Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 19, 2024

Somewhere in the universe, Ray Bradbury, the author of “Fahrenheit 451,” is crying.

When the line drops below zero, does that mean that people are forgetting books they read years ago?

So true, looking back at the dozens upon dozens of books that I have purchased over the years, and my life has basically come to the point of watching a boat load of YouTube videos.In the old days, I would bring a bag of magazines that I had subscribed to, and maybe 1/2 dozen books or so to read while I was at work Now, most all of them deserve to be read again, but every now and then, something new that interests me comes out, so the pile increases.And, I still prefer to have a book in hand, while sitting in a waiting room.

Rat may have a point. Of course, he might not be familar with Amazon Kindle.

I presume this applies specifically to the reading of books, since many people spend hours reading content online, especially posts on social media. I should also point out that the internet actually increases the opportunity to access works of literature, since you can read and download books online. It’s not all bad

Technology has turned out to be our undoing. It’s too easy to peddle propaganda. This is the new normal. Look forward to more imbeciles telling you that facts don’t matter, and opinions are just as legitimate.

More true than funny. I guess I’m a dinosaur because I still buy and read books.

The last line on the graft is retirement.

Mine kept climbing and plateaued.

We have so many books, the moving truck was overweight from them. They used a second truck.

Rat has a point there. That never occurred to me.

College may indeed be the peak. But there’s still a lot to read out there after that.

Most books I see at work (unnamed major e-tailer) are children’s books, followed by young adult books. Adult-interest books and college text books are distantly behind.

My daughter reads books all the time online, saves shelf space !

Only the left burns books, Rat.

Sometimes when I travel, I play a game of Airport Bingo. Basically it’s find people or things that fit various categories, like Lady in Red astilleros or man pushing baby stroller on a bingo type board. Or paper napkin. A recent square was person reading an actual book. Do you know how long it took to cross that one off??

I used to read every minute & with an exciting book into the small hours, I can’t remember he last one I read :(

Burning a bunch of Kindles rather than books doesn’t have the same effect.

It is estimated that in any given year, only about 50% of Americans read a book. I have little doubt that many of the non-readers are proud of it.

Something about a nice “metes and boundaries” book…still, if you read Kindle or anything else on the intranet, better know how to read!!

My 27-year-old son is a voracious reader. His degree is in IT, but he reads novels at a prodigious rate. While I might read 4 or 5 a year these days, he goes through about one a week. And we’re talking old classics (Beowulf, Le Mort D’Arthur,) as well as those Wheel Of Time type fantasy books.

If I didn’t go to the toilet, I’d never read at all anymore.

What’s next? TikTok.

Glad to say I am still a voracious reader.

I remember reading a lot of comic books during the late 50’s and early 60’s , wish now i would have kept them.

I’ve read all of my animation history books.

@CementerAD5 – for us YT viewers able to be real with ourselves, it’s 4 cargo freighters load.

When I retired I had plans to read all the books I have on my shelves. But here I am reading comics on the internet.

I bought a lot of textbooks, but didn’t read a lot. MAD magazine was a favorite, though.

So that’s where Facebook reels came from. Guess they had to follow Instagram’s example?

Rat, if you burn them, they can be used for warmth.

Truly a brave new world.

The Count cannot say “recently” but with so much WOKE/PC/ridiculous DEI crapola on even streaming (even the commercials!!!) The Count finds The Count reading so much more. Esp with the weather turning cooler and fires in the fireplace even more enticing. A recent Count binge read was the entire works of F. Scott Fitzgerald including the short stories chronologically. Amazing how much of it does not age well at all and is downright… bad. Ie famous short story “A Diamond as Big as the Ritz”. One can tell when F Scott was drinking and writing for money. Also reinforces the conspiracy theory that Zelda wrote much of the things attributed to F. Also brings back the days between the wars in decedent Paris when Ernest Hemming way would get F Scott stinking drink to boink Zelda. The Count ❤️s Literature. God Bless America!

I have always been an avid reader and now that I am retired, I have to make myself stop reading so I can get other things done!

Books can be so decorative. . Part of a line from Antie Mame. Can’t remember the exact phrase. Reply if you do.

the late Gotham Bookmart used to have a t-shirt, art by Edward Gorey: so many books, so little time. resonating evermore now. there they stand sentinel on the bookshelves as I tp away on my computer/slot machine, waiting for 3 lemond to line up in a row while being brainwashed.

Had a doctor’s appointment last week. The receptionist seemed pleasantly surprised that I had brought a book with me.

That happened to me, so I consciously make a point of always having a book to read, and reading at least a chapter every day.

Rage quitting X is the rage now. Ask The Guardian…

According to Ripley’s today, reading is the most attractive hobby.

It’s definitely hard to find the time to read when working full time. Usually only on lunch break, and if you have no where to go but he breakroom, some rude person who obviously doesn’t read, wants to TALK! I still managed a book a month. Now I’m retired and I average 2 a month.

for warmth I guess… what am I saying!? don’t ruin those perfectly good books.

