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

[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.