# Why do you read?



## IowaGuy (Jan 31, 2012)

I guess the subject says it most of all.  What makes you love reading?  Why spend so much time reading (like many of us do)?


For me I read because I love being drawn away from real life for a bit.  I find it as an escape from my two jobs and my overwhelming real life.  I know many people will probably say they read as an escape...and that is ok .  I guess I am just trying to see why my fellow readers choose to Geek reading


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## Sean Patrick Fox (Dec 3, 2011)

Because I like immersing myself in wonderful new worlds.


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## IowaGuy (Jan 31, 2012)

Sean Patrick Fox said:


> Because I like immersing myself in wonderful new worlds.


How long have you been a reader Sean?!


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## Ergodic Mage (Jan 23, 2012)

I read fiction for relaxing escapism, non-fiction to learn and contemplate.
But most importantly I read for new ideas, things I've never experienced or thought of before.


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## Neil Ostroff (Mar 25, 2011)

To become another person for the afternoon.


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## nmg222 (Sep 14, 2010)

Because, if I have to look at someone named Snooki on my TV one more time, I might kill someone.  

Reading is better than killing someone.


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## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

As soon as I could read, I've been a reader. I, too, love to immerse myself in new worlds. It's an escape from ordinary life. I can't imagine not being a reader.


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## IowaGuy (Jan 31, 2012)

I used to be a gamer too....then I got a Kindle and I got so emersed in reading lol.  I too could never imagine myself as not a reader.  When I am having a hard day (and my days are generaly very long and stressful) I always remind myself that eventually I will get to jump back into my book and forget about it all for awhile....it is a very nice escape !


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## intinst (Dec 23, 2008)

Started about 55 years ago and don't know how to quit. (Nor do I want to stop)


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## Rosen Trevithick (Oct 19, 2011)

Mostly, to wind down at the end of the day.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I have loved to read for most of my life.  I always read many grade levels above the one I was in back in my school days.  I love immersing myself into the imaginary world.  My own mind creates worlds from the words better than watching a movie.  I get lost in a book when it's particularly good.  I love that.  I hope, hope, hope that I accomplish that a little bit with my own work.


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## Seanathin23 (Jul 24, 2011)

I read because I love a good story, and to help me sleep. I come home late at night wired, and knocking out 30 pages puts me right to sleep. Also movies have kind of given up being good, and even the best TV show will only be there for an hour a week.


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## lmyrick (Feb 23, 2012)

I read, like so many others, to find myself in a new world with new people that I can love and hate and laugh at and with. I guess you could call that escapism, but I like my real life too, so I'm not really trying to escape, more like explore new places.


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## IowaGuy (Jan 31, 2012)

lmyrick said:


> I read, like so many others, to find myself in a new world with new people that I can love and hate and laugh at and with. I guess you could call that escapism, but I like my real life too, so I'm really trying to escape, more like explore new places.


Ya man I relate to this! Well said. The word Escapeism gets such a bad rap lol. I see nothing wrong with escaping into another world to explore it.

I know when I read I am entirely within that world. My imagination is able to create the world and put me in it I love it! One of my friends read the entire GRR Martin series in like a month and a half and was telling me that I actually started using the verbiage fromt he books lol. He got drawn in and couldn't get out!


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

See the short poem in my signature...


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

Books come at my pace. Video comes at me at its pace. I can easily flip back to check something that came previously in a book. That's not at all easy with video.

If you spread the cost of a book over the time you spend with it, it is cheap, even at full price.

Video can do cheap emotional manipulation easily. It takes more skill to induce feeling in a reader. If you want to whip a mob into a frenzy, video is more effective than a book.

A TV series gets canceled if it doesn't have millions of viewers. Books can keep going on with far, far less people.

Books have more depth, just look at how much has to be cut out of a book to fit into two hours.

Books are less likely to be dumbed down.

I'll watch some TV. But often, I just want to relax with a book rather than sitting there paying attention to some box.


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## Sean Patrick Fox (Dec 3, 2011)

IowaGuy said:


> How long have you been a reader Sean?!


Uhh, my entire life... So approximately 23 years.


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## Grace Elliot (Mar 14, 2011)

So many good answers here. 
I read for escapism, to leave the cares and stresses of the day behind - but for me reading is also more than that. It is a form of meditation - when you become immersed in a really good book, you are transported to that place and time, and you care about those people as if they are real, and when you come back to the 'now' you are a better person (usually) for it.


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## mooshie78 (Jul 15, 2010)

Sean Patrick Fox said:


> Because I like immersing myself in wonderful new worlds.





