Reading Survey

[coalescent]

hddod has a post about what she's read this year, and asks about reading habits. I posted my answers there, but I think I'll repeat them here, neatened up slightly, and I'd be interested to see answers for other people on my friendslist.

So, how much do you read?

Probably at least an hour every weekday, and ideally I'd like at least one solid morning or afternoon at the weekend. If I go too long without a proper dose of story, I can get cranky.

What have you been reading this year?

So far, this, which seems to work out to about 50 books and a whole bunch of short fiction magazines.

(The asterisks are there to mark anything I thought notable at the time; this does not provide particularly fine discrimination. It's more likely that un-asterisked titles are disappointing in some way than it is that asterisked titles are excellent. Square brackets indicate that I've started a book but not yet finished it.)

How do you find time to read?

I've got into the habit of reading when I get home - I find it's a good buffer between work-think and home-think and jobs like, say, having to cook. I also find that if I try to read after about 10pm then I fail miserably, so I have to get my pages in early. I don't often let myself get caught up in a book during the week, because there are usually other things I want to do with the evening.

Train journeys are good reading time. That's one reason why I like them, even though they can be more expensive than driving (and also a reason why I think that being able to commute by train wouldn't be such a terrible thing). Some people I know read at work, in breaks or at lunchtime, but I've never really got into that; I tried for a while to read a short story at lunch every day, but I kept getting distracted by conversations.

Given two hours a night for a week, how many books would you get through?

That depends on the length of the book! I might get through Quicksilver in that time, or two normal-length books. Generally I read about 60 pages an hour. Reading short fiction is usually slower, because you have to restart your imagination every twenty pages to keep up. I don't say that that's a bad thing, mind ...

EDIT: And for comparison, here are my answers for film and TV.

So, how much do you watch?

Not nearly as much as I read. I go to the cinema probably three times a month, and I rarely watch broadcast TV. If I do, it's strictly of the appointment variety - something looks interesting, and I tune in. I almost never just switch the TV on because it's there. Most of the time I live in TivoWorld, except without the benefit of having a Tivo.

What have you been watching this year?

Having said the above, my equivalent list still looks quite healthy. I'm not sure how I've managed that. On tv, there's certainly not much this autumn that I'm looking foward to; next spring brings Carnivale and Global Frequency, but that's about it. In the cinema, there are a few more things - The Village, Sky Captain, The Incredibles - but still not that many. Mind you, I suspect this is partly because I'm just not as aware of film release dates as I am of book publication dates, or even as I am of TV schedules.

How do you find time to watch?

It's sometimes hard - there are other things, like reading and seeing people, that I prioritise over TV. For cinema, cost is a factor; even if there were a lot of films I wanted to see, I couldn't see them all, particularly since the people I most want to see them with are in London.

Comments

[ex-susumu64.livejournal.com]

So, how much do you read?

Currently, about a 30 mins to an hour a day on the bus or tube, plus anything up five hours at weekends (depending on combination of train journeys from London to Hastings).

What have you been reading this year?

Gywneth Jones - Bold As Love (abandoned due to badness)
A Fire Upon The Deep - Vernor Vinge
Number 9 Dream - David Mitchell
Rescue Me - Christopher Hart (read on holiday after consuming everything else in the condo, including the instructions for my snowboard bindings)
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
The City Seen as a Garden of Ideas - Peter Cook (work in progress)
Natural History - Justina Robson
Yellow Dog - Martin Amis
Vernon God Little - Dirty But Clean Pierre
Empire - Niall Ferguson
The Ipcress File - Len Deighton
The Anti-Death League - Kingsley Amis
The Year of Our War - Steph Swanson (still reading this)

How do you find time to read?

Frankly, I don't. I used to read absolutely loads, especially when I was at school, but the Internet has destroyed my ability to read (and write) for long periods and I need to learn (to paraphrase Why Don't You) to turn off the computer and do something more interesting instead. I've been doing more travelling this year, though, so I think I have already read more than I did in 2003.

