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/lit/ - Literature

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3713874 No.3713874[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

How old were you when you seriously started reading?

Me, 19.

>> No.3713876

11. I found a copy of Anthem in my christian school's library

>> No.3713878

I haven't started yet... One day

>> No.3713884

6-8

>> No.3713894

2 months ago. Finally realized that video games are pointless.

>> No.3713898

>>3713894

>pointless

Still not ready.

>> No.3713903

>>3713894
An advice. Don't care about the "point".

>> No.3713908

>>3713894
You'll either realize that you're reading for the wrong reasons and go back to video games, or find yourself enjoying reading without having to reject video games. Either way... you haven't seriously started reading.

For me it was 12 or 13 when I realized I needed to read more if I wanted to be a writer. I've since abandoned that goal (I still want to be a "writer" in academia, though) but I still read.

>> No.3713912

23

>> No.3713914

>>3713894

Hey, dude, I am 36 and still game. I have also been reading since I was 6 and never stopped loving it. You can have time for everything as those two are not exclusive.

>> No.3713916

>>3713874
Since I learned how to read, I've always loved books.

>> No.3713922

12 or 13.

It was around the same time I started getting bullied in school and I would eat my lunch in the library in order to avoid having to sit near the people who hit me.

>> No.3713923

>>3713916
I genuinely envy you.

>> No.3713925

16

>> No.3713930

>>3713922

I never understood bullies or people who get bullied. At my school we just fought each other if there was beef.

>> No.3713937

>>3713930

I my school I was the only white kid because I was a military brat and military bases ALWAYS for some reason send their kids to the shittiest school available.

So, not only did I not have any friends because I was the new kid, I was also the kid visual different from everyone else and therefore the easy target.

Fighting is hard when you're already the short kid and you got five large black kids throwing punches at you.

>> No.3713941

>>3713937

Thank god I'm a lower-middle-class kid who went to an upper-middle class school.

>> No.3713944

>>3713941

also didn''t hurt being 6'3 and 215 pounds, i guess.

>> No.3713949

>>3713947

What if I only stop by every few months with a barrage of shitposts?

>> No.3713947

If you're still posting here, you're not serious at anything.

>> No.3713948

>>3713937
Oh God, if the reverse thing happened everyone would have screamed "Racism"

>> No.3713951

>>3713948

It IS racism.

>> No.3713953

It took me about a year after finishing school to get over the trauma of my English lessons, so I was 19 too. I'm 23 now.

>> No.3713957

>>3713951
I know, but when happen Black on White people seems to ignore more.

>> No.3713959

>>3713949
You know that isn't true. And no, serious is a transcendent decission. And this is my last day here.

>> No.3713960

>>3713953

I had amazing English classes all through school. They're what got me interested very seriously in literature. Only classes I liked or got A's in.

>> No.3713961

>>3713959

It absolutely is true. I stopped coming here early this year.

You'll be back, trust me. If only very rarely.

>> No.3714019

3~4. Been a while since I've actually read something, though I intend to rectify that shortly.

>> No.3714051
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3714051

19 for serious reading. 16-ish for light reading (5-10 books a year). I spent most of my childhood and youth playing football, watching movies and playing vidya so reading never got into the equation until I was 16 and I decided it was about damn time I began educating myself.

>> No.3714089

I read a few king novels in elementary and middle school, but didn't start seriously reading until I realized my love for film about five years ago. with my love for film and storytelling came a new found love for reading

>> No.3714180

I always read books, when I was small I would escape into my chapter books and live different lives. I won the reading contest in my school for reading an insane amount of stories. I remember they used to give you a point system for reading (e.g. 15 pts for harry potter 75 pts for lord of the rings) and taking a test on a computer about the book. I was ahead of everyone by a couple hundred and was taken out to johnny rockets by my cool man principal, one of my proudest memories. that continued up until high school where I dropped out and now I got into literature beyond fantasy and science fiction which was the basis of my love into /lit/core. I will always and have always loved reading its one of the ways I have been blessed in this world. I will live a million lives before I die and will peer into the thoughts of humanitys greatest thinkers before I go. thanks you based /lit/

>> No.3714199

It all started thanks to Saramago when i was 15

>> No.3714206

16.
I hated books until my second year of high school when my teacher forced me to read or he was going to make me fail English.

>> No.3714210
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3714210

Last year when I was 20. Before that I had never read anything other than for school. Now I'm in love with it.

>> No.3714211

Only this year (21).
I settle in my book before sleep now I actually look forward to it. Also the idea of just coming in mid chapter(provided you remember what happened before) and just continuing it off is just great. Currently ready War und Peace

>> No.3714240

23/24

I'm a late bloomer, I bloomed late.

