Goodreads Malaysia discussion
Budaya Membaca
>
What makes someone "well-read"?
date
newest »
newest »
Nice thought there. I joined goodreads because I feel I am not well-read enough. Whatever that means..If quantity and quality is the measure, I'd say both are equally essential.
The folks say, the more you read the more you get.
Meanwhile, smart reading ability is an important technical asset that should be the top priority.
Mod
I, too, think it's about both (quantity and quality).
However, I don't think that it's even possible to read most, if not all, of the important works of your time as well as those from the previous era. Nowadays there are just too many books coming out too fast.
Juliana Es wrote: "To my mind, it's also about diversity. You're 'well-read' if you do not restrict yourself to a limited genre. "Emilly wrote: "Meanwhile, smart reading ability is an important technical asset that should be the top priority. "
Diversity and smart reading ability (ability to read with critical eyes, especially) are two things that define a well-read person to me. Quantity and quality are both equally important but I don't think that these could be easily measured.
I have also heard people say that those who read more non-fictions/classics/literary fictions are consider well-read than those who don't. Do you agree?
Mod
What I usually encounter is that some people snobbishly say that fiction books are immaterial in enhancing their knowledge, that what matters most is reading more non-fiction stuff (i.e. academic-ish reading materials). No wonder then, that Isaac Asimov found that most academicians write so poorly, with no writing flair, that their writing is so boring! (Which I quite agree.)
I like what Neil Gaiman wrote about fiction:
Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it's a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it's hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's all going to end … that's a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is key.
And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed.
—Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming
As a writer, Gaiman expresses it beautifully. I can't deny how cinderella's and snow white's stories inspire my childhood memories so magically. 15 minutes reading suddenly become 2 minutes as the growing process passes. Nancy Drew's and Hardy Boys's fill in the gap of child to teenage transition. I don't remember how did Mills and Boons, Nora Roberts, Faisal Tehrani and Ramlee Awang Murshid enter my life. Hahaha.
Getting older, I tend to more of non-fictions. Finding the truth about something and mesmerizing factual statements somehow make me comfortable, want to do more in life and lots of achievements and future goals may be on the list.
Growing up with reading habit is beneficial, indeed. It's the lessons that matter most.
**I hate it when drowned by novelist imagination, feeling lost deep in silly thoughts yet still loving every flip of a comic/novel in my spare time. Historic and academic reading are boring but they are the most valuable in present days.
Juliana Es wrote: "What I usually encounter is that some people snobbishly say that fiction books are immaterial in enhancing their knowledge, that what matters most is reading more non-fiction stuff (i.e. academic-ish reading materials)."Hah, I suppose that book snobs do have their own "well-read" definition, which is something that common readers like us might find difficult to agree with.
To my mind, it seems wrong to feel obligated to read certain type of books just so that you'll be seen as a well-read person. Reading is suppose to be an enjoyable activity; not an obligation, so readers ought to have the freedom to read what they are happy with and then to grow from there.
Thank you for sharing that Gaiman's quote with us. This line, to me, speaks volume,
To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is key.I bet that most readers aim to be a well-read person. Personally, I'm no way close to that goal but I'm enjoying this journey tremendously. Ultimately, that's all that really matters, right?
Mod
Shy, the snobs I encountered are not even "book snobs" per se. Just some people who read once in a blue moon, and seems to me they give that as an excuse, hahaha!
I've read everything that catch my eyes. once, i was interviewed for a position and the interviewer ask me about my hobby and i said reading. she's perked up by the word and asked me what i usually read and i said i mostly read fiction and suddenly her eyes dim a little. see there a pattern when we said we read fiction? for me, fiction and non-fiction distinguished as fiction: 70% - 80% imaginations + 20% - 30% facts
non-fiction: 100% facts
and me, Azmira is a person who has a problem to remember hard facts and I can recall it when I read in on fiction because for me its a fun facts. something that my mind remember because of the ways its presented.
but nowadays, more facts incorporated into fiction and i'm happy with the way it is. i usually dig out on my own ( googled it) to verify the truth. that's the way i train myself to be a well read person.
Is it the quantity of books you read, or the quality?
According to Merriam-Webster, well-read is "well-informed or deeply versed through reading".
The way I see it, it's all about the message you get from every book you read, how you understand it and, the most important thing, how you use it; how you implement it in your life.
To my mind, it's also about diversity. You're 'well-read' if you do not restrict yourself to a limited genre.