Why do you read?

1. Because I deserve it, to perfect myself as an individual.
2. Constant reading is an indispensable factor in fulfilling man's potentials.
3. Because literature is one of the achievements of humanity. When you read those who took thought and language to the highest level you can no longer understand how there are even people who choose to live such a shallow and superficial life, voluntarily moving away from the greatest source of universal knowledge.

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There's a Hunger Hamsun reading group which is only eating when the narrator does, or there was, they might be dead by now, considering Yea Forums's reading speed and autism. Stealing it from a library if you don't have it will probably gain you points.

Reading is the only thing I enjoy in life.
I have $20 a week to spend on food, only eat once or twice a day. High CoL area. Most people spend a minimum 50 a week. I still read. Mostly I eat whatever I find on sale and a lot of eggs. I fucking hate eggs. I had eggs and oatmeal today, that's it. Been slowly losing weight over the past few months.

You must read authors with terrible prose.

unironically a great post

what gives you that impression?

the way it affects my mind, teaches, interacts with not just 'me' but with passages and points made in previous books I've loved; the short answer, friendship.

This.
I was also late in learning how to read because I didn't understand my bad nearsight as a child and hid the fact that I couldn't see very well for years. It blew my mind when I got glasses for the first time and could see regular print. I read so much to make up for lost time and I've been doing it ever since. Learning to read was incredibly difficult when I couldn't see and I am stubborn, so it enraged me to feel like the books had "won". Now I am winning.

At the very least it calms me down and mildly cures my anxiety and sometimes insomnia.

And it’s fun.

I read non-fiction because as someone in my young 20s, I'm constantly blown away by the amount of knowledge exists on certain topics. I spent my teen years reading wikipedia articles and looking at school textbooks that only grazed the surface of things. But I can read like a whole book on the Sami people and their religious practices. I'm halfway through a book on fucking garden hedges of England. Amazing.

On the other hand, I read novels because I feel like something I'm supposed to do. I don't get much out of them. I lose focus easily, and the good prose doesn't seem to justify the investment into what is usually a predictable story. But I feel almost obligated to read the classics, lest someone think they're better than me because they like Hemingway.

I do enjoy shitty fantasy tho

There's a books link that has just about all of Yea Forums meme books, post #1.

What do you even, bruv.

LITERALLY autism

I don't think you know what that word means

What book on sami peoples?

>I enjoy reading long manuals on the hedges in one specific garden type even if I have no particular interest in gardening
>I can't connect with books about people
LITERALLY
AUTISM

because it moves me and makes me feel as if i understand life better, that i can someday grasp the large story ive been waiting to see, the greatest perhaps...
who knows if ill reach that goal before my life ends; what i do know is that i'd rather be dead than not have literature. maybe with life extension technology being developed, i'll live to see the greatest stories and story man has to offer in much greater depth.

I was really just using that as an example. I haven't gotten too far in reading about them yet. These are on my to read list so far:
With the Lapps in the High Mountains: A Woman Among the Sami, 1907-1908
and
Hunters in Transition: An Outline of Early Sami History

Read Contemporary Shamanisms in Norway: Religion, Entrepreneurship, and Politics recently. It was very good, and I would recommend. Got it off of the /his/ mega that floats around sometimes.

Not what I said, but okay.

hello, pot, may I introduce you to kettle?

I like it

Mainly entertainment
Sometimes I enjoy genre like a western or horror or detective fiction
but I can also enjoy more philosophical or character driven literary fiction. Sometimes I just enjoy a writer's prose style

Because I’m too much of a brainlet to watch television.

>being this backwards

you poor fool. you have completed the trap which that user set for you. YOU HAVE COMPLETED A CIRCLE BY WHICH YOU ARE BOTH INGRATIATED WITH YOUR OWN INTELLECT. IN THIS MOMENT OF SELF SATISFACTION YOU ARE BECOME PLEBEIAN. i loathe to look on the both of you. what is this cursed land i am doomed to walk?

can I save this as pasta? thanks

Because through books you can make your own laws.

Not that poster, but I feel the same way as I don't really have the attention span to sit and watch TV or movies, yet I can somehow get myself to read an hour or more almost everyday.

you will never entrap me in this charade, villain.

wow that would suck.
For me it was eggs, potatoes, beans and cabbage.
Water for drinking. Tea was only for special occasions.

oh we're larping now? okay, this'll be fun *ahem*
how darest thou thy bosom from whence't thyself art thee??

it's fun. i want to publish fiction.

you have successfully entrapped me in this charade. remember, kids, it only takes one (You) to ruin a man entirely.

