Life In 19x19

Just curious, seeing how uptight Jordus seemed to be without Internet access for a couple of hours...

Basically, I'm curious how many people are recreational readers, ie, who read books other than for obligations such as school (and other than go books). I feel that a lot of what can make you a reader - the ability to focus for longer periods of time, something that my generation didn't have to worry about when young - can help you when you play go.

In that case I'll be one of the first to vote.... yes I do read non-go books, but not regularly... I used to, then I ended up reading all the good ones... and going to the library is such a hassle, not to mention the fees they are putting out now. Somewhere around 50-75 cents per book per day that you are late. Ridiculous.... I'll be visiting Barnes noble a little more often, but since they are out of town not that often. Can you believe that they closed the only big bookstore(Walden's) in town? It is like the city is encouraging illiteracy...

Nowadays I read more of the controversial books on religion, such as books written by Richard Dawkins and Lee Strobel. I'd like to go more into my reasons for reading such books, but I'm going to play safe and keep as far away from the TOS as possible.

I also have a morbid fascination for zombie books (just read World War Z recently, it was sweet) or anything involving human survival (most memorable book for me in this department would have to be Battle Royale).

Finally, I will admit that I do read some Math/Stat textbooks that are not required for courses and strictly for enjoyment and curiosity (currently reading Probability Theory by Jaynes). Definitely don't read these books the same way as I do for the others though, I probably spend on average 20 minutes per page.

Also, poker books - got hooked after reading Harrington's volumes.

Jordus wrote:In that case I'll be one of the first to vote.... yes I do read non-go books, but not regularly... I used to, then I ended up reading all the good ones... and going to the library is such a hassle, not to mention the fees they are putting out now. Somewhere around 50-75 cents per book per day that you are late. Ridiculous.... I'll be visiting Barnes noble a little more often, but since they are out of town not that often. Can you believe that they closed the only big bookstore(Walden's) in town? It is like the city is encouraging illiteracy...

There's always Amazon; probably even cheaper than local bookstores.

Gee, I wish I could complain about a library. See I live in a village in the French Alps, and, being American, read more in English than in French. So no libraries here to get books; even the French books I want are not available in our tiny local library... So I spend way too much at Amazon.

kirkmc wrote:There's always Amazon; probably even cheaper than local bookstores.

And Book Depository (free shipping worlwide).

I read a lot of non-go books. Most of the time, if I get a book I'll read it. The only exception so far have been some Kafka books. I'll get back to them eventually. :/

I'm now reading Speaker for the Dead, of the Ender series, and have American Gods to read after that.

I usually have a problem reading go books because of that, I have to force myself a bit to read them.

kirkmc wrote:
There's always Amazon; probably even cheaper than local bookstores.

Gee, I wish I could complain about a library. See I live in a village in the French Alps, and, being American, read more in English than in French. So no libraries here to get books; even the French books I want are not available in our tiny local library... So I spend way too much at Amazon.

Try one of these links:
http://www.abebooks.com/
http://www.bookfinder.com/

I always have a pile of at least 5 or 6 books next to the bed waiting to be read on a wide variety of topics, but never any fiction. I usually read for 20 minutes of so each evening. I think that the pile right now has books on silver investing, linguistics, gardening and the philosophy of science. Unfortunately I don't have time to read much during the day except that I read a lot online from the various precious metal investment forums I belong to.

DrStraw wrote:

kirkmc wrote:
There's always Amazon; probably even cheaper than local bookstores.

Gee, I wish I could complain about a library. See I live in a village in the French Alps, and, being American, read more in English than in French. So no libraries here to get books; even the French books I want are not available in our tiny local library... So I spend way too much at Amazon.

Try one of these links:
http://www.abebooks.com/
http://www.bookfinder.com/

Yes, I buy from them too, but their shipping costs to France are higher.

Also check http://www.bookmooch.com, a great book-swapping site.

kirkmc wrote:Also check http://www.bookmooch.com, a great book-swapping site.

That looks like a good site. I had never heard of it. I just bookmarked it.

Araban wrote:Finally, I will admit that I do read some Math/Stat textbooks that are not required for courses and strictly for enjoyment and curiosity (currently reading Probability Theory by Jaynes).

Jaynes is wonderful, isn't he? May I recommend A Treatise on Probability, by John Maynard Keynes? Not so much for the math as for the philosophy.

Also, poker books - got hooked after reading Harrington's volumes.

You might like The Education of a Poker Player, by Herbert O. Yardley. Not for the poker, but because Yardley was quite a character. He was a codebreaker, and the founder of MI-8, the "American Black Chamber" (the title of his first book).

I read quite a lot of books. A couple of years back I switched to audio books (but I guess that still counts as recreational "reading"). I like to "read" (listen to) fantasy books and I usually also enjoy books that are set around the Victorian era (with steam engines ect) I think I read around 1 book a week on average.

I really like the books from Philip Pullman. both "His Dark Materials"and the "Sally Lockhart series" are great in my opinion.

I also enjoyed the "Twilight Saga" (Stephenie Meyer), "Temeraire series" (Naomi Novik) and a lot of others (too big a list to post here I think)

Sometimes I read a scientific book for recreational reading (from for example Stephen Hawking or Brian Greene) but not that often.

Besides that I also read quite a lot of short online publications about various topics. (but those do not really count)

I love reading, though I don't read as much as I used to. I mostly stick to science fiction and fantasy. Most recently, I read 'The Unincorporated Man', which was great, and a surprise as I grabbed it off a shelf nearly at random. 'The Book of Flying' by Keith Miller is very good, in a 'sad but beautiful fairy tale' kind of way. Actually, his 'The Book on Fire' is great too, though it is very... absurdist? Nihilist? I'm not sure the proper word to classify it. Roger Zelazny and Jack Chalker were some of my favorites growing up. From a young age, I loved Orson Scott Card, Piers Anthony, and so on.

Given this taste in books, does anyone have a good one to recommend?

i cant actually say i've ever read a go book...however

i read pretty often, usually going through a book every week or so....favorite authors are stephen king and tom clancy , and also read a couple chapters out of the bible every night

i also like to read a lot of philosophy books, they interest me greatly

Araban wrote:Nowadays I read more of the controversial books on religion, such as books written by Richard Dawkins and Lee Strobel. I'd like to go more into my reasons for reading such books, but I'm going to play safe and keep as far away from the TOS as possible.
...

I wonder if you've read "The God Delusion", "The Case for Christ" or "Evidence that Demands a Verdict"...

I used to read hundreds. Most of the 'classics' - Don quixote, Moby Dick etc and modern literature. Also quite a few non-fiction - History of modern Surgery for example, philosophy (e.g. Foucault), religion and science unrelated to my day job. Since getting into Go (about 2 & a half years ago, and becoming a parent), I've pretty much only read Go books, apart for a few Japanese authors like Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (rather than Mishima, though I have read his stuff - most of it's pretty bad I think), and some others that seem interesting enough to drag me away from a problem book - like Ayn Rand's Fountainhead.

edit: Proust's in search of lost time series is something I've been reading for years - every time I get stuck travelling somewhere.