My friends will tell new friends that I am a "reader" but that can encompass so many different authors and books that it's not that helpful. My MIL is a big reader, but she reads stuff that I don't so we can't exchange books. My mum, on the other hand, reads much the same as I do, and we do exchange books when I cross the ocean to see her.

Veronica, good comeback.

Frieda, that would have been James Patterson and Orson Scott Card. We read Card's Ender's Game here a couple of years ago. It is highly regarded in Science Fiction circles.

When people comment on all the reading I do, my standard comeback is to laugh and say that I am an information hound. My alternate response is that I'm a compulsive reader which means I end up being omnivourous - cereal boxes, the Harlequinn Romance I find beside my chair at a friend's house, the sports page left on the table....

The comment heard most often by new acquaintances standing in my living room is "You can't have read all these books!" I laugh because the living room houses but a small fraction of my collection. Mostly I recognise they are just trying to start a conversation and books are the most obvious starting point for someone who doesn't know me. A fellow book lover would grab a book or author they knew and start talking about it, don't you think?

We never really know about people, though, even from their books. One friend, a reader of serious books, allowed her designer to select the books for her library along aesthetic criteria, and it is indeed a vision of beauty. The books she actually reads are upstairs in the bedroom.

I've heard all the same comments...and one of my best friends reads as much as I do but can't understand why I want to own books. The funniest, of course, is the "you've read all these books?!", those only being a tiny percent of the books I've read.
I do keep some romance books in a closet - not that they're that bad - no Beatrice Small, thank you!- more like Laurie McBain or Kathleen Woodiwiss from my teenage years, but some people think the wrongs things seeing those books.

One of my friends was teased about her romance reading when she was in Menntaskóli (the Icelandic educational level between secondary school and university). Her response was to write a killer literary analysis of a romance novel, showing that it was just as complex as a literary novel.

My standard response upon hearing the ol "have you really read all of these books?" is to say, "Of course not. One must always have a stack of emergency books to read in case of a snowstorm, hurricane, power outage or a bad cold. Some people stock up on canned soup, I stock up on books." But as Chris said, it is often a conversation starter so I try to tread lightly.

And when I am sitting somewhere in public, I have noticed people tilt their heads to read the spine of the book or glance at the cover. I see this as a conversation starter as well. I always try to show them the cover and ask if they've read the book. You never know who may turn out to be a book buddy.

The worst insult I ever heard occured in my library. A new librarian was checking me out. And I had all videos. My kids wanted to have a movie night so I had about four videos for them to choose from and no books. The librarian looked at my stack of movies and said, "You know, we have BOOKS, too." I must have looked shocked indeed for another librarian who is a friend came over and said in a very stern librarian voice, "I don't believe you've met PAM, her family single-handedly increases our circulation numbers substantially. Hers is a family of READERS." I smiled sweetly and handed over my card but inside, I was seething.

PAM

One of the first things we were taught as volunteer librarians is to keep our opinions to ourselves! I have a whole "bank" of stock phrases for patrons who ask me questions in the "do you like Danielle Steel or Jodi Pichoult" range that are polite without fibbing! We would have been "taken to the back room for a talkin'to" if our director had overheard that remark!
freida-I have run into similar situations, because my taste in books is not mainstream-so as soon as the topic of reading comes up, I try to get the information that I enjoy old mysteries and authors like Austen, James, etc. into the conversation.

I am one of those people who are always trying to see what other people are reading at airports etc. The array of titles is quite interesting and I think you can learn a lot about people from what they read. Not always, of course, but sometimes.

People tend to assume that because I am such a voracious reader that I have no outside life. Far from it, but it can be hard to convince other non-readers of that.

Oh my! I'm chuckling right now in recognition of the anecdotes, but in real-life it's not always clear whether to stifle a smile or a grimace -- I'm not good at deadpan.

lemonhead, I've run into the nonreader notion that readers are lazy shirkers. I had a nonreader aunt who married into our family of voracious readers. I don't know what my uncle was thinking (he must've loved other qualities about her), because she never did understand our need to read. Whenever she had the opportunity, she would point out that such-and-such family members (usually females, as if males could be forgiven for reading) were lousy housekeepers, or sloppy dressers, or not-so-good cooks, or their kids weren't well tended, all because they read too much. We readers, though, often disparaged her industry because, dadgummit!, she made us feel guilty.

I always thought it was peculiar that some people who you think should understand and admire the reading habit actually don't. I still have my fourth-grade report card with a note in the comments section written by my teacher: "Frieda is a smart girl but she does not use her time wisely. She reads too much." My mother told me not to worry about it, that not all of my teachers would think that way.

