Young people and reading

I'd go along with the comic 'thing'.

I read the Beano, Dandy, Broons, Wizzer and Chips, Oor Wullie, Battle Picture Library and Commando comics as a nipper but very few books.
 
I'm a bit like Lose The Beard here. I was a very good early reader (thanks to my dad) but I too get bored or, more often, distracted. But I sometimes find books can be dragged out for an unnecessary number of pages, or filled with too much detail. I read the Hobbit as a child after my dad would read it to me before bed I also find the best books to be factual although The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is probably my favourite exception (the whole series of books). That said, I do read and have loved many books, I just don't go actively seeking out and reading en masse. I'm too busy pissing about with my phone or laptop, a habit I find really annoying in others! I read a lot of stuff online because I can dip in and out and search and I prefer a more 'magazine'like' experience. My dad has filled 70% of his house with books, having written extensively on many aspects of the Anglo Saxons, and is pretty well read generally. Naturally he abhors my lack of interest in reading generally but I have enjoyed stuff a fair bit of the stuff he's recommended, such as Terry Pratchett, Tom Sharpe, and Richard Dawkins!
 
The beauty of all the replies so far is that it proves the point that we are all different and long may that continue.

A case of whatever floats your boat.
 
soapalchemist said:
I'm forever extolling the virtues of reading to my two oldest grandsons, to little avail. It's far easier for them to play on a Wii, iPod , X box etc. etc. However, this weekend, snowed in and with all available skate boarding locations under nearly a foot of the stuff, and with little access to electronic gizmos in my house, grandson #2 was forced to resort to entertaining himself with a book we bought him for Christmas.
Several hours later, I called him for dinner. Into the room he came, and announced 'Books are really good'. As a warn glow of hope and pride spread over me, he followed up with 'I mean, you don't have to pause them or anything'.
:icon_lol:
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Yeah but he is 22.



Electronic gizmos are like crack...difficult to ween them off it, I haven't caved in to buying a games console yet because I know what I'm like.
 
Pigcat - cool it and let him take his own time over things. :icon_wink:

Antdad - he is not 22.....quite yet.:icon_redface:

For sure we're all different, and reading books isn't the only source of knowledge. But I still think it's a very good one, and time efficient compared e.g. to skimming around cyberspace and getting lots of grammatically incorrect, misspelled, misinformation. My other worry is that all this electronic stuff kids do now encourages very short attention spans.

But hell, I remember as a young girl reading Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice, and the mother going on about the younger generation today......same old, same old, every time around, I guess.
 
Re: RE: Young people and reading

soapalchemist said:
Pigcat - cool it and let him take his own time over things. :icon_wink:

Antdad - he is not 22.....quite yet.:icon_redface:

For sure we're all different, and reading books isn't the only source of knowledge. But I still think it's a very good one, and time efficient compared e.g. to skimming around cyberspace and getting lots of grammatically incorrect, misspelled, misinformation. My other worry is that all this electronic stuff kids do now encourages very short attention spans.

But hell, I remember as a young girl reading Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice, and the mother going on about the younger generation today......same old, same old, every time around, I guess.
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not always sharon, im 19 dont have a single games console (unless you count pc)

never botherd with ps3/xbox etc.

id rather read or play the odd game on the computer.

spent a lot of time at sixth form watching anime and by a lot i mean at least a season a day (10-30 x 20 min episodes)

that with playing in a woodwind band on a monday and flute lesson and study for flute exams mean i think i rarely played any computer games

i go through phases of reading a lot then watching a lot (except now where i value my limited time at home away from work)
 
You know Sharon, I was eleven years old before I read my first (Real book ) from cover to cover...Prior to that I was just too "busy"..But once the joy of reading takes hold, for those inclined in that direction, there will be no turning back...
I must have read hundreds of thousands of books of every type conceivable and have a personal reference library numbering in the high hundreds of books.....So many, I've never taken an exact count.

So theres certainly hope.....After all didn't Einstein's headmaster say to his father when Little Albert was twelve..." I really don't know whats to become of young Albert, he seems to be such a dunce"......And we all know the rest of that story.
 
I always had my head in a book as a kid - then an overly-pretentious English Lit teacher who was forever wanting us to find "hidden layers of meaning" in even the most straightforward of sentences ruined the pleasure of a good work of fiction for me. By the time that had worn-off, I'd become a confirmed reader of non-fiction. I know I've mentioned that story previously, but it really did spoil the enjoyment of a good book for a long while, having been trained to search every paragraph of Brighton Rock for these confounded "hidden layers of meaning", most of which I'm convinced were mere figments our our teachers' imagination and probably never entered Graham Greene's mind.

