Do You Enjoy Reading More, Same, or Less Than When Younger?

[TromboneAl]

I seem to have more trouble finding books that I enjoy. Last year, I read 72 books and abandoned 57. Even when I like a book, I rarely think it ends too soon.

I remember not being able to put books down even when I needed to be at work (Shogun, Gateway, The Firm, etc.), but that happens rarely now.

I'm trying to figure out whether it's because

1. I'm older
2. I write books, so I usually know what's going to happen and when
3. I have too much time for reading
4. It just seems that I enjoy it less

What about you?

 

[Koogie]

I also find I am abandoning them more than I used to. I have 4 or 5 library books out at any one time. Maybe 1 of those will be read cover to cover.

Perhaps the quality of writing has declined ? (present company excluded of course !!)

Perhaps there are more (digital) distractions ?

 

[scrabbler1]

I enjoy it more than I used to, mainly because I have more time and energy to read them. Back in my working days, I tried reading them while on the awful train ride. But after 10 minutes they made me too sleepy so I had to stop. Now, I don't mind it if they make me sleepy because I can simply take a nap!

 

[pacergal]

I enjoy reading, I have since childhood. I don't care if I can guess what is going to happen, I still read. I have occasionally read digital books, but prefer paper.

Nothing like settling in a comfy chair with a (real) book in your lap and a fire in the fireplace!
Oh, and a dog next to you

 

[John Galt III]

Same here, Al. I think it takes a lot of intellectual energy and eagerness to really 'get into' a book, and 'buy into' the whole thing. As a twenty-something and thirty-something I remember happily getting absorbed into Philip Roth, Ken Kesey, etc. novels. Lately, as a matter of discipline, and also to get myself drowsy before sleeping, I make myself read from my copy of Tolstoy short stories now and then.

 

[Philliefan33]

I read a lot. Books are for enjoyment, so if I’m not enjoying the book I won’t finish. I created a “DNF” shelf in my Goodreads account for those.

Soon after I ER’d I joined a book club so I would be encouraged to read something different than my usual genres. Even there, if I don’t like the book I won’t finish (although my threshold is a little higher for book club books). We are currently reading “The Scarlet Letter”. It was assigned reading for me in high school; I’m not impressed as an adult. I remember the punchline, but not the details. I’m doing a lot of skimming over Hawthorne’s lamentations on human frailty because I just want to get to the meat of the story. I might just resort to the cliff notes to fill in my memory.

Life is too short to read books you don’t like.

 

[Sunset]

I used to read a lot, and had a personal rule not to abandon a book, which I violated once for "on the beach".
I would get lost in books like Dune.

Life took over, and I lost the drive to read.

I think its all the distractions of digital life, including this forum (a different kind of reading) that have reduced my reading.

Last summer while on an island without electricity, I read 6 books, which again points to the digital distraction theory.

 

[ocdokie]

I've always loved to read. In retirement, I can read to my heart's content. I like the "mystery" genre, but my problem is finding new books that aren't gratuitously violent. The violence is unnecessarily graphic and detailed, and is almost always exhibited against female characters. Most of these books are written by women. No doubt I'm now a fossil, book-wise, but for whodunnits, give me Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. The gore-fest genre bores me.

 

[RobbieB]

More for me, have more time. Every night before bed, stereo on, I do about 3 hours at a leisurely pace. No hurry, no reading ahead to the exciting conclusion. After all it's not like I have to get to sleep so I can get up and work tomorrow -

 

[Nemo2]

I find I am reading more and more, (translated), works, (predominantly, but not exclusively, European/Icelandic...with a few Afrikaans/Israeli/etc, thrown into the mix).

 

[Qs Laptop]

I seem to have more trouble finding books that I enjoy. Last year, I read 72 books and abandoned 57. Even when I like a book, I rarely think it ends too soon.



I remember not being able to put books down even when I needed to be at work (Shogun, Gateway, The Firm, etc.), but that happens rarely now.



