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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not understand people who never read...

162 replies

upsylazy · 19/05/2011 16:22

Books, I mean - not Heat or Closer. I know it's none of my business and I know they're not doing anyone any harm by not reading books but, to a bookworm like me, I find it as baffling as someone saying that they don't like music. I suppose it's people like Victoria Beckham who positively boast that they've never read a book who particularly annoy me. Go easy on me, I've got a headache.

OP posts:
manicbmc · 19/05/2011 16:23

I have a headache too.

I used to read vast amounts and now I really can't be bothered. If I get though 2 books in the summer that'll be my lot.

themildmanneredjanitor · 19/05/2011 16:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

steamedtreaclesponge · 19/05/2011 16:23

Nope, me neither. Although you will now be deluged with people telling you that you're a massive reading snob and how TV is a perfectly valid form of meedja and who needs books now anyway with t'internet and all... Wink

squeakytoy · 19/05/2011 16:23

I agree with you, I cant understand it either.

My husband never reads.. in all the years we have been married I have known him to read 2 books. Yet apparently as a kid he was a proper little bookworm.

BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 19/05/2011 16:24

I love to read but DH, think I have only known him to read two books in his life!! Some people just dont enjoy it, same as some people dont like watching tv.

YABU - horses for courses and all that! If we were all the same the world would be a very boring place....and very quiet if we all have our heads stuck in a book.

worraliberty · 19/05/2011 16:24

I couldn't care less really.

I like reading but I've never thought about anyone else either liking or not liking it.

My DH likes watching films...I generally don't.

IhateMarlo · 19/05/2011 16:24

YANBU, I don't get it either, have had long chats with OH about this very subject. He had never read a book for fun until he met me, odd bod.
I mean there's books about everything, everything

Knofje · 19/05/2011 16:24

YANBU, assuming said person is NT.

manicbmc · 19/05/2011 16:30

If I get the reading bug I can go through 6 or 7 hefty novels a week but I have to be in the mood.

The ex used to boast about how he'd never read a book all the way through, like it was something to be proud of. Numpty.

QuietTiger · 19/05/2011 16:31

Same in this house - I usually have 2 or 3 books on the go.

DH has got used to having books scattered all over the place and jokes that my books breed. (they do!) He doesn't read much, unless it's important or his farming porn the Farmers Weekly. He's dyslexic, which doesn't help matters and he developed his main adversion to reading when he was a child and got given the cane by his teacher for "refusing to read properly out loud".

ScousyFogarty · 19/05/2011 16:31

I dont read novels,UPSY.I like Private Eye, autobiogs..funny stuff..good columnists... I suppose in some ways I like writing better than reading

TrillianAstra · 19/05/2011 16:32

Some people like to play computer games. I don't especially.

Some people like to listen to music - I will have music on but would never just listen to music.

So I can understand that, while for me books are the best form of entertainment ever, others might not think so.

LadyClariceCannockMonty · 19/05/2011 16:34

Going to stick my neck out a bit here.

I tend to find that people who don't read fiction have less what might be termed general knowledge than people who do.

squeakytoy · 19/05/2011 16:34

It wouldnt really bother me, but when we are on holiday, and I am peacefully resting on my sun lounger, happily reading my chick lit crap classics, it drives me mad when my husband is bored and restless after lying there for ten minutes, and I will say "well read a bloody book then".

We have a classic car, one of only 2 models left in existence, and I managed to find a magazine on ebay which had a feature in it of our actual car. It arrived, and he opened it - a year later. I am still unsure if he actually read the article or just looked at the photos. Angry

SecretNutellaFix · 19/05/2011 16:35

I have to have reading material around me. However I can appreciate that many people will have been turned off reading at school. I have certainly been turned away from Classics such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, etc thanks to my GCSE and A-level experiences. Yet I was devouring Vanity Fair and Les Miserables as a 13 year old.

FreudianSlipper · 19/05/2011 16:37

there is nothing like getting lost in a book i love being transported elsewhere. i used to go on at my mum for not reading until she told me that she jsut can not take the information in. she is very intelligent but has always found reading books hard though she will get through the guardian quite easily

Sidge · 19/05/2011 16:38

We love to read chez Sidge. Books everywhere, the children all have bookshelves in their bedrooms and our lounge is full of books.

I'd rather buy books than clothes, and read whilst eating if I can get away with it. I read in bed at night however tired I am, even if just a few pages.

I think it's a shame if people don't read at all (assuming they are able). But I can't bear book snobbery, I find the sort of people that will only read highbrow literature quite tedious really. If you can lose yourself in a book it doesn't matter whether it's Jackie Collins or Dickens really.

BeckleinDisguise · 19/05/2011 16:40

I adore reading, I have been a bookworm since I was 4 and probably always will be. I find people who never read books slightly baffling.

DH does not read much, certainly never books. He finds people who always have their nose stuck in a book slightly baffling.

YAB(slightly)U - we're all different!

(I don't like it when people like VB, who many youngsters people look up to, boast about not reading - they don't know what they're missing and shouldn't knock it if they haven't tried it. If those kind of comments make even one person decide not to try reading then its a shame IMO)

stoppinchingthedummy · 19/05/2011 16:42

I read lots ....on the aibu forum on mumsnet Grin I dont read books simply because i do not have any time to get into a book and once im into one i can't put it down!!!

valiumbandwitch · 19/05/2011 16:45

I don't know.... reading is so easy to me that I can just absorb the words and it isn't effort and it isn't work, but I understand that for some people it is effort.

I keep meaning to read another novel in Spanish and I never get around to it because although I could, it's hard work.

Victoria Beckham made that comment when she was in her 20s. I wonder if she hasn't ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, grown up a bit now?? She's not obliged to read books if she doesn't want to. Maybe she will get a kindle!!

LetThereBeRock · 19/05/2011 16:46

'I tend to find that people who don't read fiction have less what might be termed general knowledge than people who do'

That seems a completely illogical premise to me.
I used to read fiction,and I've tried to do so again,but it's not for me, other than a few old favourites,I read almost exclusively non fiction now.

Why do you believe that my general knowledge would be lesser than those who read fiction,when I'm reading books on chemistry,history,medicine,linguistics, and social anthropology,to name but a few of my favourite subjects?

And does fiction include everything from the classics to Mills and Boon?

valiumbandwitch · 19/05/2011 16:48

ps, reading the thread back, I can't believe some people are baffled by others not wanting to read!!! Well, all your reading hasn't taught you that people are all different, and that's allowed.

valiumbandwitch · 19/05/2011 16:49

My brother would look down on me slightly for only ever reading fiction! He reads books about science, economics, autobiographies,,,, all very worthy I'm sure.

Bartimaeus · 19/05/2011 16:50

I love reading, always have done and I always have a book on the go (or 2 if I change moods part way through a long book).

Fortunately DH is the same so we spend many lovely hours next to each other with our noses in a book.

My friend is the same but her ex used to get really annoyed at her reading - whenever she read he'd ask her if she was bored Hmm

Don't understand how people can not enjoy reading as there is so much choice out there, but as others have said, each to their own etc.

aldiwhore · 19/05/2011 16:50

I go long periods without the desire for a book at all, and then I go long periods where I can't get enough and will read anything that looks remotely like a book (after I finished the ones I think look interesting).

I don't get how people NEVER read a book though... what on earth do they do in the bath??