How do you read/how much do you read a week/do you avoid tv? Various questions

[Ed]

How much do you read a day? I'm always fascinated by people who love books...want to consume them and live in their worlds..how much time each day they are able to read? Do you go for a book a week or more or less?

[Sandi]

I usually read a couple of hours a day. I read at breaks and lunch and in the evening when my husband is channel surfing and my son is playing World of Warcraft. I also read about an hour a couple of times a week on the recumbent bike at the gym. A book light has helped me get more reading in too.

[Kate]

I read at least 2 but often 4 or even 5 books a week. I read an hour or two a day, especially if TV is rubbish. If I'm on holiday I'll read a book a day.
The problem I have is it's very hard to find enough good books to read so a lot of what I read is rubbish! Especially given the small selection at my local library.

[Bill]

I read fiction every evening from 10PM till I start dozing usually 1 to 2 AM. How many I read a week depends on what I am reading and how much I am enjoying the book. Often the more I enjoy a book, the slower I read it or I may read it once fat for effect and then read it over nice and slow to savor - sort of like snorting down a Big Mac vs having a great meal at a 5* restaurant. I can speed read, but do not do it with fiction, but reserve it for work related stuff.

[Jed]

I don't own a TV or a radio. I have seen how TV melts people's brains to mush and programs them to buy things they don't need, even going into debt to acquire these things. I have never met anyone else in the last 30 years that doesn't own a TV and for all the claims of "there's nothing to watch", I notice people get most of their conversations from the TV set and love to quote from the dumbest sounding TV shows.

Instead of spending money on cable, I buy books instead, as well as using the public library. I get my news from the Internet.

I estimate that I read 2 to 3 books a week from cover to cover and skim several others.

[Bill]

Well I do own TV's and DVD players. I do not watch network TV unless we are in a Tornado watch box, but watch movies and selected TV series that I like which I have on DVD. And I typically do not watch a TV series until it is ended and all available on DVD. It is a much different experience. EG, I have not seen the new Battlestar Galactica and will not until the last season is released this February. I like many of the SF series(Star Trek, Stargate, Bab 5 etc); and I have a 'thing' for BBC mature (intelligent) TV series (like I, Claudius, To the Manor Born, Waiting for God...., I am US).

[Clickety]

Hm. Probably a few hours a day; I go through 5-10 books a week, on average. Some weeks it's less; some weeks it's more. We don't have cable, but we watch DVDs and hulu.com shows and stuff.

[Poo1987]

I have a television in my room, but hardly used. I rarely watch it due to several works I've got to do and numerous books I want to read. I always try to read as long as I can, till night, till late, but it's quiet impossible by the reason that I feel asleep, usually when I am in bed. During on buses or cars, it is a proper time for reading too, because there is nothing else I have to or can do, though it's pretty hard not to fall asleep on a seat.

Why do I avoid TV and continue reading even if suffering from sleepiness? The reason is only that it is marvellous to be drown into the fantastic worlds that never be seen in everyday life. In TVs, it's hardly to see wonderful programme, but, in books, you can see it almost of the time.

[Marc]

I do not watch network TV unless we are in a Tornado watch box, but watch movies and selected TV series that I like which I have on DVD. And I typically do not watch a TV series until it is ended and all available on DVD. It is a much different experience. EG, I have not seen the new Battlestar Galactica and will not until the last season is released this February.
You sound like me. I stopped watching network TV when they cancelled Strange Luck. Shortly after that I was turned on to Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, and have since discovered Wonderfalls, My Name is Earl, and Pushing Daisies on DVD as well, so I see no reason to see the shows chopped up and mixed with commercials with a week in between episodes when I can follow the story directly.

[Werner]

Between a full-time job, a family, and an active hobby of creative writing, I don't have as much time to read as I'd like. Normally (when I'm not traveling, and if we don't have overnight company) I read a half-hour a day, while on the exercise bike; and if I have to miss a day for some reason, I make up the time later in the week. That allows me to average about a book a month. On the rare occasions when I'm traveling by bus or plane or waiting in the terminals, I read pretty much continuously.

