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Notes -
So I read 89 books last year (details can be found in the wellness Wednesday thread). Many people here and more so in real life seem to pretty surprised, and impressed. I'm not sure if this is me being a time (or hobby) snob, but I'm a little dissapointed in this kind of reaction. In the real world this makes some sense: TV and scrolling are much more appealing than a book after a long day at work, but I was hoping to see more serious readers in a place that's as text and argument heavy as the motte.
Reading a lot of books isn't as hard as it seems. The average american spends something like 4+ hours on the internet+TV. If you take 1 of those hours and convert them into reading every day you get 365 hours a year. At 50 pages/hour, that's 15k pages a year, or about 50 300-page books. I read slightly faster and slightly more, but also a significant amount in Spanish, which is slower. So probably 2 hrs/day at an average of 50 pages/hour. That's about 30k pages. If I look at my goodreads, I read 33,885 pages total. I keep more detailed stats for Spanish. Looks like I read for a total of 227 hours for a total of 11k pages, which is about 45 pages/hour. Of course these numbers vary from person to person, and book to book. All very do-able for the average Mottzian. It just means largely giving up other forms of entertaininment, like video games or TV, and perhaps more importantly, not being a workaholic.
So are my expectations for this place off? Am I overestimating the importance of books to the average Mottzian (and in self-cultivation in general)? Underestimating people's daily time commitments?
I have four kids, all very young so yeah. 2 hours a day to hobbies is not realistic for me. Although, if you're willing to count childrens books I read several hundred last year. I read with my kids almost every night. The olderones get chapter books and the younger ones Dr. Seuss and such.
What chapter books are you reading your kids? If I ever find a woman who will tolerant my weirdness, I'm planning on reading Harry Potter, the Hobbit, the Wizard of Earthsea and probably some others from my childhood.
The real challenge would be finding a woman who doesn't want you reading Harry Potter to her children.
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I've had great luck with the Discworld books. Although that stretches "chapter book" a bit because Pratchett wasn't a fan of chapter breaks. If you like classic science fiction, the Heinlein juvenile series have been pretty well-received.
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We started the Hobbit, but my son got kind of scared when we got to the goblins (he's 6).
We've been working through the Chronicles of Narnia now. Treasure Island is in the queue.
Similarly, we've done The Hobbit (around age 6), the entire Harry Potter series (started around 5-6, ended at 10), Lord of the Rings, now working on The Three Musketeers (which I have to occasionally slightly expurgate, but is generally very good), plus things like A Christmas Carol around the holidays. At younger ages we've done the original Winnie the Pooh stories, The Wind in the Willows, probably a few others I can add later once I check my notes.
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