Still...Reading!

Well, thumbs up friends - we are readers, we.  On my Still List in that quiet period before the New Year routines kicked in, I challenged my friends to do a Still Introspection.  What I found was still, with all the blogging, my friends are still reading.  The thumbs up is from a fabulous sculpture gate on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, a memento from college tours.  But with our media consumption, are we reading as deeply?  Media consumption habits are hard to change but we blogerati are a literate lot.

Santa Fe isn't one of America's most literate cities but I find a very very smart crowd here. Studies show that we're reading less and we're reading less well. On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading. Yet I find within the blogerati that reading is central. Also, know that literary readers are more likely than non-readers to engage in positive civic and individual activities – such as volunteering, attending sports or cultural events, and exercising.

Red Room is a new writers site.  Amy Tan writes her first blog post in which she ruminates about minutiae. But anyway, I found it interesting that I found so many mentioning reading on their Stills...

Claude-- still blogging in Paris after some three years, walking daily around Paris, still disorganized

Tamarika -- Still glad for getting all those degrees and enjoying the view (of a tall oak) outside her window; still trying to get it right (aren't we all????).

Ronni - still not joining social media sites, still blogging every day, still grateful for blog friends.  Has an unread book pile.  Doesn't do memes...

The Atavist... Still proud to be relatively intact, still can laugh at life's challenges, still enjoying a daily routine, still passionate about life...

tut-tut --  Still wondering what I'm really meant to be doing, still doing yoga

DaisyDay picked up the stills and is still wondering when she'll feel grown up (she, with the grandkids!).

Bellezza -- still wanting to be perfect, trying to be perfect, failing at perfection and still passionate about reading and still doing major posts about books.

Jill -- her post just prior had her top ten books of the year...  Still finishing her book and still blogging - going into her fourth year  Like me, loves her mac.

Lauri's stills....  Still wishing for a house to clean itself!

The Stills seemed to be better, full of more depth and wisdom, than resolutions...

I gave my youngest daughter Kahil Gibran for Christmas, hoping she'd love it as her great-grandmother did.  She then asked me for a list of the best books I could recommend.  I'm still working on it.  Any ideas?  A recommended list for a girl in her last teenage year yearning for good literature?  All I can say is: I'm glad she is still reading!!!  But I do know we are reading differently. 

Comments

[Rhonda]

Jane Eyre is good.

[Claude]

This was definitely an inspired meme! Especially for elders!
Novels I would recommend
Pride and Prejudice, still top seller on amazon.co.uk, my daughter, not quite a teenager any longer, almost twenty-three is a Balzac fan, and when I was a teenager, I absolutely loved War and Peace and read it through several times.

[Janet]

Wow, that's quite a challenge. i love Kahlil Gibran too. In high school, I read everything I could get my hands on (still do, pretty much). I loved the classics, like Anna Karenina, Hedda Gabler, Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Turn of the Screw, Tess of the Durbervilles. Not knowing what she's already read, I might be repetitive. Of course, there are the books written for young people, which she may be beyond (but I still read them) - the Anne books, Little House on the Prairie, Chronicles of Narnia. I could go on but I won't. Scribbit had a good post of books she recommended. Here's the link. http://scribbit.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-favorite-authors.html