SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I would tend to agree with you, Adam. For me, reading is about what you get out of books, not how many you have read. I myself write books and publish them online by myself and most of my reading is geared towards documenting and planning plotlines for my books, or towards keeping current on subjects on which I touch in my novels. Rushing through a book just to be able to claim that I fulfilled some kind of quota would totally kill the fun of reading in me.

I had surgery on both eyes this summer. ANY book I read is a good thing. And, a corollary -- I have only so much vision to give. If the book isn't very good, I may decide not to invest in it.

Since I know people who keep a tallying on how many movies they watch or videogames they play and strive to hit goals based on their tally I would disagree with some of your assumptions.

You will always find all kinds of people with all kinds of motivations as to why they do something. Don't think about or worry about them. Concern yourself with why you read.

Some people want to set goals and reach them.
Some people could care less about what they take out of a book - they just want to be entertained while they are reading.
I wouldn't say you are being too analytical, cynical or negative...maybe a little judgmental though.

I personally read for many reasons (depends on my mood as to the reason) and I think it is more important to focus on the fact that people are reading (yea!) instead of why they are reading.

just my opinion - don't read too much into it.

btw - I read 149 books last year and surpassed my goal of 125 books (had to add that in there just to make you smile)

Have a great day :)

Adam wrote: "You never hear anyone proudly stating they watched 50 films this year, saw 10 plays, read 82 comics or chained 10 TV series. "

You should hang out with a theatre snob sometime. You *will* hear about how many plays they saw, who was in them and how off-off-Broadway they were.

Or worse, a beer snob. No, scratch that, a 20-something beer snob. Not only do you hear about all their boring beer conquests but oh man we were sooo drunk!!! stories that go with it.

I read this post in .03 seconds.

I actually only read one book last year. But I read it 135 times.

While I understand the point, recognize that you're on a book discussion group page. So unless we're all going to discuss one book REALLY THOROUGHLY, it kind of comes with the territory that people would note the books they read. And since this is a group of self-described aficionados, you're going to get some peacocking about just how much of an aficionado a person is.

Adam, I think having reading goals is a good way to motivate oneself to read more. I have to assume the group challenge is what you're taking issue with even if you haven't said so explicitly.

I've chosen a goal of 57 books for our group challenge which I'm pretty sure won't be possible. However, it is a challenge and therefore I feel that I should try to challenge myself with it. If I do manage my goal I'll read a lot more books than I would have otherwise and that will be awesome for me. I will benefit from this. All the books I've chosen as part of my challenge have been on my to-read list for ages and I've been meaning to read them for a long time. This is just a good opportunity to do so. I've never participated in a challenge before, but I've seen several friends say they've read far more when they've done so and I've always thought this was the main goal of any challenge.

The group challenge is optional, if you don't want to participate, then don't. Each person who does want to participate can choose their own challenge goal and which books on the shelf they want to read. Our bookshelf is made up of a collection of pretty awesome books that many members have not read all of. For those of us who weren't members years ago when these books were read, we now have a second chance to read them and discuss them in the group setting.

I'm not 100% sure I understand your objection. I do feel the need to point out the the words "bragging" and "boasting" have a negative connotation and could be part of the reason people have responded with some offence.

Adam I did read both your posts, in fact I read all the posts on this thread. I also thought I did give my opinion, namely that having reading goals is a good thing and generally leads to reading more.

I assumed you were talking about the challenge because of the timing of your post, as you mentioned in your response. My apologies for jumping to conclusions. My incorrect assumption was probably also made because I don't think I've ever come across what you're talking about. I know that GR keeps track of how many books we all read on our profile page, but I've never seen anyone boast about it. I wonder if perhaps (again, timing) people were cheering that they made their yearly GR goal? By which I mean that "how many books do you want to read during the year?" icon that pops up on the home page.

So no, I haven't had the same feeling as you regarding the idea that people are more interested in reading lots of books rather than which books they read or the content thereof. I can't say I've seen any boasting or bragging, but perhaps I haven't paid much attention recently due to holidays. Do you see this behaviour in your GR friends or in the community in general? I ask because I tend to only see what my friends are up to.

I have picked up on this a bit I think but it is hard to tell because it is hard getting the tone of a post sometimes. Also since GR is used worldwide I think that language familiarity might also play into it.

For me personally I just joined this year and never kept track of how many books I read in any particular year so seeing stats on it is interesting. I do find that i push a little harder now at the end of books to get them finished. I also checked at the end of the year using the page count in the challenge stats to see how many pages per book and per day I read.

I'm (somewhat) in agreement with Adam: there appears to be a propensity for determining how many books one reads in a year (whether or not it's a challenge, or whatever), and whether it's something to be proud (or not) about. :)

I have always read books, but it wasn't until spreadsheets were designed (there!! see how old I am!) that I began to use them to keep a record of which books I bought!! Not read - just bought! (btw it's very unusual for me to buy a book and NOT read it!)

I still use this spreadsheet (and it's huge!) to keep check on what is due for release and what I've bought - and THESE are ONLY the books I'm INTERESTED in!! I have never, ever, counted: it would scare me to death to realise how much money I have invested in my books!

