[danielodievich]

I am an avid reader, reading 2 or 3 books at a time, alternating between history and economics to fiction and fantasy, with detours into science and periodicals (like The Economist). I think I exceed this 50 books/year goal easily, but I never bother counting. I am also lucky to read in more than one language, for a nice variety. Incidentally, I read Moby Dick this year and found it a mixed experience, but more on a pleasure side.

Anyhow, it's been very interesting to see changes in myself the attention span required. I have to consciously put my phone and get cozy in reading chair so I am not distracted.

For my teenage children, once phones and high school was introduced, their reading dropped quite a bit. They still read but they seem like madly dancing gadflys in their approach to it.

Yesterday we visited with friends and their 12 year old daughter was on chapter 3 of Count of Monte Cristo and was complaining that it was dull and when it was going to start being awesome. We (her parents and our family) were cheering her to stay with it because the epic tale of escape and revenge (served quite cold) is really good.

[Freak_NL]

> Yesterday we visited with friends and their 12 year old daughter was on chapter 3 of Count of Monte Cristo and was complaining that it was dull and when it was going to start being awesome. We (her parents and our family) were cheering her to stay with it because the epic tale of escape and revenge (served quite cold) is really good.

It is really good, but one thing I have learned to appreciate is that some books just don't work for many teenagers yet. Classics in particular! You need quite a large frame of reference (history, geography, societal issues and classes) to be able to appreciate a novel written in 1844 which takes place in France in the decades before that. If a book doesn't work at 12, just let it be and find something more accessible for her.

Nothing kills a long time habit of reading better than being forced to read novels that don't (yet) work for you.

[danielodievich]

You are absolutely right.

I was one of the teenagers who read everything that was in front of me and I think when I read the Count of Monte Cristo at ~12, I already had an understanding of at least a general outline of the Napoleonic wars and some inkling of the geography.

My brother hardly read anything as a kid and laughed at my nose being the book a lot. I remember him calling me when he was in his early 30ies and saying - hey, I am reading this Monte Cristo book and it is REALLY GOOD. I was like YEAH IT IS REALLY GOOD, I told you so! But he couldn't have appreciated it before he was ready...

[yamtaddle]

> It is really good, but one thing I have learned to appreciate is that some books just don't work for many teenagers yet. Classics in particular!

I think it was Forster who wrote (I'm paraphrasing) that trying to teach teenagers literary novels is almost pointless, and more likely to piss them off than enlighten them, because they simply don't have the highly-developed sense of empathy to appreciate them yet.

[ozim]

I was under impression that reading novels was ‘to develop sense of empathy’ not to enlighten them.

[smu]

It’s pretty much about stretching yourself but not overstretching. The classics might be the latter for a teenager. I guess it depends on the person.

[Freak_NL]

It depends strongly on the person. Blessed are those who have/had a teacher that could recommend them the right books for them at any given time. I didn't start reading for leisure again until my late twenties when The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy drew me in, despite growing up reading everything from Franco-Belgian comics to Karl May.

High school kills any interest in reading more often than not.

[roughly]

I had an extended sabbatical during the lockdown where I made an effort to rekindle my reading habit - one thing I noticed about my attention was that it came in waves. Within a minute or two of really sitting down with a book, my attention would wander; if I ignored it and attended to the book, I was fine. Fifteen or so minutes later, my brain again started wandering; getting past this mark gave me another 45 minutes to an hour of focused reading. In previous years at work, I'd find that if I didn't succumb to distraction at that 45-60min mark, I could usually get another hour and a half or two hours of serious focused work in.

I had a solid year of sabbatical in which I was able to really get to know my attention span - it's much harder to maintain and cultivate now that I'm working again, but learning those patterns has given me a lot more confidence in my ability to exercise my attention span when needed.

[izzydata]

I find that part of the reason a book can feel so great is because of the time investment. If you could somehow read Count of Monte Cristo in 5 minutes and absorb all the information I don't think it would have the same impact. So basically you need the "dull" or at least more mundane parts of the story so that the climax can exist and actually feel climactic.

Semi related, but I feel like this is one of the reasons that a lot of Japanese RPG games are 80-100 hours long. It feels much more like a long adventure and despite a large percentage of it being mundane it really adds to the emotional investment in what you are doing.

[danielodievich]

Yes, that's right! In many ways a good book experience is like a really nicely made and presented dinner. Sure, you can wolf down a nicely made steak and drown a glass of wine quickly, but you would have missed out on a nice conversation and enjoyment.

Lots of modern literature for youths is all about crash boom bang getting right into it tiktokiness algorithm wise - hey if something isn't flipping on the screen quickly it's no good. I enjoy that occasionally, like at the beach or by the pool, but not always.

[mlschmitt23]

> Incidentally, I read Moby Dick this year and found it a mixed experience, but more on a pleasure side.

Same here! Enjoyed more than not, but not at all what I was expecting. Much funnier than I had thought it would be. I did get a chuckle at how quickly things wrapped up at the end and how I had completely forgot the narrator was actually a character on the ship.

[boppo1]

Let those kids watch the recent-ish movie. Then, after tell them as good as it was, it sucks compared to the book, because it does. I love that movie but there's just not enough time for everything in COMC