Question Tiem

   When did you first become interested in reading?

   What’s the best book (or article) that you’ve read in the last year?  What made it good?

   Have you ever read a book (or an article) that helped you understand a different culture or a different set of values?  What was the book?  What did you learn?

   When you encounter an unfamiliar word while reading, what is your typical strategy for figuring out its meaning?

   Do you think that reading helps you to express, either verbally or in writing, your own ideas better?  Explain.

   Does casual reading help you in your professional endeavors in any way?  Explain.

   If you could select one work of literature for all high school students to read (other than a religious text), what would it be and why?

Also, yes this is an assignment for my English 102 class in community college. I have to interview someone who's an avid reader, but i don't have any friends who are avid readers :(

Also, the teacher is a fucking adjunct teacher so the bitch teaches high school as well.

Actually, I just don't have any friends.

When did you first become interested in reading?
Bitch, I been reading since the womb. Or at least, since second grade. I was given Redwall books at an early age and later Harry Potter stuff, and read like a beast in middle school Lloyd Alexander and Tolkein.

What’s the best book (or article) that you’ve read in the last year?  What made it good?
The Name of the Wind, man. Fucking amazing--characterization that literally left me in awe. It is the most incredible book I've read in my life--one where every single thing the main character does, every choice he makes, can be traced back to some point in his past. Completely and utterly fleshed out.

Have you ever read a book (or an article) that helped you understand a different culture or a different set of values?  What was the book?  What did you learn?
The Kite Runner taught me that Arabs are stupid.

When you encounter an unfamiliar word while reading, what is your typical strategy for figuring out its meaning?
Google, bitch.

Do you think that reading helps you to express, either verbally or in writing, your own ideas better?  Explain.
Sometimes an author will have a way with language that inspires me, which tends to cause me to change my writing style ever so slightly.

Does casual reading help you in your professional endeavors in any way?  Explain.
Again, inspiration. Can't think of any examples, but I'm sure it has.

If you could select one work of literature for all high school students to read (other than a religious text), what would it be and why?
Catch-22, hands down. After I read it I was pissed that no one ever forced it on me when I was a Senior.

- When my mom started reading Alice in Wonderland, Whinnie the Pooh and Narnia to me as bedtime stories. I don't know which of those came first, but I know that those were the three pillars of my young literary education. It was definitely before I started elementary school, guess I woulda been 3-5.

-Tough to call, I read many awesome books this year. But I think I'm going to say Pale Fire, by Nabokov. I love the way that it plays around with literary form, I love the way it makes you pick it apart like a puzzle box, I love the characterisation and the humour of it, and I love the prose style.

-I'd say that most of my understanding of cultures and values has come from books and articles, and thoughts that have been sparked by them. But one recent example would be Vassily Grossman's Life and Fate which gives an amazingly clear insight into Russian life at the time of the Second World War.

-Context. If I can't figure it out from that, I look it up on the internet or in a dictionary depending on which is closest.

-Of course. If you spend a lot of time reading other people who express themselves well then of course you're going to soak some of that up and deploy it in your own writing and speech. If you actually make a conscious effort to learn from your favourite writers - which I do - then that'll help even more.

-Not really, except in so far as it makes me happier and therefore possibly more productive and motivated.

-Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer. Because it is honest, beautiful, horrible and true. Because kids would love the explicit sex enough to reconcile them to the lyrical poetry of it, and therefore might even learn something. Because it might be the most important novel ever written.

When did you first become interested in reading?
I'm not interested in reading.

What’s the best book (or article) that you’ve read in the last year?  What made it good?
Uh... Effortless Mastery? How am I even supposed to keep track of all the books I've read in the last year?

Have you ever read a book (or an article) that helped you understand a different culture or a different set of values?  What was the book?  What did you learn?
No. Fuck them, whoever they are.

When you encounter an unfamiliar word while reading, what is your typical strategy for figuring out its meaning?
If this were to happen I would apply CONTEXT CLUES and my knowledge of WORD ROOTS to pass the time on the way to FUCKING GOOGLE.

Do you think that reading helps you to express, either verbally or in writing, your own ideas better?  Explain.
Yes. How could any person grok idiom without seeing a lot of it? And how does a person learn what not to do without being put through it themselves?

Does casual reading help you in your professional endeavors in any way?  Explain.
Yes. I casually read technical papers all the time.

If you could select one work of literature for all high school students to read (other than a religious text), what would it be and why?
Meh.

When did you first become interested in reading?
When I was about 12.
  What’s the best book (or article) that you’ve read in the last year?  What made it good?
King's "Duma Key," because it's well written. Oh, wait, scrap that, I read "Great Expectations right before that and it was absolutely awesome.
  Have you ever read a book (or an article) that helped you understand a different culture or a different set of values?  What was the book?  What did you learn?
Intelligent people are similar in all cultures and ages. Only fools vary; this much I've learned through reading, and that's the best lesson books taught me.
  When you encounter an unfamiliar word while reading, what is your typical strategy for figuring out its meaning?
I usually try guess it.
  Do you think that reading helps you to express, either verbally or in writing, your own ideas better?  Explain.
What? No. Don't fool yourself, kids.
  Does casual reading help you in your professional endeavors in any way?  Explain.
I'm a professional writer. Reading is the flour of my bread.
  If you could select one work of literature for all high school students to read (other than a religious text), what would it be and why?
It would have to be Stanislaw Lem's "Observation on the Spot" because it really is great. Stop reading his crap like Solaris; THIS is where true Lem is.

>>7
What? No. Don't fool yourself, kids.
I'm a professional writer. Reading is the flour of my bread.
Which?

>>8
I misread the "express your ideas" part, thought it was talking about expressing through reading. You've asked the same question twice then, though.

>>9
I'm not "you", but it's only asked twice if a writer is answering.