I Love Books

I have a few ideas, but I'm all thinked out today.

(I'm thinked out too right now though)

I read by compulsion. If I have 5 minutes where I'm not doing anything else, I read. I read I read I read. Sometimes I worry about myself. Like I'll be thinking, wouldn't it be nice if you could go sit in a bar and read, and not have it seem all pretentious and shit. I mean, I live in a tiny tiny apartment, and on a Sunday afternoon (or hell even a Friday night sometimes) I would love to sit in the open air and drink booze and read.
I've done it, but someone always tries to talk to me about what I'm reading, and I like to be left the fuck alone when I'm reading, so...coffee shops are okay, but I like booze, dammit!

More seriously, I think it's an understandable criterion for friendship - I find it hard to imagine becoming friends with someone who never reads - but it can slip into being a measure of human worth, and that is very dangerous, I think.

I write every day, and I read copious amounts of online material, magazines, etc. Just not novels. Can't be bothered.

I dont see that this makes me a lesser person.

Would an "I Love Literature" board be fun?

Would an "I Hate Pynchon"* board be fun?

(* it's more an "if you think Pynchon is better than PKD & are unable to cogently back it up yr a tweedy fule" spittlefleck.)

Not violent my arse ;) Besides... I'm a poet... c'mon I'll ave yer. Out the back! Me an' me mates...

I might try this.

I wish I read more. I have a lot of books and work in a library, so I have no excuse. I'm just forgetful and busy.

What if somebody reads shit books? Wouldn't you take someone who'd never read a book over someone who liked, say, the work of Tony Parsons.

But anyway, if you base yr friendship on 'culture' stuff then i doubt its worth having a relationship/friendship based solely on that.

''It's like those fuckers who put pineapple on pizza.''

my brother likes that. sick fuck.

I'm afraid Nabisco is talking nonsense.

I didn't say I do make it a criterion for friendship - but all my old friends read lots of books. It's not that I wouldn't make friends with someone because they don't read, it's that I haven't done so and I think my ways of building friendships would put the odds against it. Those ways are too based on shared interests - it's what I like to talk about, so I'm less likely to develop a friendship with someone who couldn't talk interestingly about those things. It's not me assessing whether they are good enough to be my friends, it's that certain types fit with me, and they tend to be readers.

I was friends for ten years with someone who hardly read anything but music magazines. Sometimes it was frustrating (because of what he didn't know, because of what it made it difficult to discuss), but occasionally I felt that he was less lazy than I was about analyzing a situation on his own terms, rather than depending excessively on others to do his thinking. I'm not saying that reading automically leads to that, but I have to admit that, at my worst, I sometimes approach that laziness of having an author think for me, rather than thinking for myself.

damn!

''I think Nabisco's experiences show yet again how little US bars are like UK pubs.''

there is hope.

Of course not - you're very old :)

it can slip into being a measure of human worth, and that is very dangerous, I think.

Er, such is not my goal. I'm just trying to figure myself out, if necessary through examination of the bits of myself called everyone else.

Plus people will hit on you

This doesn't happen much (or I may be hit-proof). I think Dublin is less knowledge-friendly than it thinks it is. I don't feel in danger when reading a book while walking home, but I think I'm the only perosn who ever asks anyone what they're reading.

Warren Ellis has a column about comic books called Come In Alone, which he said referred to the fact that Comic Books are the only mass-medium that you always experience alone, but at roughly the same time as everyone else. So, you experience it first as a prsonal experience, and then as a cultural one, until next week when there's a new set of comics out. It might be claimed that music is like this, and getting more so (private napster/headphones vs public radios).

Books are even more indie than that: At any time, a small percentage of book-readers will be reading a "current" book. I was struck by how on the "what are you reading?" thread, after a v.small critical mass turned out to be reading the same book, it got shuttled off to its own thread, an exception that proves the rule.

Is J.K.Rowling the only "Beatlemania of books" ever? If so, is it related to her books being read aloud to classes of schoolchildren? (yes, but only because they wanted a home copy).

I was also going to say that because it comes up first on predictive phone-text, I was going to start a campaign of using "book" to mean "cool", but Andrew got there first.

I've read books in pubs loads and loads, and I do occasionally get someone starting to talk to me. I never assume they are hitting on me, since I always assume that no one fancies me.

i think you're right there!

Anyway, I'd hope no one here is implying that people who don't read a lot can't be perfectly lovely and perfectly intelligent people, cause clearly they can. But I do think there can be a cultural and even behavioral gulf between a big reader and a big non-reader -- maybe slightly bigger than with most common-interests things, since reading probably does a little more to reshape people's approaches to thinking about things. The most I'd say is that I doubt I could, say, marry someone who's not at least a moderate reader. Apart from that, whatever: I'd like it if more of the people I spent time around were heavier on reading, sure, but it's not any kind of insurmountable issue by any stretch.

(Note: with friends and acquaintances this usually has less to do with books -- people are so rarely reading the same books -- and more to do with just acquiring information in general ... following news, reading magazines, etc. This is just because I like to talk about what I guess you could call "public culture," or at least be able to make references to it and such. That's just me; conversely, I'm sure I'm completely useless to anyone who likes to talk about sports. I had this moment a month or two back where I discovered that some of my friends don't ever read our city weekly paper, which practically made my head explode: I mock-berated them for a little while, and I think at least one of them reads it every now and then these days.)

Have you heard of Jilly Cooper? I was in Laos when Score was published and they had billboards! And this in a country where most people live without running water, electricity and more than one pair of shoes (*gasp*).

An odd anecdote - the first night I was with my non-live-in, we'd just gotten out of the hot-tub and were, um, cuddling (groping?) on the floor in my living room - I'm happily getting all warmed-up - he seems to be going from warm to cool and back again. I came to find out, later, that he kept looking around at my over-flowing bookshelves and was torn between "Holy shit, I'm about to make it with the best-read woman I've ever met" and "Holy shit, there's no way I can make it with the best-read woman I've ever met." Cracks me up.

But, um - I pretty much live for books - I'll send money on them before just about anything else. All of the time. In fact, many times I'd rather be reading than doing most other things, including having sex, eating, and so forth. I don't think that is very healthy.

Film:IMDB
Music:Allmusic
Books:?

and there is lots of writing on cult films and lots of discussion on obscure music, but where do you go to find cult books?

Jan