Rosen Trevithick said:


> Mostly, to wind down at the end of the day.


Those are my two main reasons for reading fiction. Two the first, I spend more time on Movies/TV and Video games. But I almost always read at least a chapter or two before sleeping.

I do a lot of reading for work (research articles etc.) so a lot of my reading is for knowledge acquisition (newspapers, magazines etc. also fall in that purpose). And also a reason I don't read a ton for leisure relative to many here. I'm often tired of reading and writing by the time I get home and have to unwind with some unrelated activities like movies or games before reading a bit before sleeping!


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## anguabell (Jan 9, 2011)

tkkenyon said:


> These days, we can have conjugal relations with vampires, too. I'm not sure Woolf would see that as an improvement. (Although Orlando, as a young man, had such relations with QE1.)
> 
> TK Kenyon


Interesting notion  I am sure there were many vampire-like creatures in Virginia's group of friends, feeding on other people's youth and beauty, and discarding them when no longer useful.

Reading has been a major part of my life to the extent that is perhaps not entirely healthy. Many books, characters and plots become more real and more important that the "real" world. When I can't read for a day or two, I feel I'm becoming less of myself. I am very fortunate I married a man who feels the same way about books as I do. It must be very hard living with someone who doesn't understand.


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## ciscokid (Oct 10, 2010)

It's simple.  I love to read. I have other hobbies and interests, but nothing is as fun as getting immersed in a good book.


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## Sherlock (Dec 17, 2008)

I don't know that I've ever thought about why I read - I just do and have ever since I learned how in first grade. If I think about it I guess I'd have to say it's the form of entertainment that appeals to me.  As a child, and as a teenager, I tried to write stories and poems.  It's not an easy thing to do and I wasn't good at it so I have an unending respect for storytellers who pull me in and make me believe their world is real.

I think it come down to what touches each of us.  Words can make me laugh and they can make me cry.  I don't think they have that effect on just everyone.  Perhaps that's what separates the readers from the non-readers.


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## jwest (Nov 14, 2011)

I read for the same reason I write, and that is because it is a blast to dive into a place full of unexpected magic and adventure. The real world can be fun, and I take it for what it is worth, but there is something special and exciting about immersing yourself in new worlds, where you really do not know what is waiting around the corner.


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## EliRey (Sep 8, 2010)

Same reason I write for the escapism. I used to think as a writer I was in the driver seat. Not the case. Half the time I'll be typing then suddenly sit up and say "WTH?! How did that happen?!" lol Not to be mean or anything but I sort of feel sorry for those peeps that say. "I've never been a reader. I just can't get into books." They have *no* idea what they're missing!


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## Pavel Kravchenko (Mar 2, 2012)

I read because of those moments when I find myself doing the "Whoa" from The Matrix, or realize I've been staring into space with a goody grin on my face for five minutes, a book on my lap. I guess it's not so much the escapism with me, as the sensation of something resonating, a harmony, sort of like what I get from listening to a song I absolutely love. 

I also read because I want to know how they do it.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Because when I read the wild animal caged in my head stops throwing itself against the bars and trying to claw its way out.


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## KathyLynnHarris (Feb 2, 2012)

I read because I love the whole nature of storytelling ... the way a good story lights the imagination. But also, I read to find phrases that jump off the page ... an author's use of words that makes me go, "wow."


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## CoffeeCat (Sep 13, 2010)

Grace Elliot said:


> So many good answers here.
> I read for escapism, to leave the cares and stresses of the day behind - but for me reading is also more than that. It is a form of meditation - when you become immersed in a really good book, you are transported to that place and time, and you care about those people as if they are real, and when you come back to the 'now' you are a better person (usually) for it.


This! I couldn't imagine my life without reading. It's a great way to step outside yourself for a while and also helps you gain new perspectives on virtually anything in life. I love when a book "haunts" me for a while after I've read it. Few films have had the same influence on my thinking.


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## IowaGuy (Jan 31, 2012)

JRTomlin said:


> Because when I read the wild animal caged in my head stops throwing itself against the bars and trying to claw its way out.


Stop fighting the monster !

All great answers! I too could never imagine my life without KNOWING that I have a good book waiting for me when I get a chance to slow down and relax!


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## tim_mc_dougall (Feb 27, 2012)

To connect.


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## George Collingwood (Mar 7, 2012)

Reading is more like a saying a prayer than escaping.  You only read what you like to read and you only like the things you believe in.  No one wants to escape just anywhere.  I'm godless by the way.


