Tag: read

Why some people become lifelong readers?

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The Stats:

  • ...about 53 percent of American adults (roughly 125 million people) read at least one book not for school or for work in the previous 12 months
  • …23 percent of American adults were “light” readers (finishing one to five titles per year)
  • ..10 percent were “moderate” (six to 11 titles),
  • …13 percent were “frequent” (12 to 49 titles),
  • …and a dedicated 5 percent were “avid” (50 books and up)
  • …about 20 percent of adults belong to the U.S.’s reading class. She said that a larger proportion of the American population qualified as big readers between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries—an era of reading that was made possible by advances in printing technology and then, eventually, snuffed out by television.
  • …”urban people read more than rural people,” “affluence is associated with reading,” and “young girls read earlier” than boys do and “continue to read more in adulthood.”
  • “Introverts seem to be a little bit more likely to do a lot of leisure-time reading,”
  • …”children who grew up surrounded by books tend to attain higher levels of education and to be better readers than those who didn’t, even after controlling for their parents’ education.

As Willingham explains in his book Raising Kids Who Read, three variables have a lot of influence over whether someone becomes a lifelong reader – – read on here.

—  Joe Pinsker, from “Why Some People Become Lifelong Readers” (The Atlantic, Sept 19, 2019)

Photo: Pexels by Maël BALLAND

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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Source: inloveforever

And I did rise…

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(He) handed me a copy of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. “In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree is where Siddhartha grew up.” Reading that sentence for the first time in the small bedroom I shared with Charlie, it was as if I were reading about myself: In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the highway near the droning automobiles, in the shade of the pine trees, in the shade of the dead-end street is where Tom Lowe Jr. grew up. Siddhartha and his search for who he was meant to be, it was me on that river, it was me on those banks, and it was me who began to see books as doorways to worlds that could only help me rise in this one. And I did rise. I sure as hell did.

— Andre Dubus III, Such Kindness: A Novel (W.W. Norton, June 6, 2023)

Notes:

Los Angeles Times Book Review by Lorraine Berry, June 8, 2023: ‘Sand and Fog’ author Andre Dubus III crafts a white-working-class Buddha story.

In a culture in which men are taught from an early age to overpower any obstacle, to ignore their feelings, to control a problem rather than surrender to it, to talk but not to listen, it would be easy to mock a novel about a man who chooses empathy. Dubus probes at masculinity’s wounds, its core beliefs about earning money as a means of caring for others, and exposes the selfishness and emptiness at its core.

Tom becomes, then, an alternative model of masculinity. To figure out his place in this community, he will have to make himself vulnerable and soft rather than brittle and mean. Dubus, meanwhile, models this vulnerability by risking earnestness inside of a literary culture that rewards the armor of irony. He reminds me of Rilke, who wrote to a young poet about how he needed to be patient, to learn the lessons of pain. To recognize that the paralysis of suffering deafens us to our own emotions. “Such Kindness” is an astonishing novel about all these feelings, and the actions they call forth when we pay attention.

Read it.

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Take a moment for yourself…Every day. A Moment. A moment where YOU are your own priority. Just you… Not your work…not your filthy house, not anything. Just you…. Whatever you need, whatever you want, whatever you seek, reconnect with it in that moment…Then recommit…

On the other hand, wasn’t that the very definition of life? Constant adaptations brought about by a series of never-ending mistakes? ….

And as humans, we’re by-products of our upbringings, victims of our lackluster educational systems, and choosers of our behaviors. In short, the reduction of women to something less than men, and the elevation of men to something more than women, is not biological: it’s cultural. And it starts with two words: pink and blue. Everything skyrockets out of control from there…

— Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel (Doubleday, April 5, 2022)

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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There is something about churning through books that induces envy and even admiration, never more than at this time of year when piles of finished tomes are splashed across social media. Bragging rights seem to go to those who have read lots of books and read them quickly – how many times have you seen someone boast about finishing 10 books in a year? What about five?

But there is power in reading slowly, something the Chinese-American author Yiyun Li tells her creative writing students at Princeton University. “They say, ‘I can read 100 pages an hour’,” she says. “But I say, ‘I don’t want you to read 100 pages an hour. I want you to read three pages an hour’.”

That’s the speed Li is happy to read at, even if she is re-reading a familiar text. “People often say they devoured a book in one sitting. But I want to savour a book, which means I give myself just 10 pages a day of any book.” On an average day, Li, best known for her novels A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and Where Reasons End, reads 10 different books, spending half an hour on each title.

At that pace it can take Li up to three weeks to finish a novel. “When you spend two to three weeks with a book, you live in that world,” she says. “I think reading slowly is such an important skill. Nobody has ever talked about it, or taught me that. I’m a very patient reader. Even if it’s a very compelling book. I don’t want to rush from the beginning to the end.”

Elizabeth Strout, the Booker-shortlisted author of Olive Kitteridge and the Lucy Barton books, is also taking books at a more tranquil pace. “I was never a fast reader [but] I think I read more slowly than I used to. This is partly to savour every word. The way a sentence sounds to my ear is so important to me in the whole reading experience, and I always want to get it all – like when you read poetry.”

These words hit a nerve because I am an archetypal impatient reader, desperate to have finished a book as soon as I start. I want to know what happens – now. Ever since I started keeping track of the books I read (because I was sick of forgetting what I’d read) I’ve wanted to read more, to read faster.

So, in an effort to follow Li’s advice, I resolve both to linger and to juggle more than one book […]

Taking my time with multiple books at once feels liberating; as if I have permission to pick up books I’ve spent years meaning to tackle. I’m not promising never to cane something again but I really think Li is on to something. Oh, and I’m at 85 books for the year, not that I’m counting.

— , from ‘I want to savour every word’: the joy of reading slowly‘ (The Guardian, December 2, 2022). Bragging rights seem to go to people who devour books, but, as this impatient reader found, turning the pages over many days or even weeks can immerse one deeper in the writer’s world