Do you read books?

I'd guess I read anywhere from 2-4 books a year. My attention span is awful when it comes to reading. I always have something better to do, like cleaning out my DVR or finishing another season of Madden.

This year was abnormal. I think I read 5 books.

My wife reads about 498347365 books every year, though. It's called picking up the slack. She's very good at that.

 

Homer: Marge, I'm bored
Marge: Why don't you read something?
Homer: Because I'm trying to reduce my boredom.

 

Exactly. Reading gets old for me real quick. Plus, it makes me sleepy.

 

I still read real, honest-to-goodness books (about one or two a week), and lately have been doing my part to keep Borders in business...really. (Unfortunately, my help is apparently needed).

I go there about once a week to browse and buy, checking out the Science Fiction, Biography, History and Religion sections on a regular basis, and picking up whatever current fiction that catches my fancy. I read, sometimes long into the night, before going to sleep each night, and I still enjoy periodic trips to the library, too. I have not done it yet but plan to purchase an e-reader soon.

I use the internet not so much for casual, recreational reading but to keep up with sports and the sports media as a matter of work-related course, and also for general search/research purposes.

Basically, I read books for pleasure and use the internet as a tool. The reading for each mode is different.

 

I probably read 5-6 books a year. Most of the books I read this year were about America's working poor (how ironic) but they were all excellent reads. Best book I read this year was "There Are No Children Here" by Alex Kotlowitz. Always fascinating to read about life in the CHA homes during its heyday.

I still flip through Homicide every so often.

 

Alternate history? Do tell. Recommendations?

 

Another question crossed my mind while spending entirely too much at Borders yesterday -- how do people read multiple books at the same time? I prefer to focus on one at a time, but maybe I'm the stupid one here. Is there some benefit to hopping between subjects?

 

See Texas textbooks.

 

You don't read books that overlap. It's easy to read a Civil War history and the latest Ian McEwan at the same time, for example. If I'm reading something that requires a lot of intellectual effort, I'll almost always have a murder mystery going at the same time.

 

I love reading. Those quality paperbacks (in the $10-14 range) feel so good in my hands. I love those. Almost always fiction because I read so much during the day I need to escape. I'm on a Henning Mankell kick right now (Swede, already finished the Steig Larsson trilogy).

 

Spent most of the year reading The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers - glad I got through it, learned a lot - but I really enjoy starting a new book and finishing one. Received a Kindle as a present but it was re-gifted, I like the real thing - let alone I have bookshelves full of books I fully intend to read.
I'm reading True Compass - the Ted Kennedy autobiography. It's very well done, written in an episodic style that kind of reminds me of Forrest Gump (I met Babe Ruth, had the Pope give me my First Communion...) though not very detailed or incisive.
Just received Col. Roosevelt (the last of the Morris biographies) and the monstrous Autobiography of Mark Twain. When I saw it was just the first of three volumes, I shuddered.

 

I frickin' LOVE the Wallander series by Mankell. Between that and the Millenium trilogy I need to get a job with the Swedish Opera.