Reading is not a sport.

A few years ago I was talking to a friend of mine about how much I like to read and they began "the competition".  Every time I say I like to read, the person that I tell (whether I know them or not) usually has the same reply "I like to read too, I read more than you.  Have you read this, how bout this, how bout this?  No.  See, told you I was a better reader than you".  Do you have any idea how many books there are?  Just because I haven't read all of the same ones that you have doesn't mean I am a "bad" reader.  A guy I went to college with actually argued with me for well over an hour when I told him that there was no way his prof (who worked full-time and had a family) comprehensively read 10 full length books a day (or it might have been week, either way).  Perhaps he was a speed reader, but even then the key word here is "comprehensively".  Reading is not a competition people.  Reading is a hobby.  Reading is something that you do to sit and relax.  Nobody reads to be the best at it or to be able to say that they've read the most books.  In fact I like reading because it is one of the few things that doesn't involve any competition (despite those who try so hard to make it one).

I have read a lot of books.  I know that there are lots of other people who read and who read a lot too and I am sure that they read more than me.  My problem lies with those who will argue that they are such a "good" readers because they read soooooo many books and then they go out of their way to tell me that they are a much better reader than I am, and then I find out that they only read books written for 13 year olds.  Come on people...  Twilight???  An adult reading teen fiction is like a monkey peeling a banana, it's an mediocre task to get to what you want. Now don't get me wrong, I read my fair share of teen fiction, in fact I've read a lot of it.  Harry Potter, Vampire Diaries, Percy Jackson, Bartimaeus, Eragon, and of course the coveted Twilight.  I've got quite the collection :)  I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with reading these books, I'm just saying I don't think the definition of a "good reader" is someone who strictly reads books that are several decades below where their reading level should be.  I may have read Harry Potter, but I have also read War and Peace (I like to think that the two compliment each other nicely, Napoleon's march on Moscow - Voldemort's march on Hogwarts) and Moby Dick (fighting the white whale - fighting the evil wizard *haha*).  My personal definition of a "good" reader is someone who reads a wide range of books (at all levels), understands them, learns from them, and most of all enjoys them.

//:end.vent