Sunday, October 09, 2005

Hate to read books

Let me tell you about a very nasty disease I have:

  • I hate reading books
  • I hate spend money on books I don't read
The latest book I read completely was Peopleware by DeMarco, about 6 years ago. It changed my way of thinking quite considerably. I got In Search of Excellence by Peters as a present, but was unable to finish it. Same for Gödel, Escher, Bach which is one of the most boring books I have ever looked into. I wish I had read the book A Mythical Manmonth by Brooks. I read Alice in Wonderland on the little screen of my Palm V, but forgot about most of it.

My wife and kids love to read. Many of the people I admire are addictive readers and I wonder where they find the time to do it. My problem is that I can't read while driving a car, I can't read while working as a consultant for a customer, I can't read while I am playing the piano, I can't read while eating and I can't read while reading or writing on the internet. And I can't read in airplanes on business travels because I do not travel enough and when I do I am too interested in listening to the cockpit radio (I think only United Airlines has an audio channel with the cockpit radio) or preparing for the meetings to come.

If any of you has any idea how to cure my disease, then please tell me... thanks in advance.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Books I would like to read:
Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change by Kent Beck
Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration by by Stephen Berczuk and Brad Appleton
The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky by Joel Spolsky

Anonymous said...

Don't feel bad, a lot of readers don't understand a thing that's going on in the book. Well, me anyway. You might say there are many ways to 'fake reading'. Examples: Sometimes I read fast simply to enjoy the internal sound of words going by -- the way sometimes you see a car with a dog's head sticking out the window. Science books are like that for me.
Some books -- I just read the captions on the pictures.
A lot of times I read something until it becomes clear the author did not think things through to my satisfaction.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

A good source of some short stories that move along is www.hatetoread.com. Try it.

Unknown said...

i too suffer from the same disease! I've tried forcibly reading books so that I gradually develop a liking towards reading. didn't seem to work too great though.

just makes me feel good in the end that i finished a certain book. Do tell me how to start enjoying reading..the entire process i mean ..(if u came to know from someone)