>I find it really cool that I can read the words and thoughts of people who are long dead

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A reason is to learn

Sell your computer and stop paying for your internet connection. Then buy food with the money.

Because sometimes feels like having a chit chat with a long distance fren

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If only most countries had a government funded system, both online and offline that could provide you access to books for free.

Frustration with my own ignorance, boredom, and love of creative communication.

I hate reading. There are probably a couple of reasons. One that comes to mind first is that I don't have anywhere comfortable to do it. Modern houses don't really have "sitting areas", the couch is always occupied, etc. I also have an extremely short attention span. There has been multiple occasions where I've stopped watching porn to look something up or do something, then an hour or two later I look and wonder why that tab is open. I suddenly get figity when I'm reading too. I think about my posture, mostly how my spine is oriented. I suddenly need to adjust my pants. My hair feels like it's grown ten times longer, and it irritates me.

I still try to force myself to read though. It's completely unparalleled in terms of getting hard knowledge. If topic X happens to have documentaries or YouTube videos on it then all you'll get from watching those is the ability to explain the definition of those ideas to other people. But by reading you can really master a subject. Knowledge yields power; it elevates you into a more noble status... In spite of all this high talk of reading, I don't really get much of it done. It frustrates me to no end whenever I haven't even picked up a book in a week. It's embarrassing to only finish a few books in a year. (many books I'll read 10%-50% and then put on the shelf) One of these days I'll have to find the most comfortable chair money can buy, put on a pair of noise canceling headphones, and just get to work reading from sunrise to sunset. But perhaps this line of thinking is a mistake. Reading isn't to be valued for its own sake; rather, it is to be valued for what knowledge it shares. If I'm putting down a book, or have no desire to initiate reading, then perhaps the book wasn't going to offer me much, even if I had finished it.

Desire to “win”, and desire to know the truth. The first is unshakable and probably innate. The second is probably faulty and probably drawn from too many years picking arguments on the internet and associating higher understanding with victory. Can’t tell if these motives are pure or disgusting, please advise.

false hope in getting smart

this

It’s fun

Books represent a premium on knowledge. Non-fiction books in particular give you a far deeper understanding of a subject than you would usually get.
This manifests in a deeper and richer understanding of the world.
I've also read enough books at this stage that have changed my life in positive ways that reading seems like a good investment.

Perfect on the first post.

i swear to god nobody on lit knows what a library is

Stories that would be a serious challenge to pull off in film/tv is a lot easier to do in literature. So if you're not reading you're missing out on a lot of interesting stories. And like with all media every book is like a time capsule of the attitudes, fears and hopes for the future of the era it was written and I find that very valuable.

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All right, I can sum it up by life periods.

Early Childhood (til 3rd Grade)
>Mother would read to us every night and I would take whatever looked interesting at the public and school libraries: Time Warp Trio, random books about World War 1/2, fantasy novels, Greek mythology whatever. Just a child's love of reading.

Downtrodden Bullied Years (4th through 10th Grade)
>Placed into 7th+ reading level group in 4th Grade when they brought the program to the school. Saw the Bass Rankin Hobbit and read the book and Lord of the Rings by 6th grade. Escapism was the name of the game, with books and video games.

Social Life Ignites (11th and 12th Grade)
>Came out of my shell due to having good friends. The lack of a need for escapism meant my extracurricular reading plummeted.

Personal Dark Age (College to Mid 20s)
>Escapism of different strain: existential aimlessness due to lack of motivation and depression stemming from sibling alcoholism wrecking my family. Barely read anything that wasn't assigned except for odd fantasy novels and Yea Forums. Mostly gaming and mid-20s social life including weed and drinking.

The Turn Around (Age 25 and 26)
>Years of human service work with the disabled, volunteerism with children from broken families, and reflection on the rather literary themes in the decline of my once close-knit farming family (generational alcoholism, father/son and brother/brother dynamics, the social paradigm shift that saw the death of the small farm that sustained our ancestral value system) coupled with my, for whatever reason, inherent inability to blame others and to stare at suffering (and in no small part also due to Yea Forums's anonymous information influence) caused me to come back to literature as a hobby then as a pursuit.