The "Have you read all those books?" comment seems to be a shared experience, but it's not really an insult.
A woman I used to work with many years ago liked Danielle Steele, so I would pick up hardcover editions for her at thrift stores if I saw any she didn't already have (yes, I became familiar with the DS body of work!). I figure it's a good thing to read no matter what my opinion is of your choice of reading materials.
And I've done some house-sitting from time to time and sometimes there are only 5 or 10 books in the house, or no books at all. But there's a 50-inch TV. So, different strokes for different folks...

I'm always checking out what the parents of my patients are reading. Sometimes it's nice for them to get to talk about something other than their sick kids...and book talk can be kept pretty neutral.

Actually I never read To Kill a Mockingbird. My kids all read it in school and were astonished to learn that I had not. They thought that their mother had read pretty much everything. I don't know why I didn't; I just resisted it. But last week I picked up a copy at the Friends of the Library used book sale, so now I plan to read it at last.

Rosefolly

rosefolly

I have never worried about which great books or classics I have read or never read. There are just too many of them out there. Some I have tried and just haven't liked. Others just didn't trigger any interest for me. I dislike the intelligentsia types who think that if you haven't read a certain "classic" your life has been a waste.

And I wish I had the time to reread the ones I liked best. The ones like The Count of Monte Cristo that remain within me so much that I can still feel their magic, some 20-30 years later.

And I wish the ones I hated and had to read as an English major had never taken up space on the face of the earth. Vanity Fair comes right to mind.

I hope you enjoy Mockingbird. Scout is a great character. I like spunky kids.

-Rosefolly, don't worry! I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the very first time five months ago or so. It is now my favorite book. I have already read it a second time, loaned it to a friend, and watched the movie a dozen times. Hope you enjoy it.

-Veronicae, but if Vanity Fair had never taken up space on the face of the earth I would never have read it! I enjoyed it a lot. I kind of wonder if I will like it more or less upon a second reading.

I think there is a lot of stigma attached to reading certain types of books. People judge you by what you read. When I bought Alice in Wonderland at B&N a few months ago the cashier looked at it incredulously but didn't say anything until she saw I was also buying War and Peace. She looked a little relieved for some reason.
CMK

I work in a book shop and try never to judge what people read. I think reading is worthwhile whatever the subject matter.
Although I still have a smile about the man who bought two books together - Save Our Sleep for new parents, and How to Spice Up Your Sex Life!! I felt like telling him his wife might like the first but he was probably wasting his money on the second LOL.

I'm sure I'm considered weird in my book taste, as I actually like to frequently re-read books that were my childhood favorites: (Heidi, Little Women,The Secret Garden, and others).

I know I am considered weird in my tastes - I deal with it constantly, even at the library. I read a lot of young adult fiction, which many people cannot understand. If someone makes a remark like, "Oh, what are you reading? I haven't heard of that one," and I reply, "It's a novel for young adults," they back away as though I said I had a contagious disease. At the library I am repeatedly asked who I am getting these books for as I don't have a family account. Oh well, it doesn't stop me.

When I was a child, I was constantly made fun of, even by my mother. And this was in a family of readers. I read so much even they didn't understand. I am so glad I all that is behind me and now I just do what I please, reading-wise.

Know what garners the most attention, praise, and conversation with the guys at the cashier's counter at my local Barnes and Noble? Neil Gaiman's graphic novels! That's what gets the hot young college men talking to a middle aged woman. Funny as all get out.

For whatever reason, I, too, came late to To Kill a Mockingbird and fell in love with it. I was glad to discover that I could still find magic in a novel. That particular joy comes less frequently with age I find.

Oh, I forgot about another insult- one that happened while I was in college. A friend (who I wanted to be a boyfriend )
and I were just getting more acquainted and talking about books.
He asked if I had anything good to read. I proudly showed him my battered collection of paperbacks that I had hauled to school and he actually sneered and said "Is this what you read?".
The books consisted mostly of popular bestsellers from the early eighties such as Ken Follet and Stephen King, a few romances such as Katherine and other "easy" to read fiction.
It took me nearly ten years to get over this and I only read important non fiction books publicly.
I couldn't bring myself to get rid of my favorites but I never showed them to anyone else and kept them hidden in a closet.
I'm over it now!!!

I did stick my foot in my mouth one time and told some Danielle Steele readers they were going to get sugar diabetes reading her stuff. Needless to say, not everyone saw the humor in it. Now I keep my big mouth shut.