Given two hours a night for a week, how many books would you get through?

Probably a couple of average sized novels. I've got a big backlog of Martin Amises, and they're all quite short, so I'm quite hopeful for my nebulous New Reading Regime over the coming months.

This year's films (excluding things I've seen before) have been

Lost in Translation
Donnie Darko
2009: Lost Memories
Robot Stories
Master and Commander (+ on plane + sleeping pills = can't remember any of it)
Shaun of the Dead
The Day After Tomorrow
Finding Nemo (DVD)
The Ladykillers (original)
Shrek 2
Around the World in 80 Days

And I generally only ever regularly watch Eastenders, Channel 4 News and Grand Designs on TV.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

No love for Bold as Love? I haven't got to it yet, but it's in my pile somewhere. What didn't you like about it?

Empire intrigues me.

And ah, I remember Why Don't You? :)

[ex-susumu64.livejournal.com]

It turns out that I'm incompatible with Bold as Love's hippy sensibilities.

Empire was absolutely fascinating - very highly recommended.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I noticed that Amazon was offering Empire for 3.99, so I've ordered a copy. It'll arrive when they ship my pre-order of Exultant, which could make for interesting contrast reading. :)

[white_hart]

If you want a second opinion on Bold as Love, I thought it was a stunning book. Each to their own, I suppose...

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by your abbreviations.

What do these mean:

(fn, cw [...])

(fn, stnd [...])

(sr [...])

:o)

Best,

Gareth

P. S. I'll be posting a list of stuff I read soon, along with a list of things I've seen, if I can put a list together.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

fn = first novel
stnd = standalone
sr = series
cw = continuing world

:)

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

So, how much do you read?
In termtime I used to read nothing for weeks on end. Now, it's probably a couple of hours a day depending on whether I'm really gripped by something.

What have you been reading this year?
Books? I don't have any subs to fiction magazines, so I tend to read novels almost exculsively unless I get lent some collection of short fiction.

I'm now going to try and list all the books I've read this year.
Alastair Reynolds, Absolution Gap
Dan Simmons, Ilium
Stephen Baxter, Time, Space, Origin, and Coalescent
Michall Marshall Smith, Spares
Robert Sawyer, Frameshift
Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire/Order of the Phoenix
Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Gold/Company
Maeve Binchy, The Copper Beech/Scarlet Feather/Evening Class
Charlie Stross, The Atrocity Archives
John Wyndham, The Midwich Cuckoos
PF Hamilton, Pandora's Star
Richard Morgan, Altered Carbon
Phillip Pullman, Northern Lights Trilogy
Steph Swainston, The Year of Our War
Theodore Sturgeon, More than Human
Matt Beaumont, e
Eric Brown, New York Nights
Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep
Christopher Priest, The Separation
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (non-fiction)
Simon Reeve, One Day in September (nf)
John Sulston, The Common Thread (nf)
Rose Collins, Colonel Barker's Monstrous Regiment (nf)
Tom Mangold, Plague Wars (nf)
Douglas Frantz, Celebration USA (nf)
Michael Moore, Adventures in a TV Nation (nf)

It's not a huge list, but most of this has been read since mid-June.

How do you find time to read?
I have not a lot else to do at the moment, really. So I fill my days with reading, internet faffing, a bit of TV, and lots of sleep. For interviews I ended up spending about 10 hours a week on trains, and that got thorugh a lot, plus I took a pile on holiday and read them on the beach.

Later this afternoon I am going to investigate the feasibility of reading books while on the exercise bike. I think doing this on the treadmill would spell disaster.

Given two hours a night for a week, how many books would you get through?
A lot. I think I'm reading at about 60 - 80 pages an hour at the moment, depending on the style of the book and whether I've read it before, which seems to speed me up.

