First, a confession: I liked 'The Da Vinci Code.' This news is even more of a surprise to me than it might be to those who, years ago, heard me quip that I quit reading it because 'the moment the albino assassin came through the door, I left.'
During the course of any normal day, I usually pay more attention to assembling a grocery list than I do to reading movie reviews, although there are a more than a few film critics who bring huge insight to their work.
When I came into politics, I remember reading these scorecards of my performance, and I would routinely have these comments about not being assertive enough.
I wasn't seeing black girls in the books I was assigned to read at my school. I was tired of only reading about white boys and dogs and wanted to collect books featuring black girls.
I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.
But with comics you're reading and assimilating an image simultaneously, instead of just reading or watching the tube.
A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.
Anyone who has ever spent time listening to a legislature knows the astonishing speed at which all presiding officers and reading clerks can spit out the formulaic incantations of parliamentary procedure.
A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
The future is in photos for social media. More and more people are not reading, so I try to attach a photo to most Tweets.
We become attached to certain characters in novels, mostly because they have some mystery attaching to them. We re-read the books, but we're still left wanting to know more. In my own case, it was 'Great Expectations' and Miss Havisham in particular. Luckily, writers have the option of making up the knowledge that reading doesn't supply.
All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept.
I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience.
The attention span of children may be one of the main reasons why an immersion in on-screen reading is so engaging, and it may also be why digital reading may ultimately prove antithetical to the long-in-development, reflective nature of the expert reading brain as we know it.
I'm kind of old-school and love nothing more than sitting, opening a book, and reading it. But I also love listening to audio books.
Reading an audio book is a very odd experience because there are three people sitting out there while you're reading in this glass booth, and you can see their reactions.
I've done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.
I do believe that our modern English usage has become way too clipped and austere. I have been reading excerpts from the journals of 18th-century seafarers lately, and even the lowliest press-ganged deck-swabber turns a finer phrase than I do most days.
As I reflect on the successes and failures of our push for democracy, reading widely in search for a path out of authoritarian rule, I'll keep writing to encourage myself and those on my side.
More and more I'm finding that I'm reading history, I'm reading biography, I'm reading autobiography for a sense of people who've been able to provide leadership. I don't read leadership books anymore.
