Seems like a ridiculous question, like “who likes food?”
Books is such a broad category. TV Guide is a book. A person doesn’t even have to be literate to like a book of landscape photography. Who doesn’t like a telephone book? What about notebooks? They are useful for writing down addresses. What about a book of trading stamps? You could redeem it for a new set of spoons or something!
Who likes books? I think most people like books. If one were to ask “who likes novels?” that might be a whole different matter, but even that encompasses a huge variety.
Fair enough, Walden, but I know a few people who do not read. At least, not for pleasure. They read road-signs and thumb through newspapers and magazines, but when confronted with a book their reaction is “Ugh!”.
And there are those who think that Maeve Binchy is Wonderful and Dan Brown is a genius, but go pale with confronted with something challenging, like “Treasure Island”.
I read a lot. I was stumped recently by Lord Dunsany’s memoirs. I ploughed through one volume but refused at the second. Fella likes his huntin’, don’t ye know. Accounts of the animals he killed do not make interesting reading. At least, not to me.
Yeah, I was gonna chime in there, too. Our area actually got more
telephone books (due to increased competition) right about the time
that the Internet should have been killing them. They’re bulky, slow
to look things up, and they require a lot of dead tree. I recycle mine
immediately.
My friend worked for the county department that handles recycling,
and they begged the companies not to send them any (because they
get one per worker, and they know what a pain in the recycling bin
the books are), but a truckload of the buggers were delivered anyway.
You can’t stop 'em from coming!
Speaking of books, I don’t understand some people’s aversion to the library.
These are people who read regularly, they just insist on buying the book (or
borrowing it from a friend who owns it). Does the library have a stigma the
way public transportation does for some people?
I still refuse to use one anymore. We keep a yellow pages book because
my wife thumbs through the restaurant section occasionally if we’re trying
to decide on a place to eat.
I don’t use the library, but only because I like to own books. Used the library heaps when I was growing up though. They’re great for other things to, our central library here also rents CDs and certain items of equipment that would otherwise be hard to get (recording kit, badge making machines for example) for some people.
I just had a small bit of extra money come my way so went and ordered 3 books online at lunchtime (along with the complete west wing boxset). Trouble is I’ve already got a small pile of unread stuff to get through, so dunno when I’m going to get a chance to read these ones.
Weird. I had a couple of librarians in elementary school who drove into our
heads that damaging a book was akin to electrocuting kittens. They even
had some of those 70’s films with titles like “Johnny the Book-Beater, Will
He Ever Amount to Anything?” Johnny always ended up dieing alone in the
gutter, bemoaning his treatment of books.
I still can’t make myself even fold down a corner of my own books. Perhaps
my grandchildren will be thrilled to inherit a pristine copy of "Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis".
Well…I used to work in a library and I know lots of library employees who are like that. I was a bit of an outcast in that I openly folded my books “the wrong way,” wrote in them, and such, but c’est la vie.
Yeah! G.W. Bush. We use the library all the time, buy used books from their book sales, read them, take them back for resale. Bought a book new years ago gave it to the Library Friends for sale, bought it back two years later thinking I hadn’t read it before I never check out cook books as I am too messy. Books are sacred and better than Kindle, fer sure!
I’m agree. I never fold the corners of a page to mark my spot. I’ll use the dust jacket if it’s a hardcover but a good old piece of toilet paper makes a decent bookmark in any situation. Generally I just remember the page where I left off.
I also don’t like any marks on the pages other than the text.
That’s for my pleasure reading. For textbooks I mark the heck out of them.
akin to electrocuting kittens. That would be a great band name.
I mostly read non-fiction, and I do tend to mark up books I’m studying, so I can go back later and refer. I don’t read fiction a lot because I tend to get too absorbed in a good story, and I become pretty much worthless at anything else until I finish. So it’s a luxury I seldom indulge in.
Having said that, has anyone read “Quo Vadis” by Sienkiewicz? I’m about halfway through it and thoroughoy enthralled. The first few chapters are a bit slow, with a great deal of boring detail about the daily life of ancient Romans…but once the story gets going, wow. It has some very enlightening insights on early Christianity, and an intriguing love story, too. No car chases or explosions yet, though, so it only gets 7 out of 10.
Have you read The Deluge by Sienkiewicz? I have it in Polish too if you’re interested? Believe me you won’t miss the car chases and there are plenty of explosions. It takes about two weeks to get through it.
We use the library all the time, buy used books from their book sales, read them, take them back for resale. Bought a book new years ago gave it to the Library Friends for sale, bought it back two years later thinking I hadn’t read it before