Carol

Oh those pretentious old boyfriends/wannabes. I had one of those in college--sneered at me because I hadn't yet read Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country.

I, too, work in a library. We are told not to offer negative opinions on patrons' choices, which is really common sense. In my own arsenal of neutral comments are "that choice is quite popular with book clubs," "that book has gotten a lot of press," and "well, no, I'm not familiar with it but I'll have to remember that author." "Oh, God, I wouldn't touch that trash" is not appropriate.

Once a neighbor asked "What do you do with all the books?" Sigh. 10 years ago, my then 8-year-old son had a few friends over to play. One little girl was new to the neighborhood. She looked around at the bookshelves, the piano, and my son's very own little school desk and chair, and said with alarm, "Is this a school? It looks like a school." She ran out of the house without waiting for an answer. I have very fond memories of TKAM. I read it every summer since it was on the bookshelf of a vacation cottage I went to with my family. I reread it as an adult after my son did as a freshman. His reading dropped in middle school. He was about half way through the book when he looked up in surprise and said, "This is good!" Since then, he's put himself on a classics reading program and is way ahead of me!

I have a solid wall of books in the large front room of my home and I've seen more than one jaw drop upon entry, as they take in all the tomes. Just looking at the expressions on some faces is priceless to me. I've been know to tell them that I plan to open up my own lending and reference library....

I am slowly but surely amassing books I want to display in my living room. I am binding them myself, in leather, and have deliberately not had the titles gilded onto the spines so that people will have to remove them from the shelves to see what the book is. So far it has mostly been books of poetry, classics and travelogues, but I am considering making hardcover bindings for some of my favourite paperback genre literature. I would love to see the look on people's faces when they pull out a book, open it and discover The Eagle has Landed or a Jennifer Crusie romance when they are expecting a Saga or a book of poetry.

I don't think anyone has ever commented about my interest in books/reading, although quite a few friends, over the years, have mentioned that they never have time to read.
Not long ago a newly 'found' US relation came for a quick day visit. We had spent several hours clearing the Augean stables of the rooms that would be on view, dusting, wiping off children's fingerprints etc. When we showed the visitor into the living room I could sense she was just about to open her mouth and say "Oh My God, what a load of ****" but she managed to control herself and it came out as "Oh . .. what a lot of books." I felt she wanted to get at the shelves with a T Square and ruler and line everything up and probably colour-code the dust-jackets.
This same relative visited a family in Chicago after a bereavement and kindly offered to help sort out the 'accumulated junk' of the deceased. She couldn't understand why the daughters became a bit miffed and huffy.

"Never have enough time to read"

A neighbor retired a few years ago, and was excited because she could finally start reading all the books she had been wanting to read when she was working. She had a 9-5, no paperwork brought home, no phone calls at home type of job. All the years she had been working she created ring binders of book reviews so that she could get started reading them when she retired. She did not read at all in her pre-retirement years. No, she isn't an obsessive house keeper or anything like that either. She asked how I found time to read...since I wasn't retired yet. I said, I just do it.

Not insulted, but asked at school recess time why I wasn't outside playing with the other children. I have gotten the no time to read line more than once.

I have half a dozen frames of bookmarks hanging up my stair wall. One of my grandsons, about 18, brought a friend by who asked if that was one bookmark for every book I had read. Grandson said, "Oh, no," and then took him into the den which is lined with completely filled bookshelves.

Netla, I love that story!

The "no time to read" comment always amazes me. A large part of my work day is spent reading; at times I spend as many as 10 hours a day editing on a computer screen. Yet, when I go to bed at night, I can't close my eyes without reading at least a few pages of whatever book sits beckoning to me from my bedside table.

So, to that comment about "no time to read," I generally respond that we all make different choices about how to spend our free time.

I've said this before-dust comes back, books stay read. Books enrich the mind, tv enriches the networks.

I have been told to "get a life" by a couple of non-reading people before as I read (and prefer to read) so much. I have always wondered about the addiction qualities related to reading but asked a therapist friend who said that if it doesn't interfere with your life in a negative way (i.e. you are not neglecting your responsibilities) then you're ok. I think I am ok although I do neglect housework sometimes. :)

I suddently remembered that I have been insulted about reading once. When I was 19 I spent a summer in an international voluntary work camp in Lapland where I was one of three Swedish participants among English, American, German, French and Swiss young people. I was reading William Styron's The Long March which amused the English boy very much. He said I couldn't possibly understand it. He failed to understand the difference between active and passive vocabulary. I may have been shy to speak English much (especially to this snotty boy) but I had read Dickens in English since I was 12.

