Read the first three-fifths of the Belgariad and stalled over International Tour (The Second). I don't remember why.
I love them both dearly, but the Mallorean is basically a remix of the Belgariad. David Eddings is very much a fan of the phrase "winning formula".
Yay, Circle of Magic! I preferred her other books, but I enjoyed those too.
"+The Golden Compass -- Philip Pullman" You read the rest, right?
Yeeeeaaaaaaaahhhh. The first one was definitely my favorite, but I liked the second one as well, in a "middle-part-of-the-trilogy" kind of way. (I read a bunch of his other books, too.) I eagerly awaited the third one, and when it came out in 9th grade, I read it immediately and was really dissatisfied. And then, after I thought about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that I kind of wanted to set Philip Pullman on fire. (Mentioning "The Amber Spyglass" is definitely one of my berserk buttons. Just ask poor Natasha, she had to live with me for two years :D)
I think part of it's the stigma that we shouldn't read socially that we don't. Then the Internet happened and we can be part of internet fandoms without specifically revealing who we are and that we are complete dorks.
Yeah, I definitely agree. There were a bunch of guys in my class who I knew enjoyed reading (we had SSR, and it was pretty easy to tell who didn't mind, and who wanted to stab themselves with their pencils), but it wasn't something that they ever talked about. My brother, too -- he'll devour certain books, but if he does discuss them, it's only with me and my sister. (If that -- last summer, he tried to sneakily read the Temeraire books without letting me know, because he didn't want to deal with my gloating. Even more hilariously, I hadn't even been trying to get him to read them -- I made my sister do it, and she gave them to him :D)
(Aside: you should totally read the Temeraire books! They are excellent.)
I read in class constantly; I was a fast test taker and it was the one thing we were allowed to do for pleasure if we finished a test early. As I liked reading in class a lot, this encouraged me to become even faster, and by college I was used to the envious stares boring holes in my backside as I turned in the first final about fifty minutes into the three hour period.
Heh, this is exactly what happened to me, too.
The concept that 'boys don't read' is bullshit. Even the concept that 'boys don't read fiction' is bullshit, but you can find exceptions to that (I find every exception I have ever met boring).
Yeah, I agree. Someone in the second article pointed out that there's a lot of "underground" reading, like comic books or book series with little-to-no educational content, like Goosebumps, which will at least give you an appreciation of certain kinds of stories, even if you don't move on to anything "good".
My favorite anecdote about this is the most-loved book in my sister's 7th and 8th grade English classroom in Brooklyn -- the space-dinosaur manga version of MacBeth. I for one am greatly in favor of spreading space-dinosaur Shakespeare among the youth of today :D
I'm not sure I'd buy that boys are not social readers at all, but the idea that girls are more social readers is probably true.
HP is a really good example of this -- tons of readers in both genders, but guys are definitely outnumbered in fandom, even though they do form a significant proportion of it. I think that everyone will become a social reader if they love a book enough, but women are more inclined to do it for books they feel less passionately about as well.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-05-05 02:34 pm (UTC)Read the first three-fifths of the Belgariad and stalled over International Tour (The Second). I don't remember why.
I love them both dearly, but the Mallorean is basically a remix of the Belgariad. David Eddings is very much a fan of the phrase "winning formula".
Yay, Circle of Magic! I preferred her other books, but I enjoyed those too.
"+The Golden Compass -- Philip Pullman" You read the rest, right?
Yeeeeaaaaaaaahhhh. The first one was definitely my favorite, but I liked the second one as well, in a "middle-part-of-the-trilogy" kind of way. (I read a bunch of his other books, too.) I eagerly awaited the third one, and when it came out in 9th grade, I read it immediately and was really dissatisfied. And then, after I thought about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that I kind of wanted to set Philip Pullman on fire. (Mentioning "The Amber Spyglass" is definitely one of my berserk buttons. Just ask poor Natasha, she had to live with me for two years :D)
I think part of it's the stigma that we shouldn't read socially that we don't. Then the Internet happened and we can be part of internet fandoms without specifically revealing who we are and that we are complete dorks.
Yeah, I definitely agree. There were a bunch of guys in my class who I knew enjoyed reading (we had SSR, and it was pretty easy to tell who didn't mind, and who wanted to stab themselves with their pencils), but it wasn't something that they ever talked about. My brother, too -- he'll devour certain books, but if he does discuss them, it's only with me and my sister. (If that -- last summer, he tried to sneakily read the Temeraire books without letting me know, because he didn't want to deal with my gloating. Even more hilariously, I hadn't even been trying to get him to read them -- I made my sister do it, and she gave them to him :D)
(Aside: you should totally read the Temeraire books! They are excellent.)
I read in class constantly; I was a fast test taker and it was the one thing we were allowed to do for pleasure if we finished a test early. As I liked reading in class a lot, this encouraged me to become even faster, and by college I was used to the envious stares boring holes in my backside as I turned in the first final about fifty minutes into the three hour period.
Heh, this is exactly what happened to me, too.
The concept that 'boys don't read' is bullshit. Even the concept that 'boys don't read fiction' is bullshit, but you can find exceptions to that (I find every exception I have ever met boring).
Yeah, I agree. Someone in the second article pointed out that there's a lot of "underground" reading, like comic books or book series with little-to-no educational content, like Goosebumps, which will at least give you an appreciation of certain kinds of stories, even if you don't move on to anything "good".
My favorite anecdote about this is the most-loved book in my sister's 7th and 8th grade English classroom in Brooklyn -- the space-dinosaur manga version of MacBeth. I for one am greatly in favor of spreading space-dinosaur Shakespeare among the youth of today :D
I'm not sure I'd buy that boys are not social readers at all, but the idea that girls are more social readers is probably true.
HP is a really good example of this -- tons of readers in both genders, but guys are definitely outnumbered in fandom, even though they do form a significant proportion of it. I think that everyone will become a social reader if they love a book enough, but women are more inclined to do it for books they feel less passionately about as well.