem to get through a book.

I constantly start books, get halfway through and then forget about finishing them…fiction and non-fiction. I guess that’s better than not reading at all though?

“No time” is a BS excuse not to read! I admit it, I’m a snob and if someone is proud of not reading, I just think they’re lazy and not very bright. C’mon, everyone spends at least a few minutes a day in the bathroom – keep a book there and multi-task! 🙂

My husband doesn’t read. He says I read so much and download onto him that he doesn’t have to. Funny guy.

I love to read. I’ve always enjoyed fiction, especially fantasy and science fiction, but I’ve been reading more non-fiction recently. Science and history are especially fascinating to me.

This goes for some of the more fanatical religious folks too, unfortunately — all too often it seems that people don’t even know the material they’re going around parroting to everyone else.

Answering the title of the post:
“How to Find a Habitable Planet” by James Kasting, a really smart guy trained by Pollack (one of Sagan’s grad students) and prominent on the subject.

It discusses the climate on the large rocky planets of our solar system (Venus, earth and Mars). It also discusses what we (that is; the best of science) think is necessary for life. You’ll get to know the evolution of earth’s climate, our solar system, and dwell in foreign worlds and stars while you’re at it.

It’s a great read to get a grip of our current understanding of climate And at the same time get some perspective on life and the universe we live in. All in the fashion of current research and understanding.

One might think that ignorance would be more fragile in this information age, but it’s remarkably robust among people who wear their blinders twenty-four hours a day. In my case, I am quite ignorant about sports because I have no interest in it and I “tune out” when people or media start babbling about it. Still, I can’t help but know that the SF Giants are playing a bunch of supposedly super-important games right now. [Yawn]

The most amazing (to me, anyway) case of impervious ignorance was a boss I had back in the late eighties. She didn’t know who Carl Sagan was. Just imagine everything she had to tune out (Johnny Carson, Nova, Cosmos, NY Times bestseller list, comic strip lampoons, SNL parodies) to be unaware of his existence. Utterly amazing.

Of course, it was kind of fun when I got to tell Sagan about it.

A great atheist fiction novel is “The Angelic Heritage” by Jay Elwood Seymour ::wink::

http://sites.google.com/site/theangelicheritage/

Well, you don’t have to read books to keep up with what is going on in the world. Really, there is no excuse for being uninformed about important matters… so it comes down to what you think is important. I don’t have much in common with most people. They care about sports or reality tv… meh

I just can’t hold much of a convo with sheeple

for this crowd? that one requires some serious thought.

ok. thought agrees: “the gate to women’s country.” a bit too het for my tastes, but still, as we speculative folk call it: “the blueprint.” read it today. it won’t take long, it’s short. soon, i won’t be able to post or talk about it, and you won’t be able to find it. don’t be angry about she suggests, either. it’s not a project directed in egoistic bigotry. we just need to change some… ratios.

RichardP, I think it is an inverse snobbery that people claim not to read at all. Just look at most of the religious, who have little basis in their own one “good book”…and proud of it.

With all the electronic entertainment out there now, I still have spawn who read books. That’s because I set the example- reading books myself, and to them when they were small. Good times! Jolly Peter Rabbit books, for example, before bedtime, etc.

I personally read (read- “study”) mathematical logic and physics texts still, after graduating over 25 years ago. Also, a lot of SciFi in the Niven&Pournelle and Greg Benford genre- “hard” SF that has a truly plausible basis in the sciences. Also, woodworking books, woodworking’s my avocation.

And television? Don’t get me started. If I wasn’t married, there wouldn’t even be a television in the house. Talk about a vast electronic wasteland! I didn’t own one when I got married, my wife had to get one to watch.

I’m one of those who can’t imagine not reading all the time. I started before I was even able to read, all the time begging my parents to read books to me. When I started kindergarten the only reason I wanted to go was to learn to read. The stupid teachers wouldn’t teach me to read, they only wanted me to watch The Letter People (I could already quote entire episodes of the show) and write my name… BORing. I ended up teaching myself to read that year (with help from my parents).

Since then I’ve always had a book with me. I often am reading two or three books at a time. (Currently reading Dan Barker’s “Godless”, re-reading Asimov’s Foundation series, and reading Clark’s “The Last Theorm”.) I also read lots of blogs and news sites. (This is in addition to an embarrassing amount of TV that I watch.)

