I was always an avid reader of books. My vocabulary, my English are all thanks to that reading habit. Reading keeps me grounded. I came from a very middle class family - poor, in fact.
I like reading... French, Russian classics - Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert. I also like Hemingway, Virginia Woolf.
Readers have always read high and low, and to fight that urge is to fight the freedom inherent in the act of reading itself. The only arguments that have any traction, as best as I can see it, are about whether the genre classification of 'young adult' should exist at all.
The first time I heard 'Sharknado,' I thought it was a late-night infomercial for a new vacuum cleaner. Could have swore I ordered one once. Then I found out what it was and remembered that I grew up reading the 'Sharknado' novels.
Some have suffered death to make it possible for us to have the scriptures today. Historically, the scriptures in the Bible were reserved for the clergy, with the reading of them by others being denounced. At times, laws even prohibited the public or private reading of them.
I remember, even in college, reading Cliffs Notes about a book and thinking to myself, 'Geez, that sounds like a good book. I should probably read it.'
I have known Farley Mowat all of my life, from reading his books as a child to becoming a close friend of his over the last three decades.
I skipped kindergarten because I was reading at a pretty high level. That's a weird and cocky thing to say, but I was real sharp, and I knew that early on.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes.
Newspaper readership is declining like crazy. In fact, there's a good chance that nobody is reading my column.
The advent of ebooks is no more going to kill the pleasure of reading than the introduction of the internal combustion engine made horses extinct.
I kept telling my mom that reading comic books would pay off.
My dad taught me to read by reading comic strips in the Saturday paper and Archie comics.
Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.
A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.
With a population of 1.4 billion, China is a lucrative market. But getting into that market isn't cheap. At best, the price of doing business in China is silence; at worst, it's reading talking points straight from the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing is not subtle about it.
Usually, the first thing I do when I wake up is I start working, so I often won't start the day by reading anything because I like to minimize my 'commute' as much as possible. I wake up, open my laptop and start working in bed.
I have enjoyed most particularly reading the correspondence between Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. The genuine friendship, competitiveness and support that thread through their communications are life lessons for us all.
To try and stand outside the marriage, I'd say we have complementary capabilities. I do the hustling and the business. I do more script reading. I handle contracts.
At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.
