Conversation

I think before the internet I must have read a couple of hundred books a year. Now maybe a couple of dozen. Reading books is just so slow.
3
54
But numbers back up since I resumed reading genre fiction a few years ago. I think 1997-2015 or so I read nonfiction almost exclusively. I can’t read literary fiction anymore. Way too much work. I think I don’t care enough about people to enjoy literary fiction now.
2
16
Replying to
Limiting factor now is eye strain. And also I can’t read on paper anymore. Too lazily addicted to reading on light kindle in the dark in bed. Paper is horrible technology.
2
8
Genre fiction is great! Learn the tropes and conventions and you can zip through. It’s like runtime library linking. Within a single universe is even better. Reusable world and characters.
2
6
Literary fiction has to REALLY deliver a lot. Single use works and characters. And some have such poor payoff it pisses you off. Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy was the first big fat book I remember being actively mad at. Huge waste of time I trudged through.
3
5