So that's about 700 pages a week, so one or two mid-sized books, or about half of a Peter F Hamilton novel.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's a bit of a monster comment. I also realised I've read Ender's Game this year, too.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

How was _Ender's Game_?

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I liked it a lot. Some of the twists were fairly predictable, but overall it's a good read, and not bloated out to a greater length than it needs to be. Some of the parts with Ender's siblings as political pundits were somewhat boring, though.

I've heard the sequels are less good and get steadily worse, so I'm keeping away from those. And from Orson Scott Card's own political views.

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

Nope. They get better. Well, most of the way. Speaker for the Dead is better, though very different, and the series peaks somewhere in the middle of the third book Xenocide. The ending of that is a little contrived but then things go *rapidly* downhill in Children of the Mind.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I have recently finished Ender's saga, and I found the sequel _Speaker for the Dead_ quite a good read. The style is different from _EG_, we meet another sentient species and the plot is compelling enough. The last two books, _Xenocide_ and _Children of the Mind_, tie up the loose ends.

At around the end of Speaker, there comes a dialogue about ramen species, what it means and how the borders can be extended. I still find it hard to believe that Card wrote that bit, given his current political philosophy.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Maeve Binchy?

And I really must try to read non-fiction. But I always think, well, I could read that, or I could read this new novel ...

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Writer of fat books that women take on holiday. Gossipy stories about Irish people doing stuff, basically. I'm using them as quick and reasy reads while my brain recovers enough to read books that take effort and thinking to read.

She wrote Circle of Friends, if you've seen the film.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I know who she is! My mum reads Maeve Binchy. I was just surprised that you did. :-p

[snowking.livejournal.com]

My God! Liz isn't as cool as we thought!

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I didn't know how well you knew non SF&F authors :p

All the Maeve Binchy in this house belongs to my mum, anyway. I just end up reading them when I want a change.

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

That's almost as bad as admitting to reading Mills & Boon because there was nothing else left to read. ;)

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

This is a bad time to admit to reading Mills and Boon, isn't it?

(In my defense, I was young and stuck at my grandparent's for the day, and I'd already read my grandad's guide to carp fishing.)

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I have written stories to avoid reading M&Bs... And then the cosmic wheel turned, and they were the only kind of fiction I could read through my first pregnancy. Everything else, with real characters and good stories, caused too much emotional upheaval. I read a lot of non-fiction, and I read way too much romance.

[white_hart]

I always think non-fiction is a bit like brain sorbet - I find some novels very difficult to get out of my head, which means I have trouble reading the next one; at that point a nice level-headed dose of (usually) history is just what I need...

[white_hart]

I've answered this here.

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

Mine's here

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

So, how much do you read?

About an hour a day. Maybe. 15 minutes on the train into work. 25 on the way out. Half an hour before bed. Anywhere between 0 and 6 hours at the weekend.

What have you been reading this year?

This is what I read up to the 1st July. Since then I've read:

The Story Of An African Farm - Olive Schreiner
My Life As A Fake - Peter Carey
The Tax Inspector - Peter Carey
Absolution Gap - Alastair Reynolds
The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break - Steven Sherrill
Manners - Robert Newman
The Light Ages - Ian R. MacLeod
The Waves - Virgina Wolff

So that's 33 books so far - I've not exactly been caning it.

How do you find time to read?

I have to commute and unless I'm properly drunk I can always read before bed. Beer does get in the way though as do school books. Books are a bit like food though, eventually my body will always remind me.

Given two hours a night for a week, how many books would you get through?

Two?

