we don’t have anything by edmund wells, actually. he’s not very popular.

I Propelled an interview with Neal Stephenson this morning. The whole thing is an awesome read, but one thing in particular jumped out at me:

“If you choose to read a book today, it’s not like a hundred years ago, when that was your only option. Today, when you read a book, you’re making a conscious decision not to play a video game, not to surf the web, not to watch a movie, not to turn on the TV. It does require a certain discipline to make that decision.…”

It’s true, isn’t it? There are so many different ways for us to be entertained these days, but opening and falling into a book is still my favorite.

49 thoughts on “we don’t have anything by edmund wells, actually. he’s not very popular.”

  1. So very true. It’s an internal debate, when I start a book and am not quite totally absorbed by it yet.
    Then there are times when I just browse around the Internet endlessly, bored, but having forgotten that I have a book to read, since in the recent past, I haven’t been able to read much.
    I blame school.

  2. It’s always a fight, what to read vs. everything else to do. There are only those two decisions. And, eventually, I always roll a 1 on “everything else to do.”
    Reading FTW

  4. We have more options of activities today, but I don’t think it takes any more effort to pick up a book than it does to log onto WoW. Gaming is interactive, tv/movies are more passive than books, but I only see them as all options. Maybe it’s because I value reading more than the average joe that Stephenson was talking about. Everything he mentions takes a conscious decision to get involved with though. I don’t know. I’m really tired and just can’t quite agree with what he says. Makes it sound like reading is harder or a chore, which it isn’t; there are just other, sometimes easier options.
    ramble::ramble::ramblzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
    –JacqueChadall

  6. Because of (in spite of??) the fact that there are so many options, my reading goes in spurts. I’m a binge-reader. That being said, I think that books have to be “better” these days – in order to compete.
    “Better” is relative, of course. I’ve noticed a trend in authors to write as though the reader is watching t.v. Does that make sense?? So…the book is certainly EASIER to read but not, in a literal sense, better writing.
    Okay…I’m done now.

  9. Ironically, this is why I haven’t started reading Anathem though I’ve owned a copy since it came out. It’s a dense book that takes time to fall into and I haven’t had the time to invest in it. But a half-hour sitcom or a DS game on-the-go? No problem.

  10. I have trouble turning off the TV. Last night I deleted a few series recording from my DVR.I need to be more careful how I spend my time. Like Stephen King said,if you want to write you have to turn off the TV and read and write for hours a day. I just heard from and friend I haven’t heard from in months and he just happens to be a beginning writer himself. Don’t you just love it when you find people who love the same stuff you do.
    Have a nice day Wil and all of Wil’s readers 🙂

  12. I have trouble Turning off the TV. As Stephen King Said if you want to write you have to turn of the TV and read and write for hours a day. I am trying to read more, and I plan on writing soon.
    A fun thing happened to me a few minutes ago I got an email from a friend I haven’t seen in awhile and it turns out he is getting into writing himself. Don’t you love it when you have friends and they just happen to get into the same stuff you do at the same time. I once “Book crossed” a “Jurassic Park” on a bench at the community college we both went to and I didn’t find out until months later that he just happened to be the person to find it and pick it up. Funny how things like that happen.
    Have a nice day Wil and all of Wil’s readers 🙂

  13. I studied history in university, and always had to go to the 4th floor where the stacks were, and all of the old books. The acidation in the books always had a smell that I really loved.
    A man down in New York who makes perfume sent off his favourite book to a lab to find out what was making it smell the way it did –
    I enjoy the physical act of holding a book, and wondering about the title, and (on some books) how the pages feel. It’s a multi-sensory experience.
    Now back to Warcraft 🙂

  14. First-time commenter…
    I just happened to have blogged at length (read: long-winded) yesterday about my love affair with books, and how it has made me different than most everyone around me.
    NO matter how entertained I might be everywhere else, I ALWAYS end my day with a book.

  15. …first time to comment…
    I actually just blogged at length (read: long-winded) yesterday about my life-long love affair with books and writers, and how it has made me see things differently than many of the people around me.
    No matter how entertained I might be in any given moment of my day, I’m always looking forward to the book waiting for me at the end of it.