>> No.3714243

>>3714240
It's okay, I'm pretty sure no one can top me in the late bloomer contest. I didn't discover masturbation until I was 18~19.

>> No.3714248

>>3714243
are you a girl or a christian or both

>> No.3714250

>>3714243
That was probably for the best.

>> No.3714263

>>3714248
One of those things is true.

>> No.3714276

Read The Iliad and Odyssey when I was 16, sort of just grew from there

>> No.3714280

I've been reading ever since about the fourth grade, but I only took it seriously after reading Camus' The Stranger in my senior year of highschool.

It's become my number one medium of entertainment and boosting of my philosophical awareness.

Turning twenty-two this month.

>> No.3714292

Begun to read fiction on a daily basis at the age of 18 about midway through my first year at university.

>> No.3714307

I started reading seriously with Tom Clancy at age 8/9. As far as a preteen can be, I was a political junkie from then until 13, when I discovered Marquez and so 'high' literature. So, 9 or 13 depending on what you mean by serious.

>> No.3714331
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3714331

>>3714263

>> No.3714339

>>3714263

Are you a christian male or an irreligious female?

Either way, would smash.

>> No.3714346

Four.

>> No.3714373

I wrote my first novel aged 8, and it was published by a small publishers who had to release a second edition because of the demand.

In terms of reading (I'll limit my answer to higher culture literature), it began on my fifth birthday. I read Raymond Carver's Will You Please Be Quiet, Please and then realized that my own gritty and dark life experiences could be utilized to inform my narrative.

Ever since then I've read over a thousand books each year, graduated college with a top degree, and I'm now 18 deciding amongst several top universities world wide who are offering large sums of money to get me to study a postgraduate degree at their institutions. I've experienced several breakdowns (which resultd in my first best-selling book of poetry) but now I'm overcome that dark period of my life and am concentrating on my second novel, which has been bought already by a major publishing house who gave me $40,000 for an advance.

>> No.3714375

As a kid I was addicted to Enid Blyton and some other authors, but around 13 I stopped reading altogether and became a fag. I started again around Christmas and I've read only 3 books this year and I'm a quarter way through a fourth. This is in contrast with myself as a kid where I would finish an entire children's book in one sitting. I feel I am a failure.

>> No.3714388

>>3714263
be my gf

>> No.3714391

>>3714373
fucking imonly17butish

>> No.3714395

>>3714373

I laughed at reading Carver at 5, but poor show on the humor in general. Could have been much better.

>> No.3714446

>>3713957
Becuase Trayvon Martin part 2 is just waiting to happen

>> No.3714473
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3714473

My parents realized how much I enjoyed having stories read to me as a toddler. So - from the age of four onwards - they put me to bed every night with an audiobook playing. I must've listened to scores of novels every year. I exhausted the selection of children's literature available at my local library quickly, so I had to move on. I seemed to be interested in naval histories - which the library had an enormous collection of - so I started working through those tapes.

By that point (about eight years old), I was reading from the genre too. Eventually, I discovered Bernard Cornwell's 'Sharpe' series, which I became passionately interested in. The novels were saturated with references to contemporaneous philosophy - of the 'Enlightenment' era - and my curiosity got the better of me. I borrowed 'Candide' from the library when I was eleven or twelve. Naturally, a fair amount went over my head - though I enjoyed the plot. So, over the next few years, I dedicated a sizable chunk of my time to trying to work it out. I mostly read Locke, Rousseau, Godwin and more Voltaire. Latterly (about fourteen), I picked up Shelley, Wordsworth and - most importantly for me - Lord Byron. Once I discovered Don Juan, that was it for me. I knew literature was my great passion.

After that, I just followed references to other works in appendixes to Byron's poetry. 'Manfred' brought me to 'Hamlet', then Nietzsche, both of which led me to Sartre. It's a big, lovely, infinitely-branching tree after that.

>> No.3714522
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3714522

I lived in Duluth, MN and spent my time early on at the downtown public library.

It looks space-y!

>> No.3714532

>>3714473
And did all that intellectual stimulation do you any good? Dont tell me you got an english degree.

>> No.3714542

11. It's when I began reading philosophy - in particular, my first book was Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion. I grasped it pretty damn well too - only part IV went over my head to any degree, and even then my dad (who's a philosophy professor) was able to sort it out for me.

>> No.3714557
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3714557

>>3714532

I'm about to graduate with a degree in - that's right, you guessed it - English literature. All things being equal, I'll begin my MA in Romantic literature after the summer. I have no regrets.