I’m sure that this has been one of the main factors in my finding the truth about Christianity and theism (that it isn’t true). If I was content to accept was was told me then I’d still be deluded.

Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman

Armageddon satire.

My husband and I both read all the time. I have a Kindle. I also get books from the library. I download audio books from the library and from audible.com to listen to when I’m driving or cooking or doing something else that keeps me from reading.

We also watch TV. Fortunately we have TiVo so we only watch stuff we really like. Without TiVo I’d watch hardly anything at all.
I prefer nonfiction. Right now I’m reading “The Enemy I Knew: German Jews in the Allied Forces in World War II.” Fascinating. I’m going through a heavy World War II phase…

I read the cereal box if I don’t have a book. Sadly it isn’t that interesting.

To answer the title I’d suggest American Gods by Neil Gaiman for fiction and Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer and, of course, A Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. If you really want to show off though then get a book to read and an audio book at the same time. LibriVox make them available for free.

Neither my wife nor I can understand how people don’t read. I always find it humorous (and not in a good way) when someone asks me “how I know all this ‘stuff'”; when I tell them I read, and point to our vast personal library, their eyes seem to glaze over, as if to say “isn’t there an easier way?”…

My wife watches a bit of TV online; I watch the occasional show when I am really bored, or just want to “zone out” – but mostly, we read! We also both like fiction audiobooks (two of the best: Tim Dorsey’s “Triggerfish Twist”, and Christopher Priest’s “The Prestige”). Still sitting down (or laying down) and reading – ahh, there’s real pleasure.

Right now, I am reading Rita Carter’s “Mapping the Mind”; after that I intend to read Cosmos (never got around to it, despite knowing of it since I was a kid!). My favorite fiction I’ve read so far this year has been Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth”. At some point I plan to read Minsky’s “Society of Mind”…

We can’t fathom why people don’t want to expand their knowledge and understanding of the world; its even more worrisome when they look askance at us for referencing something which they should’ve learned in high school, if not earlier – like our knowledge is suspect or something.

Like we’re part of some kind of elite, liberal, intelligentsia conspiracy (oh, if only – life might be a tad easier – or at least more exciting!)…

I have problems reading…I’m very slow and it tires me out. I have read one book in 20 years and it took me almost a year and a half. I kept it on my PDA so I could pull it out and read it wherever I was. I can’t understand how people can read a book a week or even a book a month. I have tried audiobooks, but I can’t work on the computer with someone talking in my ear. I have watched about an hour of TV in the last month (if you don’t include video podcasts like TED talks and I’ve only seen a few of those recently) and I don’t have any games or game machines that I play. I barely made it out of high school, and I haven’t been to college because of this reading disability. I try to read a little of everything online to keep up with current events. I listen to podcasts where I hear authors interviewed about their books, so I have a pretty good idea of what the book is about and I can get into a conversation about the topic. I have tried speed reading techniques, but that only helps people who can read at normal speeds. I’m glad there are people who can keep up with all the books.

I heard about ear candling years ago when someone I knew was using it. I didn’t need to read a whole book on the subject to have an instinct that it was bogus and it only took a few minutes of using Google to find out that it was dangerous.

For books, I read fiction and comedy. I buy technical books too, but I get the pieces of information that I need and then I don’t need it for a while.

The problem I have with books about a political, religious (or anti-religious) or social agenda is that they seem to have about ten to twenty pages worth of content, and 180 pages of anecdotes to reinforce the content. I just get the feeling most of these books are about getting a buck and little else. Too often, I find I don’t get out of this kind of book what the back cover says is there, so it’s easy to get disillusioned.

A book is often one person telling me what they think, but without discussion. Blogs offer that discussion. And blogs can be updated any time, once a book is published, that’s it, unless there is a second edition years later.

I cannot imagine a day without reading!

I am addicted to reading and always have been. Before they taught me to read in school, I was making up stories for my little sisters and managing the comic strips and headlines in the local paper. Yes, headlines. I remember thinking JFK was “cute” (meaning handsome in 4 yo talk). No wonder I’m so damned political now.

I’m a bookworm and always have been. My grandson is already too. My daughter will not read an entire book. Can’t get her to.

Music is her obsession and what she’ll spend the time I spend reading on. She does do FB but not blogs and rarely reads even an article unless someone really shows her to. She’s in college and that has helped as she had to read for that and some English classes actually introduced her to some essays and short fiction that actually excited her and she had to share with me. It was nice. I think she relies on me and her friends and occassionally the news when I leave it running on TV for information but this does mean what she isn’t learning in school is woefully below par.