I'm trying to figure out whether it's because

1. I'm older
   
2. I write books, so I usually know what's going to happen and when
   
3. I have too much time for reading
   
4. It just seems that I enjoy it less
   

What about you?

It sounds like I have the same problem as you.

Do I read more, the same, or less than I did when younger? About the same. I have had a habit since high school to read in bed for about an hour to an hour and a half before going to sleep.

But you asked--Do you *enjoy* reading more, less, or the same? Unfortunately, the answer is I enjoy it less. Although I devote the same amount of time to it there is evidence I don't enjoy it as much. You listed a couple of reasons: abandonment of books before finishing them and knowing what was going to happen in the story. I like the thriller genre so knowing what is going to happen and being proven correct gives mixed feelings.

In the past I never abandoned a book. Now it happens quite frequently. I'm not up to your ratio (more than 40%), but I'm at roughly 25%.

Part of the problem is there are a lot more books available. E-books and self marketing have created a lot of authors. Quality of storytelling has not kept pace. I haven't decided if being a Kindle Unlimited member is a blessing or a curse, but I'm leaning toward curse.

A great source of amusement for me is reading Amazon reviews of books I've read. I am flabbergasted at the number of 5 star reviews that are given. I figure the average reader must be unsophisticated or else the author is somehow gaming the system for good reviews. I would suppose my usual rating of books that I finish would be 3 stars. (I have written a fair number of reviews.)

A book that keeps me reading past my usual lights out time at bedtime is rare and it is getting rarer as I get older. You mentioned "The Firm" and "Shogun". Those were a couple I remember that were unputdownable. In recent memory "Leviathan Wakes", the first book in The Expanse series did that to me. Jack Reacher novels can do it to me at times. But it is rare these days.

 

[REWahoo]

I read less than I did when younger and far less than I did the last 20+ years I was working, when getting lost in a good book was a means of escape from the stress of megacorp. I would often spend my lunch hour reading in my car, parked under a tree in a nearby church parking lot.

Didn't realize how much I was using it as stress relief/avoidance until I retired and found I had more interesting and enjoyable things to do other than reading. I do still read but only 10-20% as much.

 

[Extra Medium]

I like it more, but find it difficult to find the time I’d like to spend. Perhaps that’s a sign that it’s not as much a priority as I think it is? I’m a slow reader, which is frustrating.

 

[calmloki]

Way way way less. I used to churn through books of all stripes in grade school - my Mom was in college and I read her Literature course books. Heinlein and his Stranger in a Strange Land, the Dune books, Poe, Twain, Booth Tarkington, Arthur C. Clarke, Tolkien, Michener - if their books were available they got read multiple times. In college they touted the Great Books program. Tougher sledding. War and Peace took a number of goes before I managed to get more than a few hundred pages in and the last couple hundred pages weren't read with any real focus, but I did chew through it.

Now? After years of flitting about from link to link, teaser pop-ups and Google I barely maintain focus past a couple paragraphs. Read some pages of Harry Potter to a kid and found it tedious; reviews laud the invention of Rowling but to me it read as if she was getting paid by the word rather than the beauty and invention of her phrasing or the creativeness and seduction of her story. My eyes are getting cloudy as well..

 

[sally4th]

I find I am reading more and more, (translated), works, (predominantly, but not exclusively, European/Icelandic...with a few Afrikaans/Israeli/etc, thrown into the mix).

Me too. It wasn’t a conscious decision but I find that most of my favorites are translated.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

I have always liked to read, but not books really, more like articles and things like that are of interest to me. I am reading now more that I am a little bit older. I think because there is more time on my hands and the internet is available now where you can find information on just about any topic.

 

[Dtail]

Read mainly articles and enjoy it about the same as when I was working.

 

[HadEnuff]

I spend more time reading than ever, because I have the time. Fewer books enthrall me, compared to years ago.

Maybe the reason is that the more one reads, the more story lines one has been exposed to. There are fewer and fewer new fields to plow. But every once in a while there is one, and then I enjoy it as much as ever.