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

I've already posted a nearly comprehensive list of things I've read this year (although the last three are left over from last year). Since I posted that I've read:

• Mapping the Deep


• Rapid Development


• Rubicon


• The Pragmatic Programmer

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

This is what I've been reading this year:

Books:

1. Psi-ence Fiction by Chris Boucher


2. Hy Brasil by Margaret Elphinstone


3. Cop Hater by Ed McBain


4. The Natural by Bernard Malamud


5. The King is Dead by Jim Lewis


6. Telegram from Guernica by Nicholas Rankin


7. Granta 83: This Overheating World


8. Mapping Mars by Oliver Morton


9. The Hunters by James Salter


10. Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane


11. Small World by Mark Buchanan


12. The Battle of Hurtgen Forest by Charles Whiting


13. Aircraft of World War II by Robert Jackson


14. From Here to Eternity by James Jones


15. The Captain with the Whiskers by Benedict Kiely


16. The Labyrinth Makers by Anthony Price


17. Midnight Cab by James W. Nichol


18. The Book of Proper Names by Amélie Nothomb


19. The School of Whoredom by Pietro Aretino


20. The Collector by John Fowles


21. The Great War by Marc Ferro


22. Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Richard Cowper


23. The Magus by John Fowles


24. John Fowles: A Life In Two Worlds by Eileen Warburton


25. Trenches by Scott Mills


26. Hiroshima by John Hersey


27. The Path to Power by Robert A. Caro


28. The Last Family in England by Matt Haig


29. Snow by Orhan Pamuk


30. In the Company of Soldiers by Rick Atkinson


31. Land's End by Michael Cunningham


32. Pilot's Notes for Beaufighter TFX, produced by the Air Ministry (1946)


33. Millennium People by J. G. Ballard


34. Monturiol's Dream by Matthew Stewart


35. The Natural by Joe Klein


36. Emergence by Steven Johnson


37. Understanding Mars (OU textbook)


38. Beagle by Colin Pillinger


39. Prehistory: A Very Short Introduction


40. Kennedy by Robert Dallek


41. The Hottest State by Ethan Hawke


42. McSweeney's 13 - The Comics Issue by Chris Ware (ed.)

Comics:

• The Amazing Spider-Man #501-#509


• Batman: Death and the Maidens #6


• Daredevil #54-#62


• Gotham Central #14 & #15


• Human Target #4-#12


• New X-Men #149-#154


• Planetary #18 & #19


• Queen & Country #21-#25


• Red #3


• The Spectacular Spider-Man #7-#9


• Strangehaven #16


• Wolverine #8-#17


• Wonder Woman #198-#200

So, how much do you read?

I try and read during my short commute to and from work, but sometimes conditions don't allow for this. On most of these commutes I'll read a book, but sometimes I read a paper; if I do read a paper, I've usually pin-pointed in advance an article I want to finish.

At work I find it too busy to settle properly and read, so don't usually get through a great deal. But on some days I'll trek out to the British Museum and read for a while in the open air.

At home I read whenever I get a chance. I'll usually try for a hour or two each evening, and on the weekend (or on my weekday days off) I'll attempt to settle down and read for several hours. However, I've embarked on a couple of Open University courses, and these are taking away the blocks of time on the weekend\weekdays.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend checking out other James Salter as well. A Sport And A Pastime is excellent.

And The Thin Red Line by Jones, if you've not already.

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

I've read aSaaP - really enjoyed it. I've also got Cassada lined up.

Have you read From Here to Eternity? I keep planning to buy The Thin Red Line, but it is only available in a not-very-attractive film tie-in edition.

I may just cave, and buy it anyway.

And I picked up, while browsing in the London Review Bookshop a few months back, a copy of the The Pistol. It looks promising.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I've not read FHtE yet. I know exactly what you mean the cover of Red Line - I bought my copy not long after Malik's film came out and I had to shop around a bit to find this cover and even that has the dread "now a major motion picture" strapline.

As you might it expect it's nowt like the film but I like them both a lot.

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed you found that cover... I had trouble tracking it down. And I work in a bookshop. :o)

I think he's a marvellous writer. FHtE is excellent.

