General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat do you consider to be 'well read'? I think it can be either fiction or non-fiction.
Or both. My twin brother for instance reads non-fiction all the time. He's no rocket scientist but does have an opinion of the issues of the day. You?
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)And I read both fiction and non-fiction. But those categories are too broad to have much meaning.
In one letter to a friend, just a few days ago, I mentioned four books (five, if you count the references within the books to other books)
1.- The Day the Universe Changed
2.- A History of the Warfare Between Science and Theology in Christendom
3.- How to Win Friends and Influence People
4.- Science, Scientists, and Society
5.- Molloy, by Samuel Beckett (indirectly reference in 4)
Response to Xipe Totec (Reply #1)
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bemildred
(90,061 posts)Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)just the sports pages or computer magazines.
One year when I was still teaching, I asked my students (language teachers can ask snoopy questions if they fit into the linguistic structures being taught) how many books they had read over the winter break, which was six weeks for those who didn't take a January Term class. Out of a class of 15, seven had read no books. Zero. (I thought, "What did they DO for six weeks?" but then, one student said that her hobbies were "cheerleading and listening to the radio." Of the rest, most had read one potboiler. Only one student had read anything serious: Gore Vidal's Lincoln and whatever Stephen Jay Gould's latest book was at the time. If that student has kept up that habit, he is now very well-read.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)500 years ago you could have read every book ever written.
Now to read 1% of them would burn up your life.
phasma ex machina
(2,328 posts)Only the story of David's relationship with Uriah or Iago's relationship with Othello can reveal some truths.
craigmatic
(4,510 posts), communist manifesto, or grapes of wrath. Anything by Hemingway or Walter Mosley.
RC
(25,592 posts)they are merely propaganda pushing the views of the authors. The plains Indians versions and the US military's are a well know case in point.
bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)Both fiction and non-fiction, of course.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I own a lot of books I have not yet read. I love history and mysteries.
Morning Dew
(6,539 posts)If I could only have one book, though, it would be East Of Eden.
exboyfil
(17,862 posts)whatever my older daughter has been assigned to read for English so that I can interact with her on the books. I also read the books I assign to my younger daughter for her Homeschooling in English.
Next semester I get to read a favorite of mine once again, 1984. This semester I got to read Death of a Salesman, In Cold Blood, To Kill a Mockingbird, MacBeth, Fahrenheit 451. Brave New World, and Anthem. I am also personally working my way through the Oxford History of the United States (through audiobook) along with A People's History of the United States.
I try to keep up with some of my kids' popular reading like reading the Harry Potter series in a little over a week (that was done by combination audiobook and actual reading).
I probably average a book a week. In addition to the literature which my kids read. I enjoy reading history and science books. I leverage my exercise time by also listening to audiobooks.
The biggest time waster is the idiot box (or the idiot rectangle now). Probably next biggest waster is DU.
I am also currently reading a marvelous book now that comes highly recommended: "A History of the World in 100 Objects".
To be well read means that you should have read the best exemplar of a wide variety of authors and/or ages.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)you read non-fiction for your field of expertise & interests and fiction for literature.