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## Harry Shannon (Jul 30, 2010)

I read to educate myself, to entertain, too lose myself in other realities, to discharge negative feelings, to explore contradictions in myself and others, to laugh and cry, to have experiences denied me in the physical world and clarify the ones I do have.


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## Beatriz (Feb 22, 2011)

cheriereich said:


> As soon as I could read, I've been a reader. I, too, love to immerse myself in new worlds. It's an escape from ordinary life. I can't imagine not being a reader.


Ditto to that. I think most readers feel that way.


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## John A. A. Logan (Jan 25, 2012)

The American author John Gardner used to talk about "the fictive dream", the idea that a novel or story lets the reader enter into almost a trance state while immersed in the story, all else forgotten. Gardner thought it was the novelist's job to not let anything jolt the reader out of this trance/dream state...
The idea of escape is very important too, as several people have mentioned...it may be that the mind is really soaring, or escaping, during the period of reading a story...or sharing someone else's dream...released from the usual bounds and constrictions. 
(Maybe like when a Buddhist monk meditates and the mind soars free!)
It's almost like the mind speeds up too...zooming along to follow the story...(as long as we love the story!)
And along the way, while we're immersed in the dream, we will take in many little nuggets of gold from a good book...Roald Dahl was great for that, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...there's a lot of "right and wrong" being taught to the reader, even while the dream is soaring along at top speed...
Or Aesop's Fables...the Tortoise and the Hare...you could tell a child all day about the facts and figures of going slow and steady vs a fast sprint burn-out that can't be sustained...but much more effective to invent some big, floppy-eared long-footed hare, flaunting and taunting some poor old tortoise with its powers of acceleration...and then see the tortoise somehow cross the finishing line first despite him seeming to have no chance!

So part of the skill of fiction would be to hide the scaffolding and architecture of the story, the nuts and bolts, from the reader, so that the reader is carried along effortlessly...

There may also be something of the premonition in a great story, the escape into the story may be more real than we at first think...each story may be a possible future coming to early life for a few hours...the author Colin Wilson talked about this in The Strength to Dream...he also talked about how we mostly live with a worm's eye view of the world, only seeing and feeling what is immediately around us...so we all seek to have periods of escape from this, freedom where we soar high and achieve a "bird's eye" view.

We are happier when we get this temporary bird's eye view...we feel free and perhaps for that short time before we fall back to earth again we are truly free...we've had a taste of it...a free state of mind...sometimes fiction can give this lift and freedom...sometimes the state of mind can come upon us all by itself...

A responder on a forum on the question of fiction vs non-fiction said something interesting to me once...he said he thought that there was a lack of compassion often, lying behind a distaste for all fiction (or for the fictive dream)...a lack of sympathy with the internal dream of the other person...he thought sometimes people had been brutalised and had that capacity to share and fall in love with another human being's dream broken for them...by first having their own inner right to dream stolen away from them harshly. 

So, by occasionally dreaming, or sharing each other's best dreams...we may be more human and humane when we fall back down into the day's "realities" again...


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## Derek Clendening (Mar 1, 2012)

For me, it's about switching shoes with someone else and living their life for a while. I tend to enjoy character-driven stories, and I suppose it's for that very reason.

Reading also relaxes me


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## FrankColes (Feb 22, 2012)

Someone told me it was big and clever when I was a kid and I've being doing it ever since 

Honestly, it makes me think. As long as you mix up different genres.


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## IowaGuy (Jan 31, 2012)

Harry Shannon said:


> I read to educate myself, to entertain, too lose myself in other realities, to discharge negative feelings, to explore contradictions in myself and others, to laugh and cry, to have experiences denied me in the physical world and clarify the ones I do have.


Harry I relate to this. I too find that reading discharges a lot of my frustrations and negative feelings. If I am having a really bad day at work I will walk away from my desk and read for 15 minutes and I feel better.


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## Brianne Crowder (Mar 8, 2012)

I read because there is no other true experience like it. A book takes you out of your world for a while and allows you to see the world from another point of view. Movies just cannot do this the way books do. Imagination is allowed to run wild while reading, something that, in my own biased opinion, cannot be valued enough.


