Do you read? If so, are you the only one you know who does?

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I've read that figure in magazine articles but never with a source. I googled to try to find out where it came from but all I could find (after looking through 3 pages of hits, not going farther) was other articles that gave variations on that figure (42% in one case) but never an actual source.

It sounds like an (academic) urban myth to me. It isn't very plausible. Are the sales of Stephen King, James Patterson, Dan Brown etc. really being driven by people who didn't graduate college? Does going to college make it less likely that you will read for fun than not going to college? That's one way to make sense of the disconnect between mammoth book sales and this figure. Maybe all the reading is being done by people who never went to college. In which case the problem isn't that "people don't read", it's that colleges kill the desire to read- perhaps with overwhelming reading lists that make students say "never again" as soon as they have the degree.

Or maybe the study (if there is one and it's not an academic urban myth) had an overly narrow definition of "book" and didn't count Stephen King and all the other mega-sales authors. Maybe what they actually found was that 50% of college graduates will never again read a book that would appear on an English Class 101 reading list and instead stick strictly to the novels that a college professor wouldn't count as literature. "Nanny Diaries" and "Bridget Jones Diary" aren't literature, but they are books. Perhaps this study didn't count something as a "book" unless an English prof would count it as literature.

A final possibility is that people buy the books but don't read them. That is undoubtedly true for "A Brief History of Time", which was probably bought more than it was read. But I somehow doubt that John Grisham's latest is being bought but not read and placed prominently on a shelf for literary prestige.

Yeah, I love books but am completely repelled by the fiction section of the bookstore. It's like the Nook and gadgets like it - they brag about how many books are available but whenever I look through the selection (and of course I haven't seen everything) it just seems like mountains of what I consider rubbish reading - nytimes "best seller" stuff.

For fiction, the one exception is audio books - I love being read to.

That would have driven me BONKERS! Being interrupted from a good book, to listen to useless, senseless drivel. It reminds me of the time I hired some movers to unpack a storage pod for me. One of the guys, upon carrying in the tenth box of books, grumbled, "It's like she has her own freakin' library!" I felt such a glow of pride...

I was reading a book in the bar where I worked after my shift and some regular kept interrupting me talking about nothing. Finally in exasperation I said "Carter, I've read the same sentence now 4 times!".He said, "Well, if you can't concentrate, why are you trying to read?"

I love reading. As a kid, I was the only one I knew who read, but then I went to uni to study English lit, so lots of readers there! And now I go on websites where others like reading, like http://www.bookcrossing.com/ and http://www.goodreads.com/, so that I can talk to others who like reading and see what they've thought of certain books, and basically feel I'm in a community of book lovers rather than being the lone bookworm!

Can we get a goodreads group going for people here? It seems like a lot of people here read books, and it is a cool site.

I'd definitely be interested. I've only joined goodreads recently though, and still haven't worked out how groups work - but if someone makes one and posts a link, I'll join. If anyone wants to friend me there, my profile is here: http://www.goodreads.com/capriwim

I only read if the topic really interests me and I can't find the information other way, because reading actually hurts if I do it too long. I get a headache and I start seeing double if I read for more than an hour. I'm not exaggerating; I actually see double images.

I figure this is probably related to the visual processing issue that prevents me from being able to see any mental images.

I just joined. Wonderful site!

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/367 ... planet_net

Okay, I created the Goodreads group.

I joined. I like poking through other people's libraries.

I don't read though.

Do you have a library? I have lived in towns with no libraries and biked to the nearest one as a child.
If you have a library, what are the librarians like? For years some of them were the closest to 'friends' I ever had.
Most of the homes I was raised in the foster parents were illiterate. Some just did not care, some thought
it was not normal for a child to read during summer. I had stupid horrible things done to me, because I read,
but now, I wonder if it was because they saw it as me having something 'better' than them.. who knows.

I think for myself, part of the major horrors of going to another home and having to adjust to the people
getting used to me reading.. and I read all the time. I remember one place I was actually surprised.. they had books
on a shelf and they looked leather bound. Then I looked closer. They were Readers Digest special editions. Another place was
just romance trash..
and another thing these places all had in common, was newspapers - except not city or town papers.. but those grocery store
front counter ones (sorry, I cannot recall any of their names right now) the 'scorpian/human boy with voice of elvis found' type papers..

and I will not go into the time I started to read a book I did find in a home, the cover and title had me believing it was about fishing..
so thought like Tom Sawyer .. yea noooonooo

That description reminds me far too much of some of my foster parents... *shudder*
This I have heard way to many times "Hey, what you readin' for?"

Another of my favourites is, "Why can't you read books LIKE a NORMAL PERSON for once?"

My old flatmate would get all excited when she first moved in with me and I would come back from the library with my ruck almost bursting with books.
She looked like a kid waiting for someone to hand out candy. Then I would take the books out.

80

Like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotopic_s ... y_syndrome

That would be so cool to live in a family of readers like that. I've been reading since I was three years old too.

I joined as well but don't have time to add all my library books right now. Soon you can poke through my library if you want...