Marianne in Sweden

One thing I have learned is to be sensitive to those who don't read. Not everyone enjoys reading or is able to easily.
I married one of those types and while he is quite smart in all sorts of things I don't understand: electrical engineering (his job), numbers, cars; it still takes him 3 months to read a John Grisham while he does the elliptical at lunch each day. A book I would read in two evenings.

He gets mad if I read his book(s). He'll say "That's my book! Go read one of your thousands of books!"

I try to respect that ...but hey, if I'm out of something to read, I will read his book! When he's not around.

I used to torture the neighborhood kids, mostly younger cousins, with my reading. We were few enough that everyone was needed for games of kick ball and I would make them wait until I finished a chapter while they stood around kicking their their feet. I've never blamed any of them for subsequent cracks about my reading.

cece, I love that comment about tv enriching networks - how true! Life is too short to worry (too much) about dust. When a book is waiting to be read or a garden calls me, dust is so far down on the list that it falls right off of the page.

carolyn, great story about your grandson. It sounds like he is rather proud that you own so many books. Is he a reader himself? Framed bookmarks??? Hmmm... I may just have to borrow that idea.
PAM

Carolyn -

I'm really interested in your framed bookmarks. Can we see them sometime?

My grandson has become a reader since his little girl got big enough he can't watch horror videos on TV. Now he has to buy the books. Tough, huh?

I'm sorry to say I am technologically challenged and have no idea how to show you my bookmarks online. You are welcome to come and visit me! What I did was take them to Deck the Walls at the mall, and a young man and I had a lot of fun arranging them in the frames (16 x 20"). They are placed on a cream background and arranged more or less by color or coordinating shades, with one frame of all the ones that have tassels. I now have probably more than I took to be framed in the first place, but alas I am out of wall space. They are in a crystal vase on top of a bookcase, fanned out like flowers. What I actually use for bookmarks are the stiff Gatwick Airport to London train tickets. When they get shabby, I know it's time for another trip.

Oh, those put-downs, how they can rankle for many years! I told a friend that a passage in a book I was reading was so funny that I cried laughing. She asked to see it and read the whole thing with a straight face which I felt was done to upset me. She was rather a strange girl at times and rather insecure so I made no comment about her possible lack of humour.
Most of the insults I have had were not so much about my reading as my casual look when I travel so why am I heading for Business or even First Class? Comfort, stupid staff person, always comfort!

I don't care WHAT people are reading, as long as they read!
Our society has enough who simply get their information from TV programs or talking heads and never take the time to research on their own. It's a kind of "tell me what to think" mentality.
For our children, I fear reading will become like the dial telephone.

One of the most horrific , teeth grinding moments for me was when my non-reading son-in-law snapped at my grandson for seeming to "always have his nose in a book".
Oh my.....what a sin.
I bit my tongue.

Grrr.

Having had that phrase directed at me on numerous occasions, I particularly dislike that phrase, "nose in a book." For one thing, it doesn't make any sense. My nose is definitely not in the book, nor is it even close. Thumbs, yes. Nose, no.

My co-workers have lively discussions about the books they read, which I generally detest. I am, however, glad that they read and I simply keep my mouth shut and continue reading whatever I please. (This is during breaks, not during actual work time.) I am happy to be spared scene-by-scene descriptions of vapid television programs and very happy that they enjoy reading instead.

If I had a young child today, I would be over the moon if they enjoyed reading, even comic books.

Never been insulted for reading that I can recall, but I sometimes suffer in a different way--from other people's lack of reading matter in their homes (for me to read or flip through) and/or their need to be with others and talking all the time, as if socializing were all there is to life!

Of course, I agree with those here who have said things like, "To each his own," and so on. Non-readers have a perfect right to their own amusements. However, when we stay overnight with people who have no books visible anywhere in the house, I tend to keep mine under cover out of self-defense--or call it hypocrisy, if you wish! On numerous occasions when we stayed with non-reading friends or relatives, it was a great relief to steal a half hour or so in the bedroom at night and read something I had brought with me. (DH, while a great reader, virtuously--but unfortunately--does not read in bed.)

If our hosts at least have some magazines lying around, I make do with those while my hosts are on the phone or I have to wait for them for any reason. This may sound as if I am insulting someone for NOT reading, but at one completely book-less (except for religious materials I had already read) home where we stayed, I seized with relief upon an innocuous women's magazine I had found in the living room, only to have the lady of the house rush to assure me that it was only there because someone else had left it!

