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A bookworm retires
No books

Honest to Gawd, none. I don't read books anymore. I don't like to.

I am no philistine. I used to be the kid who went to the library often and came back home with the maximum amount of books he could borrow. I devoured them. I entered new worlds every time gladly. I would open it up and I wouldn't put them down until I was finished, and this went on for years.

My passion at the time was Science Fiction but I certainly didn't limit myself to that: as long as I could get my hands on it, I would read it. Cover to cover, page by page, and no peeking at the ending before I got there.

And then one day, it suddenly happened: I started reading this book (I don't know the original title in English, translated literally from the Dutch I read it in, its title would have been The languages of Pao, by Jack Vance) and the first few pages were all this statistical data about this intricate world with all its inhabitants and species and languages. I tried, really, I tried but it was just too boring. Here I was, reading for fun, and it seemed I had taken the wrong turn somewhere and landed in some college textbook. I then did something unprecedented for me.

I put it down.

I just put it down with no intention whatsoever of ever picking it up again, and I never did. Silly as this sounds, it really felt liberating. I didn't have to read it. There was no need. I could stop.

Pretty soon I started with the next book. I picked it up, read the first page and already knew I was about to like the character. I also knew that this character would get in all kinds of trouble, there must have been some reason why this book had been written. So here I was ready to like somebody who was bound to keep me up at night with all the trials and tribulations this person had to go through, somebody I would connect to and bring me down if things were going bad and bring me up if things went well.

Now I basically have enough trouble with keeping myself under emotional control. I didn't really need anybody else coming in as well and upsetting balaces left and right. Who the hell does this character think s/he is?

So I put that down too.

And that was it. I never picked up a book again. Sure, I read textbooks and coursework. I also read heaps of magazines and newspapers. I am perenially on Usenet talking to real people with real experiences and real desires stuck in real circumstances. I still read, and I still enjoy reading and I still read a lot. Just not books.

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