Reading: activity, filler, indulgence?

[tamaranth]

Thinking about my attitude to reading and how it's changed, and how come I read so few books compared to a couple of years ago.

Sometimes reading is indulgence: this is often what happens when I reread old favourites, or read fanfiction. Intellectual laziness.

Sometimes reading is a task, as when I read a book for review or bookclub: also, when I've started a book and set it aside half-read, finishing it becomes a task.

Sometimes it's filler: I'll read while I'm on the train, while I'm waiting for something to happen, in bed before I fall asleep (subject to cat).

When did I stop thinking of reading as an activity, something that was fun?

Comments

[andrewducker]

Turning something into a job tends to make it less fun. I started off writing movie reviews (back in 2003) for fun, after 9 months found it made watching movies less fun (because I was constantly distracted by thoughts of writing the review) and forced myself to close out the year before stopping writing them. Anything that I _have_ to do becomes less fun, so I try to avoid turning fun things into a job.

So far badminton and computer programming are the only two things that have escaped this :->

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

when I've started a book and set it aside half-read, finishing it becomes a task

WORD

I have a pile of tasks at the side of the bed. It doesn't makes sense, because they were fun until something distracted me.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

When you work it out, please share. I have a huge pile of books I want to read, but I have completely lost my way. I no longer regard a book as fun, I regard it as duty, and good for me. Even when I'm enjoying the book.

[devilgate.livejournal.com]

I don't see those as mutually exclusive, though. It could be a task, filler, and fun; or a task and an indulgence (and fun). Though it wouldn't necessarily be so, of course.

Also completing a task, even if it's not a particularly enjoyable one, can be a pleasure: I was glad to finish Orhan Pamuk's Snow a while back, even though getting through it had been a chore.

[rickybee.livejournal.com]

I agree with your commenters. I used to read frankly inane numbers of books (fiction, for pleasure) until simple overload made me pull up. And since then, maybe 10%, with no sign of return? And much slower, as though to savour. Unfortunately I am as bad as ever with non-fiction, having purpose to read for or not. My one real concern is that local authorities will take my relative lack of borrowing as evidence that 'people don't use libraries any more', or other nonsensical reason, to close them down.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Yup. Academics invariably don't read anything they don't have to anymore. Even worse, i now completely associate books as what I do in airports/on planes (where no Internet), which ain't good.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

I shift in and out of hardly reading anything to devouring a book in an afternoon and going on ot the next to reading steadily when I have time. pick only books you get the spark for as 'filler' reading and maybe it will turn back into fun?