When my wife and I travel together in the car, she drives and I read to her, so we keep a second book that we're reading together in the car (we also try to read a daily chapter from the Bible). And when we visit her side of the family, I typically have a third book (usually of short stories) that I'm reading from in their local public library, on the occasions while she and her sister/sister-in-law go to town to shop. (Since they don't usually visit bookstores, shopping with them tends to bore me.) On those days, I can get in several hours of reading!

Meal breaks at work typically find me reading, but there it's usually in periodicals rather than books; I'm a librarian, so that's my opportunity to read the book reviews in Booklist and Library Journal, as well as keep up with current news and opinion through certain journals that I like. If I'm eating a meal alone at home, I usually do so here at the computer, and either use the time to write or to get on Goodreads.

Though I don't "avoid" TV as such, it's seldom an experience I seek by myself, especially in the last few years (what with most of the shows I specially liked now canceled). Rather, it's usually something my wife and I do together, when we do so at all. Our conflicting work schedules don't allow us much common time, and we're more inclined to spend what we have in other activities, such as board games; so TV and movies aren't super-high priorities.

Kate, you can probably supplement your small local library book collection through a service called interlibrary loan, by which your library borrows the books you want to read for you from another library. {This is usually a free service.} You might want to ask your librarian about this.

[Jim]

I love reading, but I like the TV too. We like to use the DVR to get our favorite shows & then skip through the commercials. Jeopardy, NCIS, The Big Bang Theory & a few others are worth watching. It's a shame that with 250 channels, an hour of TV a night is about all we come up with. It's good for dinner time.

That gives us an hour or so to read each night or longer. Depends on how much time walks, gardening, woodturning or the horses & dogs take up. During the summer, reading & TV get a lot less priority. We're usually out & about rather than in the house.

I also get in 30 - 40 minutes of reading each day at lunch. Always a fiction book in my lunch box to break up the work day. I read constantly at work, so it's nice to escape into another world for a while.

[Kristine (fezabel)]

Jed wrote: "I don't own a TV or a radio. I have seen how TV melts people's brains to mush and programs them to buy things they don't need, even going into debt to acquire these things. I have never met anyone ..."

I lost my TV in my divorce settlement a few years ago & didn't have the money at that time to replace it. I still don't have one and I don't really miss it. I would much rather curl up with a mug of tea, a cat, and a good thick fantasy epic. My library knows me very well as I am a good patron who tries to return everything on time. I love my books!

[Cristina]

Now that I am working, i read only one book per week. Usually i read it in the weekend.
Oh i also have a TV that i never watch. For series and movies i just use my PC. No pub, no unwanted talk.

[Dan]

All of course depends on supply and demand. My demand are great but the supply my be lacking. When I was young I read almost anything (inside my favourite genres), but now I have become picky. If I had a constant supply I'm at least a two books a week guy.
TV I watch when there are any good on, however there are a lot of rubbish; game shows, American and European Soaps and so called "documentaries" from America, like Cops and The Most Amazing...., I try to avoid. Wish there was more SciFi on TV.

[Ed]

I wish I read 2 books a week...that's a goal for 2009. :)

[William]

Although I do love my TV I also love reading as well and sometimes it is hard to find the time. However every night I read from about 9:00pm until 11:00pm unless there is something that just can't be avoided. I am able to read about 24 books a year or some.

[Rindis]

I used to average about a book/week. Then I got a job.

Currently, my commute is ~1 hour (each way), most of that on the train. I split the time between napping and reading, and read through my lunch break.

At home, I'm generally captured by the computer. Some of that is reading (forii, and various levels of fiction available on the 'net), much is gaming of one type or another.

Broadcast TV is very rare. About once a month (or less) Wednesday is free and I watch Mythbusters. Beyond that, there's Anime Night, where a bunch of us get together, socialize and watch anime DVDs.