The (Hopeful) Renaissance (Age 27 to 29)
>Reading substantive literature - philosophy, psychology, great novels, etc. - has been a tremendous positive influence in my life. Even more than any kind of revelatory material, what has been most useful is seeing my own thoughts or the themes of my own life spelled out and made poignant by those with more masterful expressive ability. It has made me feel less alone and more able to attend to my own emotional stability. It has enabled me to be a better resource to the people I care about, both in professional and personal life.

Sincerely and unironically I owe thanks to this board for pointing me in the right direction. I reflect back on unhappier periods in my life and the distance from those perspectives amazes me. It has been maybe... God, it must be four years now since the last time I just laid down in the shower and wept. Used to happen a couple times a month. I can't even recollect what that level of depression felt like. And I came away from it without medication and without having to withdraw my compassion from others. I did it all with self-reflection and reading.

God damn, it is sad that other people don't read.

nabokov was wrong

two reasons, one is that it's kind of this nice simulated social life that i dont have, (i have basically only 1 friend) and for the most part all the people in this little social circle within the book are always interesting. i always feel i have something to learn from these experiences written in books, most times i go out i feel nothing of the sort and sometimes feel like i've wasted time.
second is that going to the library around 10pm has become a nice little sanctuary from technology and people for the most part because i have roommates and i want to be alone because of that. im sure that if i lived alone i would be grasping for any social interaction, but thats how it is i always want what i cant have at that moment. i try not to bring much with me apart from the book so if i dont feel like reading when i get there it can be used as a time of reflection or listening to an album actively. you dont get this very much nowadays and i really think it helps.

I wanted to quit smoking so I also had to spend less time on my computer
I ended up staying in bed with books

He tells good stories, though, so it's okay.

That picture is very sad and perfect.

The last thing I read was an interactive choose your own adventure story on writing dot com in which a group of girls come into the possession of a shrink ray. They then go around shrinking other people down to a minuscule size and crushing them with their bare feet. They take great pleasure in verbally deriding those whom they are about to crush as being insignificant insects, it is truly an exhilarating read, and I would highly recommend it for anyone shackled with so odious a fetish as I.

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I suppose it started as cope. I was always the loner type, and thus books appealed to me as a form of escapism. It was nice to get lost in a Dickensian or Vernesian(?) world, and forget about everything else as a young person. As I grew older, I developed new tastes, thus this escapism was combined with new intellectual aspirations. I guess that is why I read; to become ‘more intellectual’ and escape to a far more fascinating, complex reality. Cope, really.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

Beautifully worded. An excellent post

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>I have books but hard to read if you can't enjoy a good meal.

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>hello world

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x

I like to read up on topics that interest me, and sometimes fiction that appeals to me in one way or another. I prefer historical, political, or economical books, especially biographies which relate to those topics, but will branch into areas that interest me. Classics are always worth reading as well

I read because I'm a weeb, who wants to know what happens in a story after the anime adaptation ends. Also I'mhere because I have to decide a book to read in english for school and impress my teacher(non enlish speaker)

Aesthetic pleasure and midwit insecurity.

>He doesn't use libgen

I seek to "read" life inspiration from books. I also trade connection with people to more time to read books because they're more interesting.

That is very nice user, thank you for your thoughts

>and people often say that I am very good with words (obviously not amazing but compared to regular people I am exceptional) and good in a debate
What did you read to learn this? Books in general?

I read because reading expands one's mental horizons. What one thought made them intelligent when they were ignorant is revealed to be an embarrassing arrogance. I feel embarrassed about feeling as though I know things when I don't, I consume knowledge so that I can feel as though I know very little.

Reading also strengthens the brain, reading is like working out for your brain. Science suggests reading is good for you.

>he stops reading after the first sentence
retard
> I have books but hard to read if you can't enjoy a good meal.

In what way? Concentration?

This should be stickied. Well said.

Both comprehensive and wholesome. Well done user.

What is it called? Asking for a friend.

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I had a juicy burger today after I finished up 'The Big Sleep'. It was juicy.

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I feel the same way in many ways, try going to a library or coffee shop so that you can't go anywhere, and also try a stimulant sometime. if you become calm and focused instead of crazy/energetic you should talk to a doctor about ADHD.

That's my boy!

It's easier than having a life

It's fucking interesting, the story. And the more your read, the more fucked-up books are reachable.

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/thread

I have no friends

i have nothing else and learning stuff is the only thing that gives my life meaning and keeps me from killing myself, besides making music

My brethren!

HOw doest it feel cunt. Having thoughts pushed down your throat while not thinking for yourself

>He can't think while reading
Seriously?