https://old.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/ec80un/i_havent_read_a_book_in_ages/

I saw the linked thread on today and honestly it kind of baffled me.

I'm not against fanfiction, of course (I am on this site) but I think I would go crazy if I completely supplanted "regular" books with only fanfiction.

And frankly, very few fanfiction stories--if any--come close to being as enjoyable to me as actual published novlels, be they classics or contemporary. I try not to be snobby about taste but only consuming a diet of fanfiction seems to me to be the equivalent of only consuming a diet of McDonalds. Sometimes you need to change things up.

Anyway, in the spirit of starting a conversation, I figured anyone who wants to could share some current non-fanfic things that they are reading. Here's mine:

• Fiction: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (The less you know about this book going in the better. I knew nothing and it made it so good. Don't read the summary if you are able.)
• Non fiction: American Predator by Maureen Callahan (True crime about a 21st century serial killer)
• Classics: King James Bible (no pro or anti religious reason, I'd just never read it before and thought something as formative to the English language would be interesting.)
• Comics: Thanos #1-12 by Jim Starlin (truly wacky and insane cosmic marvel stuff)

 

No.

Currently, I'm reading Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology.

 

Kinda. Last book series I read was the Old Man's War, and while the first book was excellent, I hated the second book so much that I never finished it.

 

Watching Youtube videos never stopped me also watching movies. Usually have a nonfiction and a fiction book on the go, currently reading "Field of Honour" by Max Aub, a novel about the Spanish Civil War. Also like reading some fanfic occasionally as well. It's a different sort of engagement.

 

Kinda? I read plenty of books and stuff too, but fanfiction typically fills the niche of "shit to search through when bored and need something new to read", so I don't really read many new books these days. Mostly just down to recommendations from friends or the like that get me into new book series.

 

Yes, definitely. But I don't really miss reading books.
When I was younger I read a lot of books and if I started a book I'd read it until the very end. Even if the book wasn't good. This severely influenced my taste for new books - I am now very vary and I do not really like to get to know a new world and new characters. Don't get me wrong, if it is well done, of course I enjoy it!
However I have the feeling that I have to search through a lot of bad books to find the good ones. Searching means I have to read parts of it to decide whether to proceed or not (We had a very good fantasy book shop were I got great recommendations. However, they went out of business.). And I just don't have the time for this. That's why I like fanfiction. At least I know the characters and the worlds. And I can filter by how many words a story has (since again: time issues. I can't really sink into a 100 k word story). Also I can mostly tell a lot faster if I am going to like the story or not with fanfiction. So, I almost don't read books anymore (if you don't count children's book which I read to my kids) and this has no real downside for me.

 

Yes, absolutely. It’s less effortful, but something I should really try and improve.

I read fiction books voraciously when younger but with the advent of fanfiction and a phone I carry almost everywhere, fiction books were supplanted. Hopefully with e-readers I’ll improve that over the next few years.

 

Not in general, and certainly not consciously, but I've definitely read more fanfic than published works this year - and the McDonald's analogy definitely holds. Mostly, I think, it's a result of largely reading at work, and my free time getting taken up with other hobbies.

 

Originally, yes. But these days I don't read all that much of either. Partly a matter of time, but also of taste: I think my immersion in the HP world has altered my tastes to the point that a lot of fantasy fiction no longer interests me at all, on the basis that it always just feels so inferior to HP. So I only really read the cream of the crop like the Stormlight Archive.

 

I don't really read fanftiction anymore. Back when I did, it definitely negatively impacted my reading of books in general.

 

Other direction. Crossovers have introduced me to a great many new settings.

 

Very much so, yes.

Mostly, it's how portable fanfic is, and how easy it is to find more on the go. I do a lot of reading in downtime at work, and I can't really get away with having a book on the table, but I can browse the net on my phone. Finding the ebook versions of books costs money, or time and effort, whereas fanfic is nice and easy to skip around until I find something decent, and I'm pretty sure I've got around 50 updates in my inbox I've not got around to.

 

When I was in school, I would read multiple novels daily. I'm basically the fastest reader I've ever met, and I would devour books like they were water and I the man in the desert. Discovering fanfiction decimated my book consumption. I have made an effort to read more books lately, but I've not been as successful at that as I'd like. My latest desire is to consume the entire western(and, unofficially, the eastern) canon of written works, so that will hopefully be the impetus I need to start reading seriously again.

 

It gives me other things to read, but I've actually picked up some print books I already own to avoid eye strain.

 

Yes, very much so.

Im a fast reader and I used to devour books and would probably finish 2 a week while I was at school. But now I've picked up a few more hobbies and the time that I do have for reading I spend on fanfiction instead. I still get a lot of the same kicks by reading in fandoms I'm not familiar with so that's something I guess.

 

Nope, even when I read a lot of fanfiction I seldom preferred it to actual novels because the quality difference and nowadays I primarily read books/novels with most fanfiction being legacy stuff. And since I made the jump to e-books years ago (and thus have a very large library) and have my kindle with me basically all the time I am seldom forced to read on my phone. And I certainly still regularly buy new books, be it fiction or non-fiction (I normally budget about 20-40€ per month for books) and honestly can't imagine only re-reading existing books or god forbid fanfiction.