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

And here is what I watch:

Television:

1. Band of Brothers


2. League of Gentlemen - Season 1


3. League of Gentlemen - Season 2


4. The Prisoner [We've watched most, but not all, of this.]


5. Brideshead Revisited


6. The West Wing - Season 3


7. Prime Suspect 6


8. Prime Suspect 1


9. Prime Suspect 2


10. Prime Suspect 3


11. Hawking


12. He Knew He Was Right


13. Phoenix Nights - Season 1


14. Phoenix Nights - Season 2


15. Spaced - Season 1


16. Spaced - Season 2


17. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy


18. Twin Peaks - Season 1


19. Cambridge Spies


20. Smiley's People

Films:

1. Felicia's Journey


2. Black Hawk Down


3. This Boy's Life


4. The Game [Second viewing]


5. Le Mans


6. Skaggerak


7. The Wings of the Dove


8. The Towering Inferno


9. The Poseiden Adventure


10. Pandaemonium


11. Columbo: Murder by the Book


12. Columbo: Dagger of the Mind


13. Children of the Revolution


14. Tailor of Panama


15. Enemy of the State


16. Shaun of the Dead


17. Capturing the Freidmans


18. To End All Wars


19. Kiss the Girls


20. The Day After Tomorrow


21. Damnation Alley


22. Deep Impact [Second Viewing]


23. The Return


24. Thunderbirds


25. Fahrenheit 9/11


26. Spider-Man 2


27. Fog of War


28. Jeremy Hardy Vs. the Israeli Army


29. Japanese Story


30. Lost in Translation


31. Before Sunrise [First Cinematic Viewing]


32. Before Sunset


33. The Stepford Wives


34. Donnie Darko


35. The Village


36. Elephant


37. The Thin Red Line [Second Viewing]


38. Carnival of Souls


39. Spirited Away

So, when do you watch?

I watch whenever there is something to watch. We go to the cinema quite frequently, and I'm very pleased to have a trial membership to the LOVEFiLM DVD rental service. But our film watching does go through cycles.

The above list took quite a bit of journal-sifting, as I've not been very good about keeping film lists. This will change.

And I missed off the brain-in-neutral or background stuff I watch on TV.

(I get my news from the radio, mainly.)

Damnation Alley?

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

As in based on the Roger Zelazny book?

*checks IMDB*

Yup. Any good? Hell, it's got Jan-Michael Vincent in it so it has to be cool.

Re: Damnation Alley?

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

Who, dare I ask, is Jan-Michael Vincent. I could check IMDb, but I won't.

The film is... 3 out of 7, to use the LOVEFiLM scoring scale.

But certain individual elements might help to get it a 4 out of 7; it's one of those cult SF films you can't help but watch, and to some extent enjoy, out of simple fascination.

Re: Damnation Alley?

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

Airwolf? I was going to attempt a written rendition of the theme tune but decided against it in a rare moment of lucidity.

Re: Damnation Alley?

[scribeoflight.livejournal.com]

Of course. But I don't think I recognised him at the time...

[nwhyte]

Great survey. I've posted it to my own livejournal here.

I have no idea how to answer this

[jinty]

as I don't keep lists of books read per year (might be interesting to try, for once, just to see) and I re-read books all the time. Currently I'm reading The Vampire Lestat, I also have a Brian Aldiss short story collection vaguely on the go (the Airs of Earth), and I've packed up at least 5 books in the past week that were too late to go in the main book boxes. (This includes 2 K M Peyton books, as illustrated by Victor Ambrus and bought for 10p in OUP's corridors.)

So even when I'm busy I'm reading plenty -- I always want to read at night, in the morning over breakfast, possibly in bed before getting up (depending on how sleepy I am), and at the moment at lunchtimes at work too. This depends on how sociable I'm feeling -- I really like taking the hour to myself to put myself in another world, but having lunch with colleagues can be great too (yes, really!).

Given two hours a night for a week, how many books would you get through?
As above, depends on the length of the books, of course. But in a week like that I would expect to get through some 4-6 books. The Lestat (600 pages but very easy reading) I will have finished in the inside of 2 days, in breaks from unpacking.