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## FrankColes (Feb 22, 2012)

I'm getting flashes of Bill Hicks here, to quote from his routine:

_"You know I've noticed a certain anti-intellectualism going around this country ever since around 1980, coincidentally enough. I was in Nashville, Tennessee last weekend and after the show I went to a waffle house and I'm sitting there and I'm eating and reading a book. I don't know anybody, I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book. This waitress comes over to me (mocks chewing gum) 'what you readin' for?'...wow, I've never been asked that; not 'What am I reading', 'What am I reading for?' Well, goddamnit, you stumped me...I guess I read for a lot of reasons - the main one is so I don't end up being a fuckin' waffle waitress. Yeah, that would be pretty high on the list. Then this trucker in the booth next to me gets up, stands over me and says [mocks Southern drawl] 'Well, looks like we got ourselves a readah'...aahh, what the fuck's goin' on? It's like I walked into a Klan rally in a Boy George costume or something. Am I stepping out of some intellectual closet here? I read, there I said it. I feel better."_

The man!


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## KindleChickie (Oct 24, 2009)

My #1 reason is because I am an information gatherer by nature.  Most of my reads are nonfiction.  Best example is I read where former mayor of DC Marion Berry had been shot in a seige, so I had to start researching it.  What I find is this whole Hanafi conflict that was going on and how it grew from one mans family being murdered.  Forgotten history, gotta love it.

I hear some people talking about how polarized politics are today and I think, you guys just don't remember.


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## Beatriz (Feb 22, 2011)

Brianne Crowder said:


> I read because there is no other true experience like it. A book takes you out of your world for a while and allows you to see the world from another point of view. Movies just cannot do this the way books do. Imagination is allowed to run wild while reading, something that, in my own biased opinion, cannot be valued enough.


I concur and I couldn't have said better myself.


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## Brianne Crowder (Mar 8, 2012)

Beatriz said:


> I concur and I couldn't have said better myself.


I'm glad you agree!


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## FrankColes (Feb 22, 2012)

Brianne Crowder said:


> A book takes you out of your world for a while and allows you to see the world from another point of view.


Stephen King agrees with you, he has a great chapter in On Writing where he likens reading/writing to telepathy. It's my favourite part of the book.


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## Brianne Crowder (Mar 8, 2012)

FrankColes said:


> Stephen King agrees with you, he has a great chapter in On Writing where he likens reading/writing to telepathy. It's my favourite part of the book.


I just bought that book! I haven't read it yet due to the massive reading list I have for school, but I'm excited to start it!


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## FrankColes (Feb 22, 2012)

It's a classic book. I don't have my copy to hand as I've just moved house but before I start writing I always read the chapter titled something like "do not come lightly to the blank page".

Gets me all fired up and ready to let fingers fly.


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## Brianne Crowder (Mar 8, 2012)

FrankColes said:


> It's a classic book. I don't have my copy to hand as I've just moved house but before I start writing I always read the chapter titled something like "do not come lightly to the blank page".
> 
> Gets me all fired up and ready to let fingers fly.


Well thank you for the tip about the chapter! I'm excited to read it .


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## FrankColes (Feb 22, 2012)

You're very welcome. Makes me want to write just thinking about it!


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## Brianne Crowder (Mar 8, 2012)

FrankColes said:


> You're very welcome. Makes me want to write just thinking about it!


Ah, but doesn't everything just make you want to write?


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## IowaGuy (Jan 31, 2012)

I am not a writer but I found King's book "On Writting" to be very interesting and a great read


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## Brianne Crowder (Mar 8, 2012)

IowaGuy said:


> I am not a writer but I found King's book "On Writting" to be very interesting and a great read


So I've heard! I've heard nothing but good things about the book. Definitely excited to read it now.


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## FrankColes (Feb 22, 2012)

Brianne Crowder said:


> Ah, but doesn't everything just make you want to write?


Oh god yeah, too many ideas winging it about - always. There's a joke there somewhere about three writers watching a car wreck....will dig it out.

Must tear myself away from the keyboard for some adventures in meatspace - which will, of course, lead to more adventures in typespace, whitesapce, wordspace...?


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## LaurenFah (Jun 1, 2011)

As most people have said already - its the feeling of being immersed in a different world. I love escaping to another story, another place, with other people. 

Of course I love reality, too. But sometimes it gets too much and it's nice to escape that by picking up a good book and getting to know that world and it's characters.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

I don't like the word escapism, it has such negative connotations. I'm not hiding in a book, I'm not avoiding reality. I'm looking at life through someone else's eyes. My mind isn't being turned off, it is being turned on.

One thing I like about reading is that there are multiple ways to interpret a text, while video fixes things in place.


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## Beatriz (Feb 22, 2011)

LaurenFah said:


> As most people have said already - its the feeling of being immersed in a different world. I love escaping to another story, another place, with other people.
> 
> Of course I love reality, too. But sometimes it gets too much and it's nice to escape that by picking up a good book and getting to know that world and it's characters.


I think that's why most of us read.


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