>> No.3714565

>>3714557
>I have no regrets.

Eichmann said the same thing.

>> No.3714587

>>3713874
Like 2. I was always seriously reading. My reading level just wasn't at the same level as it is today. But even when I was 8 and reading "Journey to Terezor" its not like I was being flippant about it.

>> No.3714603

>>3714557
Enjoy your job at McDonalds.

>> No.3714610

What sort of books are considered "serious"? Am I still a pleb if I read works by Edgar Allen Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

>> No.3714613

>>3714603

Enjoy your burger, sir.

>> No.3714617

>tfw not the smartest teen/preteen child like I thought I was at that age

No way were you guys smarter than I was at that age.. no way..

>> No.3714629

>>3714617

Not only that, you weren't even all that smart.

>> No.3714630

>>3714617
Pretty sure no one was. People who were reading "high" literature at a young age probably had most of it fly over their heads, I know I did. Also, I'm pretty sure most everyone is told how smart and special they are at a young age. That shit fucked me over when I realized that I wasn't as smart or clever as I liked to think I was.

>> No.3714634

>>3714629
No way, I was really smart back then.

>>3714630
Yep, I too had to get over that and accept the mediocrity of my person after some time wrestling with it.

>> No.3714652

>>3713874
Sixteen. I never properly "got" any of the books I read back then, though, so I'm probably going to have to reread them.

>> No.3714654

The only problem I have when I read is when I use my limited mental scratchpad. I have no problem understanding the story, characters, or philosophical references. If too many new names and figures are introduced within a few pages, I will have great difficulty remembering them all. This has really spoiled most of my reading along with my inability to remember entire passages from memory. What I do remember is the visuals in my mind, but I cannot remember all of the words. I wish I could recall my favorite passages instead of having to refer to notes.

:|

>> No.3714663

I hated English class until I was in my Junior year, and I probably hadn't given much interest into reading beyond a few specific authors until I was about 16 or 17. Hell, early in grade school I was in the "slow kid" class for English. I had a lot of behavioral problems and shit (went to the principal's office almost at least once a week).

I read a few Lovecraft stories around 15 or 16 or so and that really piqued my interest, but it wasn't until later in high school that I really fell in love with it. My senior year I simply didn't give a fuck so I didn't turn in a course selection sheet at all, and I was thrown in Journalism as an elective. The journalism teacher also taught AP Literature and came up to me the first day at the start of year assembly and basically told me I needed to drop my normal English class and take his course. I did it just because he seemed like a cool guy and I hated the normal English teacher. I ended up discovering that I loved reading and had a pretty good knack for critical analysis and shit. I ended up being his star pupil so to speak. He was a pretty huge influence on me and is the reason I want to be an English teacher now.

>> No.3714682

14. Before that I pretty much accepted that I didn't have the attention span to read a whole novel, but after long periods of being bored shitless in my classes I decided that I might as well start reading to keep me occupied. Started with Vonnegut.

>> No.3714689

>>3713957
> implying everyone is an idiot
ISHYGDDT, you're reasoning like /pol/.

>> No.3714720

17 (im 19 now)
>graduated high school
>no college plans and no job
>better spend my days reading and lurking 4chan until next year

>> No.3714745

>>3714663
>Wanting to deal with children
I'll never understand people who want to become teachers.

>> No.3714772
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3714772

>not reading in the womb

plebs

>> No.3714943

>>3713941
that good feel

>> No.3715996
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3715996

>>3714772

>> No.3716003

>>3713874
16 or 17, i'm only 19 now and i'm just going through the classic canon.

Feels good reading the greats, but I'd love to branch off into self-indulgent reading.

>> No.3716018

I've been reading avidly since I was about 5, but didn't start reading books not meant for the youngsters until about 5 or 6 years later. Around that time I really started getting into crime novels like Chandler and Parker.
I've diverged a bit in my tastes these days, but I still enjoy a good mystery thriller.

>> No.3716048

>>3714745
Most kids are shit heads, but there's always that one kid who maybe gives a fuck who's life you can change, and that makes it all worth it in the end.

>> No.3716055

when i was 12 going on 13 i was following the blog hipster runoff which was hyping the shit out of tao lin right before eeeee eee eeee came out (2007). i got it on my birthday which was a few days after the release and through that i was somehow introduced to the concept of "existentialism" and read Nausea and all of Camus. i even tried being & nothingness though that was probably the worst reading experience in my entire life...

so yeah without tao there wouldn't have been a zeta ;~;

>> No.3716061

>>3713937
ahahah thats what you get cracka.
no but for real, yous a bitch

>> No.3716062

>>3714613
I ordered nuggets

>> No.3716064

>>3713874
18/19

>> No.3716065

>>3714243
hows this even possible?