We talk about all the shit I read (including this blog 🙂 ) but that means I have to tell her about it. She is starting to pick up stuff from FB and college friends and ask if I’ve heard about such and such and I must say I like it. I like not having to be the one to always tell her about things.

The grandson eats it all up: books, music, TV, video games, anything that can fill his senses with information and stimulate his brain. Have I mentioned that he’s got my personality down the line? I don’t listen to music as much as I did when I was young but I love books, blogs, FB, magazines, newsletters, articles, TV, and video games.

My grandson eagerly reads and loves to talk about it and ask questions about what he comes across in books or anything he watches or listens to or overhears people say. It’s great. He will come out with questions about something he’s heard and I will take quite often say let’s google it and he gets a grin when I do. We’ve looked up several things and looked at several of the links for every one that we have.

Speaking of googling, I had to google ear candling. That’s just plain fucking insane regardless. Common sense would seem to say no fucking way.

I think people who brag about not watching TV display as much ignorant snobbery as people who brag about not reading. (As opposed to not reading or watching TV because they really just don’t enjoy it.) Sure there’s a lot of garbage on TV but there’s good content too and informative. Faux News and the deplorable condition of TV news aside, it still is a way to get some idea of what’s going on in the world. And there are shows like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” that have excellent content and even a couple of sitcoms that are great and reflective of our changing society.

I also love watching the small claims court shows because the law fascinates me and it’s as Judge Milian of “People’s Court” says about small claims, “It’s not about the money; it’s always about the principal.” She’s right and even those obviously in the wrong think they’re right. It’s not just the law’s workings that are interesting but the human psyche of both sides. You can’t make up some of the stuff they come up with either to sue or to defend themselves. I watch “Judge Joe Brown”, “People’s Court” and “Judge Judy” every day, largely because these are the three TV judges I truly respect as they stick to the law but are interesting because they cut through the bull and get into the bottom of the dramatizing going on.

That’s why I love reading blogs and the comments on this page. You all keep me on my toes, help me stay informed, and make me question whatever I’m thinking

And that’s what keeps me coming back here. Not just that you find interesting things to blog about but that you have a wide variety of (for the most part) well-informed commenters who parry different points of view. It’s interesting and we learn a lot from each other.

This is the problem I have when trying to socialize with my old church friends and religious relatives.

They are So. Damn. Ignorant.

They spend all their time reading the bible, listening to radio preachers and studying theology that’s spoon fed them from their own evangelical circles.

I wind up making small talk, discussing old times or chatting about other friends and relatives. I can take it for about an hour or so and then I’m done.

They simply cannot discuss current events or real-world issues because they’re either uninformed or uninterested, sad to say, the women especially so. It boggles the mind.

I enjoy reading about religion from a psychological and sociological perspective. These three books were engaging and informative:

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce

Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment by Phil Zuckerman

Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling by Robert Kunzman

Hemant’s mentioned them on the blog several times, too, so I think they would especially appeal to this crowd. More suggestions here and here.

I rarely read novels nowadays (I’m literally too tired to read them), but I love reading. I read on the internet, I read comics, magazines, cereal boxes, etc. When I’m watching tv or movies, I always put the captions/subtitles on. (Which is why I LOVE foreign films) I think us readers, however, need to be careful not to come off as elitist. We are not better or smarter than people who don’t read as much as we do. It’s not fair to judge people just because they are different from us. Some people are not good at reading (which can correlate with not enjoying reading) and prefer to listen in order to get their information. There is nothing wrong with that. Whatever floats your boat, I say.

Angel Says:
October 23rd, 2010 at 12:01 pm

A book that I really enjoyed and suspect this crowd might like as well is Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. I recommend anything by Moore, actually.

I’d forgotten than one! Easilly one of the funniest novels written about Jesus!

I see as of late he’s been expanding his Vampire series-but one of my favorites from his past is “A Dirty Job”-to summarize from his site:

Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death. It’s a dirty job. But hey, somebody’s gotta do it.

If you haven’t-trust me. Just read it.

Thanks for reminding me-gotta check up on the latest from his group of bloodsuckers…

Book suggestion: flim Flam by James Randi.

i read a lot. Best books so far this year have been The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Beowulf, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, and The Book Thief. Liked Harris’ The Moral Landscape too.