When I was a smoker, I was reading a book a week (in fifteen minute installments!). People at the office actually knew me as “the book lady”. Now I prop my reader in front of my plate at lunch and manage about five minutes before something else captures my attention. I think I need to go back to paper books……or smoking. (j/k)

I’m still trying to get through a HIGHLIGHT.

My reading habits have been about the level of Pig’s in college from 5 to 68. Of course, i eschew antisocial media like the plague it is, have never watched an Instagram vid, and limit my YouTube to music late at night (we used to read in bed together, but Her eyes no longer allow it, and my reading light keeps Her awake).

Well, there is some variation; depending on what’s going on and how quick a read they are, some weeks I only get through 3 books.

Painfully true for many of us—and I WORKED as a librarian!

Haha, how can you spend a negative amount of time reading?

People that burn a good helpful book should hold it very tightly to their body if they choose to burn it.

Because, Rat, it makes them feel powerful in their tiny, bigoted, narrow minds.

With the advent of the Kindle my reading has skyrocketed

The graph. Don’t believe everything you read.

I prefer reading books rather than staring at a glaring screen. For it’s easier on my eyes, and you don’t have to charge a book, it’s always on and working, and don’t need the internet.

Where, actually, has there been books throwed on a pile and burned?

At least the national election cured me of not reading.

Oh, I don’t know. I have read 14 nonfiction books this year on top of all the daily technical reading I have to do for job. But then, I do not watch television

I think that books are burned lest they be an embarrassment to whoever is burning them.

Touch my books or Kindles and die, Rat. I read more than ever since I’ve retired. I’ve always been the one with my nose stuck in a book when I was a kid all the way through college. One of best things to happen on Amazon is Kindle Unlimited.I’ve found new genres to try, authors to follow and just all around good books.

another example of decreased attention span!

Rat has a point.

What’s coming next is a deeper drop in book reading.

Now I’m retired I’m reading more.And apparently, there were more books written and published last year than ever before …So maybe, don’t panic just yet

Like many in this section I’m about 99% a Kindle reader now. The list of advantages I’ve found it offers goes on and on. But reading Evan Friss’s The Bookshop on Kindle made me feel kind of dirty.

Books are subversive. Expect them to be completely eliminated from public schools once the rotten orange dissolves the Department of Education and replaces it with the Department of Trump Worship.

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot rea.—attributed to Mark Twain

So true. So why are people going to the trouble of banning books? How do you ban a kindle book?

Dr. Google informs me that Instagram Reels were introduced in 2020. I’ve also learned that “The internet is generally considered to have begun on January 1, 1983 when the ARPANET and the Defense Data Network officially switched to the TCP/IP standard, allowing different computer networks to communicate with each other”. The 37-year gap between those 2 points enables us to calibrate the graph to determine that Rat was born in 1867 and is now 157 years old. Also from Dr. Google: “In human care, brown rats may live up to four years.” So our lad is obviously doing something right!

When I see statistics about how few books people read after high school or after college, I am flabbergasted. I cannot NOT read. This year I’ve read around 20 novels, bios, and memoirs, and listened to almost 20 others while walking. What I don’t read much of anymore is magazines. But books? Can’t imagine not reading books.

Why read books when you now have AI

MYSTERY BOOK SHOPS—-I pick out an oldie by an author I’ve never heard of and see if I strike gold.

WHO CUT THE COLONEL’S THROAT?—-Published in England 1931

We lived in the same 2-story home in the Denver area for 30 years. My basement bookshelves contained more than 500 books, from literature to religious to fiction and historical (some of which I think should have been classified as fiction, but I digress). Ninety percent were hardcover.

When we finally retired moved to a warmer climate the local library jumped for joy when they received the donation.

That was nine years ago. Since then I have switched to Nook (partly due to lack of storage space in our new abode). In retirement, I have accumulated 600+ e-books. Easy to read on a large tablet, and convenient when traveling.

I still prefer hardcovers (I retained several of my favorite R.A. Heinlein SF books), the Switch to e-books has not slowed down my reading pace at all.

Authors: keep ’em coming!

My peak reading level was between 7, when I stopped reading books with pictures, and 16 when I went to the library weekly and took out 5 books each time. There was another peak when I worked graveyard shift minding industrial furnaces and another when I spent 90 minutes a day on light rail commuting.

I read a “real” book – ink printed on wood pulp – for at least 3 hours each day; have done so for 63 years of my life, so far, and I plan on doing so until I die….

I still read books on a regular basis, But I also utilize and because the reader can find thousands of books that long been out of print and very hard to find. I have spent may good hours reading countless works from The Golden Age of SF and plenty of History and Philosophy works as well.

One of the many reasons I am a big fan of “Overboard” is that you often see the human (and almost-human) characters reading real books!

there is more than one way to burn a book

I’m 72, I read all the time

Biggest drop happens after “Arrival of Children” :D