  16. Actually, there were a number of recreational choices a hundred years ago, Wil. The nickelodeon was already around in Pittsburgh and a few other cities, so you could go to a cheap movie. You could play the piano or mess around with your player piano if you didn’t have a lot of talent. You could listen to the gramophone.
    There was choir practice. There were amateur theatricals, dancing, and groups of young people who did gymnastics. I’ve read old newspaper articles complaining about how much time young people spent on these things, instead of on chores, paid work or godly pursuits.
    How about gardening, walking, riding, cycling, skating, rollerskating, marbles, jacks, or even card and board games?
    Then there’s woodworking, knitting, and all sorts of crafts. There were crazes and fashions in beadwork and whatnot. They show up in the women’s magazines of the time.
    Oh, yeah. What about magazines and newspapers?
    Do you think that these things aren’t amusing, or that they didn’t come along until just the last few years?

  17. I don’t read *printed* words as much anymore, but I read far, far more than I ever did before now that there be Internets. For me, surfing the web == lots of reading.

  18. I read when other entertainment options are lacking – ie in bed, I don’t want to surf the net. And I don’t have a TV in my room. I also read on the subway, where the ol’ iPhone doesn’t get signal.

  19. I’d like to argue with the thought that it always takes a “certain discipline” to choose to read a book.
    As a Sabbath-Observant Jew, my entertainment options are limited from Friday sundown until Saturday sundown (no TV, no movies, no driving… To quote Walter Sobchak, “Saturday, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that I don’t work, I don’t get in a car, I don’t fucking ride in a car, I don’t pick up the phone, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don’t fucking roll! Shomer shabbos!”).
    Conversation, playing board games, and most of all, reading books, become our chief entertainment options on the sabbath.
    I love reading and do it more often than just on shabbos, but the fact that I have a day where reading is at the forefront of my choices makes it that much easier to get into a good book.
    Wow, all of that just to get in a quote from The Big Lebowski. 🙂

  20. I love reading… I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon when I travel though…
    If I have a book with me, I don’t have time to read.
    If I don’t have a book with me, I’ve got time to read.

  21. Funny, it’s the other-way-round in our house. Books for my wife and I, as well as my young kids, are the go-to form of entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got several computers, way too many channels, and lot’s of gadgets in the house, but books are where we all get lost. Maybe it’s the three generations of school teachers in the family!

  22. My sister & I grew up *loving* to read, and we still love it. I somehow married a man who just doesn’t like it. I don’t get it… he’s very intelligent, but just doesn’t enjoy reading. I don’t get to read as much as I’d like to anymore- RL gets in the way waaay too much- but I try to read a little bit every day. I’d rather read than watch TV, for sure (except for LOST- that’s equal to reading, I think).
    -Alicia
    [email protected]
    http://www.thewagband.com

  23. Sitting down to read a book is a favorite activity of mine. I usually set aside the whole day, reading a book while I listen to music in the background.

  24. Every year, after a grueling tax season our firm gives us each a free “personal day” to be used in the month of May. This year, I didn’t tell my family I didn’t have to go to work that day.
    I went to the store, bought a book I’d always wanted to read, drove to the local park, laid down on a blanket and read all day. It was the most awesome day ever!

  25. I would rather read a book than almost anything else. I have 6 sitting in front of me…oh and the new Neil Gaiman! I went and listened to him read a chapter from The Graveyard Book last week in Boulder, CO. Amazing. Listening to an author read his own work is the ultimate. I wish you would come out to Colorado and do a reading!
    -Cheri

  26. I so need to find more time to read. But I have ran across two problems: Work is never ending so finding time and nothing seems to grab my attention these days. Maybe now that I am off this week sick I may find something to read that keeps my attention. I am one of those people that if the book doesn’t grab me in the first 5 pages, I put it down forever.

  28. Hey Wil-
    I noticed that my old feed for your propelled items isn’t working anymore, and I can’t figure out a way to get a new one. Have they stopped supporting RSS member-specific feeds, or is my geek-fu just too weak to find it?

  29. I order a lot of my books from the Internet, to find titles that might not be in the store here. I got a new book from England called Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook. It’s a really interesting book about the making of the television show in the form of email exchanges between the two writers. Like the Harry Potter books, I’m taking more time to read when the book has a good story to tell, whether fiction or non-fiction. I’m reading “The Tin Princess” by Philip Pullman when I’m on the BART train, traveling around San Francisco.

  30. Reading a book feels mellower to me, and more wholly consuming, than using the Internet or any other form of electronica. Even when I’m reading a book I will ultimately work on by reviewing.
    I think there may be different forms of brain activity in play, between words on a page and words on a glowing screen. But I don’t really know how that works.