>> No.3716070

>>3716065

they clearly didn't have the internet as a child

>> No.3716072

>>3714617
None of us were as smart as we thought we were as children, anon.

>> No.3716074

>>3713874
About 8. I saw my father's history and architecture books on the shelves and read those. Then I moved on to the other books on his shelf: Lord of the Rings, Call of the Wild, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and a few others which I don't remember. I had to ask about the meanings of some words when I read them though (this was before the internet).

>> No.3716078

>>3716070
nor did I,
I had a dick.

>> No.3716080

>>3716078

I was looking at porn years before I started masturbating.

>> No.3716086

>>3716080
why?
what legitimate purpose did that serve? seems pointless

>> No.3716092
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3716092

>>3716072
I had an iq of 420

>> No.3716139

since i was a child, i was very shy and books were my friends when i had none.

>> No.3717551

I used to read a lot from 6 to 12. Then, we bought a computer and I spent too much time on it, although I didn't completely give up reading (still read about 10 books/year from 12 to 17, then about 15/year from 17 to 24). I'm trying to rectify this now, but it's difficult to find a good balance between computer and books. I tend to choose what give me the easiest and most direct pleasure, computer and video games.

>> No.3717577

I was litterally given books at birth.
So, yeah... I don't remember the time in my life before I started reading.
I was going through Tolkein age 6
Prior to that, I had a passion for nonsense poetry and surrealist literature.
For almost a year now, I've been reading a book a week, plus bible on sundays.

Every room of the house has a surface covered in books and I prode myself on having read every book I own (that includes instruction manuals)

>> No.3717593

>>3714243
>>3716070
I learned to masturbate from my aunt's dog.

>> No.3717634

I read a shit ton until I was maybe 15, mostly just teen fiction and the like, and then I gave it up for a few years. Now I'm 18 and I've started again, although I wouldn't call it "serious reading."

>> No.3717639

Sporadic reading throughout life, with months of reading several books and long periods reading nothing. Am I really the only one?

I forget how fun it can be to read once circumstances mean its not convenient to read for a while, then I get reminded.

>> No.3717650

>>3717577
>Priding yourself on having read every book you own
Why? That seems like such a vacuous thing to be proud of. Your anti-library should be smaller than your library, of course, but it should still be large. You buy the books you want to read, in the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, and you work your way through them, acquiring more as you find more you want to read, and you never catch up. It's like perfection. Something to be aspired to but never attained.

My anti-library numbers in the hundreds. Someone like Umberto Eco, with time, money and learning, has an anti-library in the thousands.

>> No.3717660

18. Owned 5 or 6 books, reread some, went from there. Been reading for about a decade. Wish I'd started a few years earlier, maybe 12 or 13. Of course, I could only read kiddy crap.

>> No.3717663

19
started reading because I started work and had (and still have) a long commute and I don't feel like wasting my time staring out of the window like most people on the train.

>> No.3717668

>>3717660
You still only read kiddy crap, don't try and fool yourself.

>> No.3717681
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3717681

>>3717668

This is my reading so far this year. Please tell me which books are kiddie crap.

>> No.3717683
File: 1017 KB, 203x283, muhfuckindrills.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3717683

>>3717660
>Sunhawk is over 20

>> No.3717685
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3717685

>>3717681
All of them. Not even trolling.

>> No.3717689
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3717689

>>3717685

Hmm. I see. The Instructions, a 1,400 page postmodern books is for kids? Alright. I would hate to see what you think of Harry Potter, or another childrens' series.

>> No.3717691

>>3714243
I've met someone on /d/ who claimed to have never masturbated

>> No.3717698

>>3717683
That makes it even worse.

>> No.3717703

>>3717691
I knew a bunch of girls who claimed not to, though one of them later confided that she did.

>> No.3717711

>>3717660
Wait, are you 28?

>> No.3717712

>>3717689
sometimes I get the feeling that you just breeze through books without investing any thought into them at all..

>> No.3717714

>>3717712
I think he reads them purely so he can say he's read them, but takes absolutely nothing from them.

>> No.3717722

Always, my mum got me into reading when I was little; I was raised on the likes of the Famous Five novels, C. S. Lewis, and Enid Blyton.

>> No.3717730

>>3717689
oh god if you weren't so pathetic, i might even like you for the continous stream of entertainment you provide