It did scare me when GR sent me the e-mail to check how many books I'd read this year - because they were the only ones I'd actually entered into my book lists - it doesn't cover all those paperbacks I'd read in between reviewing; nor does it include ALL the e-books I've read from my lap-top or Kindle (purely b/c I forget to include them in my lists sometimes!)

It's quite scary (to me) to realise that according to GR lists I've "read" nearly 200 in 2013 - but I KNOW I could triple or quadruple this figure if I wanted to keep actual count!! I read for enjoyment, and am lucky enough to have the time to indulge my book fetish. I'm not really interested in letting other people know how much TIME I do spend reading :) :) It's really disgusting!! *Hugs*

Scott wrote: "I personally read for many reasons (depends on my mood as to the reason) and I think it is more important to focus on the fact that people are reading (yea!) instead of why they are reading."

Amen!

This discussion regarding reasons some people feel the need to count things, and whether or not it is important, reminded me of something I once read in a biography of Samel Langhorn Clemens aka Mark Twain.

While interviewing Mr. Twain, a reporter mentioned the fact that some critics attributed his use of simple words and habit of utilizing a dozen words to portray a concept that could have been described with three or four to his possessing a very limited vocabulary.

Mark Twain simply replied, "Son, I get paid by the word".

I'm not sure I notice what you say so much as far as counting how many books one reads, but there are book groups on another web site that have monthly "What are you reading?" topics.

There are some people that that just provide a list of books they are planning to read or have completed without saying anything else. No comments on what they thought of the books or anything. That sort of behavior leads me to believe that they are only showing off that they've read a bunch of books. I mean really, what is the point of telling everyone that you've read all these books if you're not going to say anything about them?

As far the number of books one reads in a year or the amount of books one reads in total, I don't really have a problem with it and if there is an element of bragging or competition going on I really don't care. Sometimes though I see people who set goals to read 100-200 books or more in a year and they are actually reaching those goals and I'm just left feeling completely baffled as to how they do it. Some of these people are reading a couple of books a day most days and I figure either the books they are reading aren't that long, or they are just extremely fast readers, and possibly they don't do anything else with their free time except reading.

So I guess my main reaction to seeing these insanely high reading goals is along the lines of "Come on, seriously?", but a part of me is also jealous that they can get that much reading in because there's just an insanely high number of books I want to read and I know it will take decades to even make a dent. I also wonder if they really get as much out of the books they read by reading that fast as I do reading at my somewhat sluggish pace.

As for my personal book tallies/challenges, I do them to motivate myself to read more and I know I wouldn't read nearly as much if I didn't set goals that were public for everyone to see. My original goal for 2013 was 50 books, but halfway through the year I knew I wasn't going to make it, so I changed it to 36 books and I finished with just 2 days to spare. I felt proud of myself for being able to accomplish my modified goal and I will try to improve on it this year. This year I will attempt 42 books because that's always a good number. I'm very grateful that this site and other book sites allow me to track my reading and set goals because being disabled I think finishing a book is the only thing that gives me any sense of accomplishment along with the enjoyment I get from the act of reading itself.

I've noticed perhaps an increasing concentration on, say counting how many of the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die books. I'm thinking that perhaps this is just technology change - I remember finding that spreadsheet and using it because I was curious, but now there's an app on my iPod as well, so I could track it with several stats too. I find my GR stats for each year very interesting, especially the page counts per year. I like to set high goals (150 this year) that I have achieved in the past, even though I'm not sure I'll hit more than 100 this year because I think there'll be a lot of longer books in there.

Technology can show some interesting trends to us that we might not see as we choose our books and I'm sure I'm not the only one to find that sort of thing interesting.

Chinook wrote: "Technology can show some interesting trends to us that we might not see as we choose our books and I'm sure I'm not the only one to find that sort of thing interesting. "

Indeed. And a site like goodreads really makes reading a more interactive experience when it usually is something very solitary and personal. You have access to so many people's opinions and views on books you may never would have taken a second glance at otherwise. If that leads to some boasting from certain types of people, then I'm fine with that. I'd much rather see someone boast about how many books they read rather than what they wore the night before or how many tacos they ate at lunch.

I don't believe this is a new trend and it's definitely not unique to books/reading. This sort of thing has always existed in people just before the internet it was below the surface.

Book stats are just another form of collecting. Some people enjoy collecting for the things they collect, others purely for the amount of things they collect. I've been on forums where people boast about the length of time they've been a member or the number of posts they've made. There used to a site called DVD Aficionados where people would list how many DVD's they owned, it wasn't as important if they'd actually watched them.

I recently read Maphead where the author talks about, and to, the people who travel the world trying to be the one who has visited the most localities (country is too unsure a term sometimes). Most often then only spent a day or less in some places, didn't see anything, but did it just to count it. And geocachers who constantly search for new caches to be the first or have the most. Photography sites were people are more concerned about the amount of images they upload with less concern about the quality or content.

In short making lists, showing off, trying to do the most, is a very human trait and not new. For most people it's a subconscious act, they really aren't trying to brag or boast. I read a lot of books a year but not because I'm trying to show off but because I'm a naturally fast reader and enjoy it. To each their own. As long as people are reading.