  31. Howdy Wil. I’m a long-time reader, but a new poster (I generally prefer to admire from afar, so as not to come off as a rampant fanboy).
    Anyway, I’m a fan of your work in multiple media…but my favourite place to see you has always been on screen.
    In any case, I read this article about the top ten geek characters in mainstream movies, and Gordie LaChance was number 7.
    http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/10/10-best-geek-ch.html
    Not to get all gushy on you or anything, but your work in Stand By Me is one of my all-time favourite performances (well, yours and Rivers’, rest his soul). I figured you might not have seen this, and wanted to make sure to give you my (hopefully not too fanboyish) props.
    Keep bein awesome.

  32. Not having a car, I go by public transport all the time. And I always carry a book with me.
    Traffic jams are a lot less stressful when it means you get through 50 pages on the way to work, and another 50 on the way home.
    I get through about a book a week, easily.

  34. Another first-time poster, because
    1) This is something I have been thinking about a lot myself recently. I started playing WoW in February (late to the party) and I’ve noticed that my reading volume has decreased considerably in the last few months, even though reading is still my favourite thing in the world.
    2) I’m reading “Snow Crash” at the moment and have become a huge Neal Stephenson fangirl over night.
    3) I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to say, “Hi Wil! I love reading your blog. Please don’t stop.”
    Sus
    PS @Cheri: Isn’t The Graveyard Book the most wonderful thing?

  36. I’ve always been a reader. I can remember climbing the tallest spruce tree in our apartment complex with a few apples and Tolkien, or Susan Cooper, or Ursula LeGuin when I was in grade school. (never fell out of the tree, but it was close sometimes when it was windy) Reading a physical book lets me become immersed in a way that no other medium seems to offer. I cry over books much more often than movies. I still look forward to being snowed in here in New England; most people rush to the grocery store for supplies, I rush to the library. 🙂

  37. Oh, and I also pee myself laughing while reading your TNG reviews at TV Squad, Wil. Any chance I should put on my adult diapers anytime soon? *cue puppy dog eyes* Please?

  41. Reminds me of that scene from A Hard Day’s Night when Paul’s grandfather is teasing Ringo about reading a book. Ringo defends his actions, saying “Books are good.”
    BTW, I am warning you with peace and love that I will not accept any comments on this post after 10/20/08 because I have too much to do.

  43. This is so very true! I read A.J. Jacobs’ book The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Hunble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible yesterday from cover to cover because it was so good. It was incredibly satisfying to fall back into a book for myself after a few weeks of focusing so much on work. (By the way, I highly recommend the book. It was really funny and yet extremely well-researched and poignant.)
    Also, you probably have seen this already, but I have to link you to it just in case: The Presidential Campaign as a D&D Campaign. Too funny.

  44. I miss the days when I had time to immerse myself in a completly fictional writing, it would stimulate my imagination as a child. It’s been over a decade since I’ve had time to read such meaningless yet enjoyable entertainment of time. It seems once I went to college everything has been consumed by reading technical manuals and how-tos’. Now, its everything from Web languages to Diesel manuals so I can fix this stupid ‘quarter of a mill’ tractor. It’s that or go broke paying a high tech diesel mechanic. I love farming but there are always all of these problems that need to be fixed. After reading all this stuff I’m rather sick of reading and learning. I yearn for ignorant bliss. They need to write tech manuals like adventure novels, it would make them more enjoyable, like that commercial where the women is reading to her kid about baby bear hooking up the Cisco router.

  46. Since we’re on the topic, one more book related link that made me laugh today: Adolescent Reading Habits. The blogger renames his favorite adolescent fantasy reads now that he has a bit more perspective. “Mary Sue Gets a Dragon” is my favorite. Maybe. They’re all pretty funny.

  47. Do you have any Charles Dikkens?
    I like to read before bed. It helps me unwind, puts my brain into sleep mode, and puts some perspective on the idiocy of the day.

  48. Just a yesterday i finished readin “The Body” by Stephen King. Of course you star in the movie that was made from that book!! The book was awesome! I ordered Just A Geek and i should get it pretty soon and i am sooo excited to read it!! And that is true..

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“The library is a safe place.”

In order to survive, I disassociated for much of my childhood, but I clearly remember the books. That's where I found comfort, companionship, inspiration and validation. It's where the imagination that powers everything I do creatively in my life today was born. And it all started in that library, with that librarian. She was one of the first people I can remember asking me, "What do you like? What's important to you? What do you want to know more about? How can I help you find it?"

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