What makes a reader?

[sartorias]

Catholic Bibliophagist asks here "What makes a reader?" She refers to a Times article, and discusses it. (She also has some great posts before it, but alas on one of the blog formats my machine hates, and won't recognize the links for comments about half the time.)

personal experience below

Comments

[telophase]

My mom says I learned to read when I was three, from watching The Electric Company, but I suspect that it also had a lot to do with my parents both being readers, them reading to me, and a house filled with books. And then two years in the Serengeti National Park, from 4 to 6, with no TV, radio, or movies, and only a couple of neighborhood kids anywhere near my age also lent itself to amusing myself with reading.

Oddly, for the past 3 or so years, I haven't been reading adult fiction as much as I used to. It's mostly that it doesn't appeal to me, and partly because I think I'm not as willing to stick to a story that starts to lose my interest as I used to be. I've been reading manga, because even if it starts to lose my interest, it's only 20 minutes to read the whole book (plus, it tends to involve characters and storylines that are just way more emotionally and crazily high-pitched than anything I find over here). YA fiction also holds my attention more, but that may be because it's generally shorter. I've been reading more nonfiction, which tends to lend itself to short bursts of reading more than fiction, and listening to audiobooks and podcasts, which allow me to do other things while listening.

My dad was far less of a reader than my mom is, though far more than the average person on the street, and he bought lots of books. He tended to read nonfiction that pertained to his work as a professor, and fiction by black women writers (I never learned why that particular interest: maybe because their experience was so different from his?). He also focused a lot on his research, and the rare times when he wasn't doing that, he was fiddling about with computer programming, taking photographs, doing woodwork, or making jewelry.

I think I must be turning into him as I age. XD

[sartorias]

Wow, that's interesting.

Another topic is the subject of manga and graphic novels--the delivery of story by image and word.