What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks — which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be “reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.On the simplest level, reading is reading anything with words on it. I read newspapers and fiction and cook books and biographies and ... well anything I can lay my hands on.
Having said that I do try and read at least 12 "real" book each year. By "real" books I mean books that have been nominated for the Booker, Nobel or similar Prizes. I choose these because they take me outside my comfort level of things that I might choose without really thinking - I heard a good review, it is in my library or whatever. And no I don't always make my goal but it is a goal nonetheless :-)
I also have a wonderful friend that shares her choices with me - and although I love them all, they aren't books that I would have necessarily chosen for myself. At the moment I am finishing "The Women of Deh Koh" by Erike Friedl. Like the "real" books, my friend's choices challenge my mind.
Knowing that others do not necessarily share my passion for reading, I will celebrate them reading anything - comics, women's magazines, Mills and Boons. Let's face it, you have to pick up the passion somehow :-)
Booking Through Thursday
6 comments:
I agree. The only thing that doesn't classifed as reading IMO is anything that reads like an instruction or one that doesn't read like a story.
Happy BTT!
I agree with the "passion" and feel strongly we all had to practice to become good readers!
I totally agree with your last sentence!
What wonderful comments! I guess it it easy to be positive and passionate3 when we all love our books :-)
I have four books on the go at the moment..but will read anything, anywhere...lol...I was going to say I dont count comics as reading...
but as a child I devoured Snoopy, Archic, Mad magazine, so it fueled my passion for words and books of a later age...
Its funny that I should visit your blog today after just reading about 'reading' last night. In her book, Thunder and Lightning, Natalie Goldberg mentions an article in the New York Times that stated:"Reading is the highest activity of the mind." She goes on to say: "Though from the outside we seem to be sitting still...all our mental machinery is roaring away."
Reading is creative, full of imagery, imagination, connection to the writer and our own discoveries that we pull from deep within us. Unlike electronic information, we have to work for it and use all our mental resources. Tons of fun!
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