Several years later, this family visited us, and I couldn't help wondering what she thought when she found two rooms with walls lined in large bookcases filled with books of many sorts, as well as more books, shelved or un~, in every other room of the house. It was a case calling for "Don't ask, don't tell." ;0)

biwako - one weekend visit with our son and his wife...we were all sitting in their living room reading quietly. It was a great day. We barbecued, read and watched the Indy 500 and a baseball game. Felt renewed and rested the next day. None of us had to think about anything we "had" to do...we ate when we were hungry, didn't look at a clock all day.

Non-reading house guests would be a problem. My brother is my most regular guest and he is welcome to take home almost any book he may start reading during his stay. We're trying to decimate our library to make room for my husband's professional books later this year. A couple of years ago my Australian pen friend (since 1957) came to stay for a week. It rained one day and there wasn't anything to do than to read. She wasn't a reader but I tempted her with a spare copy of Jane Austen's Emma and she was completely absorbed by it. We spent a very nice and quiet day with our books and many cups of tea. She said she would look for other books by Jane, never having read any.

One of my most pleasant memories of time spent with my sister was when she and I spent the whole evening just reading. It was a blissful way to spent the time together, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I am not sure that non-readers would understand this type of "togetherness" but I think readers would.

I wish my DH was a reader, but after twenty-something years of trying to recruit him to the reading world, I have to face facts and admit that he's not a big reader.
He tries though, bless him. It's just not in his genes.

My husband wasn't really a reader either. He taught English, and read all the books he was teaching, but never really sat down to read for pleasure, other than a book by some political person he admired. He did read magazines, by the ton. Thne he retired. Now, he can, and does, spend an entire day, a couple of times a week, reading for fun...Vince Flynn, Baldacci, etc, etc etc...now I feel like a created a monster.

My husband was also not a reader, much to my dismay. It was a problem for him even as he worked his way through college & PG work on the GI Bill. And now, retired, he has taken up reading in a very big way, leaning toward ancient Greek history and the works of Churchill. I don't feel I created a monster, but my own handmade work of art!

My husband is a great reader and it saves me a lot of time. We always talk about what we are reading and read bits aloud to each other. Our tastes are different as he reads more modern poetry, history and biographies than I do. Occasionally I'll read a whole short story to him and he still talks about one I read at Christmas 2006. Taking turns to read a novel aloud didn't work, though. We started with Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees but I got too impatient and had to finish the book by myself.

When I was in my 20's, single and working in an office, a co-worker picked up the book (Oscar Lewis' La Vida)I was currently reading, looked at the price, and asked in a loud voice "You paid $-- for THAT?) She had announced earlier that she and her husband had just purchased an expensive new car with all the bells and whistles. Differenct strokes. . .

When my boys were young I would read aloud to them during dinner. Great for the diet! I would stop in the middle of a exciting passage, and leave the book on the table while I cleaned up the kitchen. It was fun to see which boy got to the book first to take up to his room and finish that chapter.

I've never worried that my boys, now 38 and 40, would not be readers. They're both still single and have very active lives, and I was pleased that on one weekend day each called me from the city they happened to be visiting, one to tell me he had met an author of a book we both loved, and the other to announce he had found an old book I had been looking for.

Reading aloud has so many benefits. Years ago my late brother, who was 15 years older than I enjoyed reading each other passages from Robert Paul Smith's Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing. For those that may not remember this lovely little book there are passages about how a child spends his idle time, including the wonders of the empty lot nextdoor. This book sparked conversations about how my brother and I each looked at our childhood experiences from different angles, and without a doubt, brought us much closer together. I certainly will treasure those times.

I see I've strayed from the original topic of being insulted about reading, to more speaking in defense of reading. Sorry about that, but I guess defense of an action naturally comes after an insult.

I remember showing up at my SIL's beach house one summer. The day after arriving with my family, I settled down in a chair by the water with a book. She looked aghast and told me that when they are at the beach, they never "sit around and do nothing."

I couldn't wait to leave and start my REAL vacation!

When we were kids my poor overworked mom used to complain: "Reading! Reading! Can you eat those books? Go cook rice!"
But even she was known to read Hemingway when she couldn't sleep. LOL.

My 12yo is now a hopeless bookworm, and 7yo, after a slow start, seems to be headed the same way. Hubby is not a fiction reader, but he reads tech books, health books, magazines, and plays chess. So the house is a continual mess of books, magazines, and arts & craft stuff.

ajpa, that's not a house. That's a home.