Posted on 12/05/2024 6:21:52 PM PST by Rummyfan
To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
Nicholas dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.
This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I’ll have to acquire it on gutenberg.org
Never read it! :)
My great nephew was excited to join the marines. I bought him the whole DVD set of JAG and he was thrilled. Then I brought him all the marine books by WEB Griffin. He didn’t open a single one and his mother explained that he didn’t really read anything. This generation is lost.
My worries are what do I do with my entire library. As a packrat, I have every book I ever owned from Golden Books up, as well as all the books owned by my mother and grandparents. There’s a 42’ hallway with shelves floor to ceiling on both sides. One side for paperback sized books. One for full sized. The library has a 10’ ceiling and has 8 1/2 bays of shelves for oversized books. The genealogy books are in 4 bookcases upstairs and 4 downstairs. All the books that don’t fit are in boxes in closets.
I grew up reading from babyhood. These books are table stabilizers for uneven legs to this generation. So sad.
Favorite part describes how a person finds their other half. People originally had 4 legs. When they angered the gods they were cut in half and spent their lives searching the world for their other half. And when they found them, they would run together and embrace to try to again become one. Always loved that image.
When she was pregnant with me my Mom read all the Tarzan and John Carter books aloud, plus Jules Verne’s works. I’ve been a voracious reader ever since. Can’t do the e-book thing, have to have the real thing in my hands.
Same in the household I grew up in. My parents read books, so their kids (five of us) did too. I used to check books out of the school library and reread my favorites over and over. My how times have changed with kids today.
I remember train trips from coast to coast for business several times a year. I’d carry what books I could and I’d have to mail them home from intermediate stations and rebuy to make it to the end of the trip. My image of mother will always be with a book in her hands.
Same as your entire post, and not much different here.
A complete collection of bound Harper's from their first one in the 1840s to 1910 when they went leftist.
Genealogy and history collection and MANY other fields.
In 1980 I could buy a paperback and an Album for $10. It took mowing Mrs. Rondina's yard one time, to provide hours of entertainment. And yes, I used listen to Aerosmith while reading the exploits of John Carter of Mars. How weird is that?
The biggest problem is attention span. College-aged kids never learned to focus for long periods of time (something that video games can actually help improve, especially when working with others in-game is required). Their entire lives are in snippets; Tweets, Insta Stories, Fascistbook posts, and even a lot of podcast material can be found truncated.
I happily read - and write. Most of it has been fiction as of late, though.
We should compare privately. I’ve found other genealogy cousins on FR and always looking forward to finding another one.
Exciting on the Harpers. I collect history relating to genealogy, so have a huge collection of Rev War and Civil War. Favorite are the books by Joshua Chamberlain and by James Longstreet. I carried Chamberlain around in my purse and read it over and over again.
One of the agents I turned down when I was writing scripts became my best friend and wanted to write a book about Chamberlain at the end of the Civil War and was looking for a relationship that he might have had similar to Hancock and Armistead from Gettysburg. Searched a lot but never came up with anything strong enough.
I read constantly as a kid. Continued into adulthood.
I’d love to see your collection. Your hallway of books is a dream. I grew up an avid reader and always wanted to have a home with a dedicated library in it. I’ve settled for bookcases kept in various rooms over the years.
Now it looks like we will need to downsize, but I will always hang on to a core library, including a good selection of kids books.
Fah! Insect ranchers destined for the Farming Collectives of the People’s Paradise shouldn’t waste their time “reading”.
This ain’t gonna’ work out. We really are headed for an idiocracy.
The Pearl by John Steinbeck (New York: Viking, 1947)
The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966)
Whirlwind: An Account of Marshal Tito’s Rise to Power by Stephen Clissold (New York: Philosophical, 1949)
A Puppet No More: The True Adventure of Tony Kemeny and His Life-Long Quest for Freedom by Tony Kemeny (Buena Park, Calif., Thomas Litho & Print, 1963)
The Fate of Admiral Kolchak by Peter Fleming (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1963)
This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness by T. R. Fehrenbach (New York: Macmillan, 1963)
Up Ship! By Charles E. Rosendahl (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931)
The Ragged, Rugged Warriors by Martin Caidin (New York: Dutton, 1966)
Way of a Fighter: The Memoirs of Claire L. Chennault by Claire Lee Chennault (New York: Putnam, 1949)
Jutland by Donald Macintyre (New York: Norton, 1958)
Those were the days... Even when my kids were young, they loved checking books out of the library.
And I thought things were bad back in the mid 70s when fellow students used used be wowed by introducing me to others as “this kids reads book without pictures” like they’ve never heard of such a thing.
Agreed. Any book (with content that is appropriate for children, of course) is a good book. And, like you said, e-books are nice, but there's nothing like holding a physical book.
We had hundreds of books on bookshelves all over the house. I feel sad whenever I think about them. When I moved, I had no other choice but to give most of them away. Well, I hope other people are enjoying them now.
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