 

[kcowan]

What really bugs me is when the author reaches the word count and then wraps it up quickly.

I agree that the average quality has gone down. And my abandoned rate has risen by 3x.

 

[cbo111]

Definitely read much more for enjoyment the past few years, maybe a book a week. Prior to retired life I actually read a lot more, with my nose in technical manuals and documents for several hours every day. Not the most fun stuff to read, but I had to be smart enough to fool test pilots and test engineers into thinking I knew everything about the weapon systems my company was building for them.

 

[GravitySucks]

I read less books but enjoy it about the same. These forums seem to interrupt the book reading.
Suppose I was more easily enthralled when younger. The last thing I read and was sad it was over was 100 Years of Solitude, and that was four years ago. The local library has a small section labeled Classics that has been good for finding things I never would have read. Selections there range from The Wizard of Oz to The Divine Comedy. I try to pick something out of that shelf once a month or so to keep from getting dull. I've been running through M.C. Beatons Hamish MacBeth mysteries, nice easy reads that have good characters and decent plots.
Oh, and I'm a dead tree finely sliced guy. Don't care for reading on the tablet except when traveling.

 

[harley]

I've always been a reader. When I was young I could read an average book in a day, although anything that really required thought would slow me down. I've often thought my reading speed was a bit of a curse, since I would go through books so fast. I spent a lot of my time in libraries and used book stores.

During my working years I read less, but still a lot.

Now that I'm FIREd I read a lot again, but mostly using the e-library. I've got books on my phone or computer, and read whenever I'm not doing something else. The nice part of the e-library is that I can read the same book no matter which electronic device I'm on, where in the old days I'd have a book in my room, a book in the car, a book in my backpack, office, etc., and I'd have to bounce between them.

I think the only thing that lessens my enjoyment is the fact that I've read so many great books, and so very very many good books, that it's hard to impress me these days. But I think that's just one of the side effects of age and experience. I'm that way with philosophy, politics, music, finances, pretty much everything that drives conversation. I've heard it, thought about it, decided I don't have the answer or the energy to try to convince or impress anyone. "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

Still, I can enjoy a writer's style and way with words, and occasionally an interesting twist on the story. I can also re-read old favorites, and since my memory stinks, it's almost like reading it for the first time. And no matter what, the process of rinsing the nonsense of the world out of my mind with a book is still very enjoyable.

 

[Bir48die]

I don't count but I read a lot of books. Way more than when I was younger. I did read on the plane quite a bit but little outside of that. Now while in Mexico a few weeks I'll read 4-5 easy. I have struggled at times to find new authors as I have many favorites but plow through their new books in no time. So, I just found another author that I haven't read but has over twenty books. That will keep me busy for sure. A friend of my wife stayed for a few days a couple weeks ago and we talked about reading and she gave me several new authors to read. However 95% is fiction so there are many to read that aren't.

 

[RAE]

I have always liked to read, but not books really, more like articles and things like that are of interest to me. I am reading now more that I am a little bit older. I think because there is more time on my hands and the internet is available now where you can find information on just about any topic.

+1, same here. I have never been a big reader of fiction, and as I get older, I read almost no fiction. I read a ton of articles on topics of interest to me, and some non-fiction books. I am always looking up information on whatever topic I am currently interested in, which takes up most of my reading time these days.

 

[Elbata]

I read more than ever. But sitting down and reading a book, not really. (Perhaps one/week). It's not that the book won't be terrific, it's that I spend my time reading so much else.

In the morning walking my dogs, I read blogs. At the gym, I read my Kindle. The computer for news and learning. Then there are podcasts. With all that, don't have time to get invested in TV programs.

Quit school when I was 15, so enjoy learning math now. Currently learning high school trig. I find the subject fascinating. BTW, can someone answer this for me: How did Pythagoras invent his theory? That just fascinates me. I didn't even think the number "0" was invented till much later.