*blink*

[yendi]

On a quick break between pre-conf sessions at THATCamp.

At the previous session, we all introduced ourselves, then were asked to name the last book we read for pleasure.

One person -- a librarian, even -- said, "I don't read fiction."

I'm trying to process that. I get not having time for a lot of reading, but I don't get choosing to not read fiction (any more than I get not reading nonfiction).

Comments

[storme]

I don't get the implicit assumption that reading non-fiction isn't pleasurable, either.

[storme]

(hers, I mean. I know you read non-fiction for pleasure.)

[ex-gnomicut.livejournal.com]

yeah, that was my response, as well.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I very rarely choose to read nonfiction. If I'm reading, I'm reading for my own pleasure. And with few exceptions, nonfiction is more informational than entertainment. I get enough instructional reading at work.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I do read nonfiction for fun- but less than fiction, certainly.

Next up on my NF pile is "Kraken", a book about squid and octopi, etc., which fascinate me. The last NF book I read was "Deadly Spin", about the health "insurance" industry. Fascinating and scary.

Still, I mostly do prefer fiction, especially novels.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

My editor at the Hermiston Herald read voraciously -- he'd go to the library a block from our office with stacks of books for him, his wife and their kids -- but he read histories and biographies almost exclusively. Asked why, he replied "What's the point of reading fiction? It's all made up." A COLLEGE-EDUCATED NEWSPAPER EDITOR SAID THAT. Of course he didn't apply that standard to the comic books he read or the movies or TV shows he watched. To this day (11 years after I quit) I still don't get that...

[asim.livejournal.com]

There was a period where I read very, very little nonfiction, for about, oh, 3-4 years roughly, including comics and the like. I read a lot, though -- mostly technical stuff and research for SCA ideas. I just never felt the need to dig around for fiction, and it wasn't as fulfilling in my heart as the research-y stuff I was doing.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I can understand preferring non-fiction and not reading much fiction, but if that was here entire answer to the question, the implication is that only fiction is read for pleasure, meaning any non-fiction reading would be for other purposes. Why would someone who doesn't read for pleasure want to be a librarian?

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Thats the real question..... a Librarian that has not read literature is a pretty poorly educated Librarian. Or do they somehow thing non-fiction doesn't include the classics?

[ex-gnomicut.livejournal.com]

I did attend one class in library school where my professor asked us all what we were reading for pleasure, and one of the students said, "oh, I don't really read." Everybody boggled at her. LIBRARY SCHOOL.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Neither of my parents reads much fiction, because they read so much physics, philosophy, history, mathematics, poetry, and theology. It's not that they don't LIKE fiction; it's just that they've got so many other things to read that the fiction tends to be pushed off. So it's easy for me to imagine a person who loves some types of nonfiction so much that there isn't any time left over for fiction.

[ex-gnomicut.livejournal.com]

yeah, but the question is what do you read for pleasure. I assume your parents read those things for pleasure?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Sure, yeah. Or, at one remove, they read them for classes that they are taking for pleasure -- sometimes, especially for my mother, discussing the things she reads is even better than the reading itself. Still, I got the feeling that Yendi was boggling both at the notion of not reading for pleasure AND the notion of not reading fiction.

Me, I can get "not reading fiction" under the conditions listed above, but am equally baffled by "not reading for pleasure."

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

My brother Doesn't Read Fiction. But then he's a computer engineer so I can almost understand it. A librarian though? Mind boggles.