Topic: Adult Reading Habits.

10-second review: Don’t assume that your friends, colleagues, relatives read.

Title: “Alternative Education Programs.” Turee Olsen. Journal of Reading (November 1974), 190-191. Publication preceded Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy by the International Reading Association (IRA).

Summary/Quote: “How many adults do you know who read? Not who can read, but who do? Don’t be too confident that all your friends read often or much or even that your colleagues in education do much leisure reading. The next time you’re with a group of adults, ask several of them the title of the last book they read. And when they read it. Ask about their magazine subscriptions. How much time do they spend reading a daily newspaper? Do any of them set aside a regular time for reading everyday…? Their answers may surprise you.”

Comment: John F. Kennedy said he never saw his father read a serious book. My father told me that when he graduated from law school, he said he would never read another book. To my knowledge he never did. He read newspapers and news magazines from cover to cover, but never books. He never had the attitude of Abraham Lincoln: “What I want to know is in books.” Probably his attitude came from being required to read books in school.

I read books for ideas. I find them in nonfiction and fiction. I have learned how to sift through the many pages to find the most interesting ideas. And I record them and reflect on them and sometimes use them. RayS.