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The last book I read without it being assigned was a Goosebumps book in third grade.
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<p>Heh, my brother's like that, except he only reads video-game themed books.</p>
<p>My kid was a non-stop reader to the point where she had to go to boarding school to get out of her rut. It was reading 24/7 when not in school, and homework got sandwiched in there somewhere. </p>
<p>She discovered Unleash</a> Your Imagination - FanFiction.Net just before starting boarding school, and switched from reading books to writing new endings to her favorite books. Much better, at least she was creating instead of just being a slug and reading fiction all the time. In fact, her writing score on the SAT went up 80 points after 4 months of intense writing of new endings. Funny, her reading score went down by the same amount, 80 points on that retake. guess she is just doomed to have a 2170 on the SAT.
A few observations: parents have to provide a home environment conducive to recreational reading, IMO, in order for a child to evolve into avid-reader status, and kids who are 'builder boys' as youngsters (with blocks, etc) and are mathematical tend to shy away from reading fiction, preferring non-fiction. They can be channeled into reading fiction if it happens early enough in life--have them read the 30 or so Encyclopedia Brown books. Then Alfred Hitchcock's 3 Investigators series. My son,a brainy math type, wound up reading his sister's Babysitter Club books occasionally for a short while after discovering the fun of fiction at an early age. Which opened him up to the wonders of Jule Verne, etc. etc.</p>
<p>has anybody ever read the sound and the fury?</p>
<p>Yeah. =] Faulkner <3.</p>
<p>grats on dartmouth taggart</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Though this waiting 'till senior year ends kinda blows. =[</p>
<p>Reading: Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt</p>
<p>I read a LOT.</p>
<p>I barely have time to read for fun anymore. The last book I read on my own was Barron's SAT Subject Test Math Level 2 - 2008 - 8th Ed.</p>
<p>The last "real" book I read on my own was Dante's Inferno. It was pretty epic.</p>
<p>I used to be. then we got the internet. then I went to college. </p>
<p>someday I'll read a book again...</p>
<p>I purposely take English classes to be forced to read.</p>
<p>No...I haven't read a book cover to cover since fifth grade.
I think I have a horrible stigma attached from 4th grade--i had to read so many horrible books that were WAY beyond the grade level! Books like "david copperfield," "secret garden." Just awfully hard books. And ever since I've been weird about reading fiction. I read an ellen degeneres book the other day but i didn't finish the last two pages!!!!</p>
<p>I loved reading when I was really young but don'tt have much time. This summer I am working on some of the chinese classeics such as Romance of the three kingdoms and red chambers or the story of the stone</p>
<p>bah--
Taggart, you read Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake?
ESPECIALLY Finnegan's Wake...
prove it. I refuse to believe it until then.</p>
<p>Lol. How'd you like me to prove it?</p>
<p>Took me about a week to get through Finnegan's Wake (in...something like 9th grade? maybe summer between 9th and 10th). I love Joyce, but god...his writing's so damn hard to get through. Beautiful, poetic, and >.< makes my head want to explode when I try to put it together.</p>
<p>I too regret that time for reading has become so scarce. I am still always reading something, though, even if I'm only getting a few pages a night with my eyelids propped open with matchsticks, or while otherwise occupied in the smallest room in the house.</p>
<p>I love reading, though in high school I don't prioritize it as much...Used to read a book a day, in middle school, but now I've exhausted my passion for long sci-fi/fantasy books and don't really know what to read anymore. </p>
<p>My favorites are Robert Jordan's <em>The Wheel of Time</em> series (extremely long, but I more skim-read so get through them fast), Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire (George R.R. Martin), Ender series, then some other genres, like The Kite Runner and Life of Pi...list could go on for ages.
Haha, right now I'm trying to read the first LotR book in spanish, it's interesting...</p>
<p>I'v read some Spanish literature. Hispanic writers just do it better judging from what I've read. ( [original]Cien Anos De Soledad = 100 Years of Solitude [translated] )</p>
<p>yeah i love reading, the librarian actually remembers me lol</p>
<p>but sometimes i feel kind of guilty and stupid that these great classics or world famous are books that i hate. like metamorphosis by kafka. or gullivers travels, i couldn't get past the first 4 pages. same for the sound and the fury. a lot of books like that i only finish 1/2 ways and give up. but i believe that you shouldn't force yourself to read a book you hate when theres so many thousands and thousands of other great books out there.</p>
<p>most of my favorite books are the ones that the authors aren't very famous for. like vonnegut is famous for slaughterhouse five but i thought sirens of titan was his greatest book of his that i've read so far.</p>
<p>Reading is basically my life. When I was younger I was wake up early on the weekends and just read all day until around 11PM and then go to sleep (repeat). I wouldn't go out with my friends on the weekends. I'd stay home reading.</p>
<p>However, I don't have much time to read anymore, but hopefully this summer I'll get through a LOT of books.</p>
<p>Favorites: Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, The Sybil by Par Lagerkvist, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> I love books and reading and book stores.</p>
<p>It seems to me that qualitive reading pays off much more than quantitive reading. I often get surprised flipping through past readings and all the words are aliean to me, except for some vague floating flagrents of memory.</p>