I was reminded of the sheer "up oneself" nature of that approach when Stephen Fry appeared on the Paul Merton-era Room 101 and nominated late-night review programmes, sending-up the "it works on x number of levels" approach by suggesting that the hosts were involved in one-upmanship with the review panel by outdoing each other in terms of how many levels they could find.
 
chrisbell said:
I always had my head in a book as a kid - then an overly-pretentious English Lit teacher who was forever wanting us to find "hidden layers of meaning" in even the most straightforward of sentences ruined the pleasure of a good work of fiction for me. By the time that had worn-off, I'd become a confirmed reader of non-fiction. I know I've mentioned that story previously, but it really did spoil the enjoyment of a good book for a long while, having been trained to search every paragraph of Brighton Rock for these confounded "hidden layers of meaning", most of which I'm convinced were mere figments our our teachers' imagination and probably never entered Graham Greene's mind.

I was reminded of the sheer "up oneself" nature of that approach when Stephen Fry appeared on the Paul Merton-era Room 101 and nominated late-night review programmes, sending-up the "it works on x number of levels" approach by suggesting that the hosts were involved in one-upmanship with the review panel by outdoing each other in terms of how many levels they could find.
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Christ, don't go there with the Brighton Rock stuff! You know, I might have actually enjoyed that book if it hadn't been thrust down my throat in every way imaginable in search of every last morsel of, of.....no, it's too painful! Our complete prick of an English teacher practiced the one-upmanship game to the point of near-bullying and all the time, all I could think of was how much I'd like to stuff each individual page up his ferkin' nostrils one by one and ask him if he could find any hidden meaning in my actions! Pathos this and pathos that, a deeper level of meaning, an iconic understanding of the frailty of the human position, Pinkie's ruddy shoelaces, arghhhhhh!!! I'd rather shave with my own shite for shaving cream than go through that again!

Went the day the well?

P.S. I love reading but have developed a huge dislike of people telling me what I 'should' be reading whilst sniffing haughtily and looking down their nose.
 
Gairdner said:
Christ, don't go there with the Brighton Rock stuff! You know, I might have actually enjoyed that book if it hadn't been thrust down my throat in every way imaginable in search of every last morsel of, of.....no, it's too painful! Our complete prick of an English teacher practiced the one-upmanship game to the point of near-bullying and all the time, all I could think of was how much I'd like to stuff each individual page up his ferkin' nostrils one by one and ask him if he could find any hidden meaning in my actions! Pathos this and pathos that, a deeper level of meaning, an iconic understanding of the frailty of the human position, Pinkie's ruddy shoelaces, arghhhhhh!!! I'd rather shave with my own shite for shaving cream than go through that again!

Went the day the well?

P.S. I love reading but have developed a huge dislike of people telling me what I 'should' be reading whilst sniffing haughtily and looking down their nose.
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There I was thinking it annoyed me.:icon_razz:

IIRC, our teacher's obsession was with the scene on the pier where Pinky threatens his girlfriend (to whom he'd attached himself strategically as she was one of the witnesses to the crime) with his bottle of sulphuric acid. He drips some onto the wood planking, and it burns a hole in the surface. According to our literary critic, the acid represented something, as did the bottle and the planking. I'm afraid my relentlessly logical 15 year-old brain was screaming inwardly "no it bleeding well doesn't - he's trying to get her to keep quiet for fear of losing half her face!":icon_rolleyes: I'm surprised she (our teacher, that is) didn't try to convince us that the seagull crap on the railings was symbolic of something as well, even though I can't recall Graham Green mentioning guano!
 
For some reason when at school doing English Lit. I loved all that hidden meaning stuff. But those late night review programs really are painful to watch. Goldcrest, I too was probably about 11 when I suddenly started reading grown up prooper books; I scoured our couple of bookshelves at home and read practically everything. I particularly remember a book called Four Chimneys, written by a woman who survived Auschwitz - made quite an impression at that age. Grandsons are 14 and 15......late developers, perhaps?
Yis might like this, to help recall the joys of English classes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8pnEYBzY5g

Sorry, that sounds like accounts of Auschwitz wouldn't make an impression at this age.........no offence intended.
 
soapalchemist said:
For some reason when at school doing English Lit. I loved all that hidden meaning stuff. But those late night review programs really are painful to watch. Goldcrest, I too was probably about 11 when I suddenly started reading grown up prooper books; I scoured our couple of bookshelves at home and read practically everything. I particularly remember a book called Four Chimneys, written by a woman who survived Auschwitz - made quite an impression at that age. Grandsons are 14 and 15......late developers, perhaps?
Yis might like this, to help recall the joys of English classes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8pnEYBzY5g

Sorry, that sounds like accounts of Auschwitz wouldn't make an impression at this age.........no offence intended.
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never really read much non fiction at all.

ive read a lot of Mercedes lackey books etc but i can find some non fiction boring

getting more interested now in it though
 
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