[LMB] Books per year

[James Burbidge]

On 04/06/07, Martin Gill <martinsgill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The big question is what you consider to be "reading".
>
> I have almost 2 book shelves full of "work" books. These various
> software reference books which I'd consider to be on a par with
> College/University books, in point of fact some of them were
> university books.
>
> There is not a single one of those books that I would consider to have
> been "read" by me. The only way I would include those books on a
> "read" book list is if you call browsing for information and using
> them as reference books as reading. The same for cook books. I don't
> read them (the few that I have), I pick out a recipe and then read
> that single recipe I'd never say that I'd read a cookbook.

I have a few software reference books that have been used in only that
way.  But even most of those have been read through, cover to cover,
at least once (yes, that includes _Fundamental Algorithms_, _The C++
Programming Language_, _Compiler Design in C_, and equivalent books,
not just _The Pragmatic Programmer_ or _Programming on Purpose_).

As for cookbooks -- there are a few which lend themselves to reading
through, but not many.  And, as James Nicoll pointed out _nobody_
reads through a CRC Handbook.

But a response to whether they count depends on what the question is
trying to elicit.  If it's the literacy of the respondent, then
_anything_ read counts, including (perhaps especially including) the
dense technical works which are relatively heavy going but which one
only dips into, as well as cookbooks, magazines, and so forth.  If
we're discussing the _market_ for books, it doesn't matter whether the
books are read through so much as important enough to be bought.  And
if we're trying to determine leisure reading, of course we exclude
technical books, unless they're read for relaxation/hobby purposes.

James