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I was just talking at work yesterday about how when I worked 1st shift, I did a lot of reading. My co-workers looked at me like I was crazy and asked me 'why would you waste your time on books?'
I was just talking at work yesterday about how when I worked 1st shift, I did a lot of reading. My co-workers looked at me like I was crazy and asked me 'why would you waste your time on books?'
The literacy rate in America has been declining since the early 1990s. Right now about 14 percent of the adult population is functionally illiterate. Nearly *half the population* of Detroit is functionally illiterate.
Barbarism.
When I first started work I was on a training wage and some weeks I would chose to buy a nice vintage book over lunch! That was perhaps a little crazy but books are as essential to me as food.
Books are magical things!
This is barbarism, plain and simple.
My grandparents were not educated people by any stretch of the imagination -- they were ordinary early 20th century working class folk who got out of school as soon as they possibly could. But their home contained works by Shakespeare, Dickens, and Twain, a good selection of quality novels from the twenties thru the fifties, an encyclopedia, an unabridged dictonary, and several translations of the Bible. They also took a daily newspaper, the local weekly, and several popular magazines. And this was by no means exceptional for their culture. Even the poorest home had room for books.
If you have a computer, you don't need actual books. Maybe these households rely on internet/e-books for that need?
I came from a different home. We all read all the time and my parents never had enough bookshelves, which is the exact same challenge I face in my home. Every bedroom has bookshelves as well as the living room, family room and many walls in the basement.
The most soulless man I ever knew -- a radio executive I once worked for -- had *fake* books in his living room, blocks of wood with paper overlays to simulate overs...
...That may well be the single most degenerate thing I've ever heard of...
Advertising is in its own special category. Sort of like politics.
I have no idea how many books I have. If you can count them, you don't have enough. I'm a firm believer that "a room without books is a room without a soul." The most soulless man I ever knew -- a radio executive I once worked for -- had *fake* books in his living room, blocks of wood with paper overlays to simulate covers. That may well be the single most degenerate thing I've ever heard of.
Computer device reading doesn't cut it for me -- it hurts my eyes, and I don't like the single-page-view format. When I find long articles online I want to read, the only way I can stand to do it is print them out first.