Readers Anonymous

[Snukes]

As suggested by mono, it is apparently high time to start a 12-step program of our own! The first step to healing is admitting you have a problem, and we're already doing a fine job of that. So come on in, one and all. Readers Anonymous is here for you. We'll put together a program which will help all participants return to life as normal, functional human beings. No longer will we be slaves to our paperbacks, hardbacks, and etexts! We can return to the television-watching, blow-things-up-computer-game-playing throngs of the healthy world population!

So help me brainstorm! What are our twelve steps? The first is a given:

Take Den's Literature Abuse Quiz to find out if you have a problem.

Then perhaps we need to arrange some meetings to talk about our feelings.

Somewhere in the list (probably toward the end, hm?) we'll arrange a big group book burning.

Other steps?

(disclaimer in advance of being misunderstood...: I am, of course, being silly and in no way actually advocate book burning... )

[Jay]

Make sure there's no book burning and I might consider joining ... unless it's textbooks, of course, I would gladly see phonetics in ashes

[kilted exile]

On the topic of burning, I have plans to burn 3 years worth of college notes on August 15th (day after course finishes)

[Scheherazade]

I can't bring myself to burn any books but when I graduated from highschool I made paper planes using the pages of my Agriculture book (yes, I had to take Agriculture for 3 years!) and sent them off from the roof of our house!

[Koa]

I tore in pieces every single page of my Maths notebooks the afternoon just after my final high school exam. Been waiting for that moment for years, and it's one of the nicest memories I have After 13 years of suffering, Maths was out of my life!!!
The books remained intact just becauuse I was planning of selling them to younger students Though I kept the books of literature and stuff I liked.

As for reading addiction, I wish i was back at it... Been reading so little in these past 3-4 years...

[baddad]

HI, my name is Baddad....and I'm a readaholic. It started when I first learned how to spell. I realized my reading habit was getting out of control, getting really extreme in fact, when Papayahed once commented that she would read a cereal box if nothing else was available......and I found myself wondering what was printed on the box, and if she would print it out for me...
*readaholic mantra: "Ommmm...burnthebook...Ommmmm...burnthebook... "*

[Keltic Banshee]

Well... i guess I will have to admit that i'm a readaholic as well... I learnt to read when i was two and a half, and spent my first week night awake reading when i was 11... and it was followed by many, many, many more in the following years...
The good point of being a readaholic is that it helped me quit smoking... I had to choose between using money for books or cigarrettes... and obviously i decided to spend it on books...

See you all,
Keltic Banshee

[Nightshade]

My name is Nightshade Like Papayhed I will read anything from cereal boxes to medicine instructions to the dictionary.
I have been told this is serious and if I dont stop I will end up in a mental instituion for sure.


I dont think book burning is the solution bit extreme isnt it anyway I could still readthe signs in the street!
How about starting off with disscovering howw bad a readaholic everyone is ie How many books a day cant you survive without?

[Jay]

I like the word 'readaholic' ... getting in the state of drunkness by reading books (or anything handy )

[mono]

*deep breath, clenching hands together nervously

My name is Mono, and I also consider myself a readaholic. During my relatively small amounts of spare time, I cannot help but find a book in my hands (fiction, poetry, non-fiction, biography, textbooks, and even food labels, caution statements on electronic devices, and . . . *sigh, Internet articles and forums). Even while I sit at my computer, within reach lie two books: Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams. Furthermore, if I lived a suddenly poverty-stricken life, I would sell my bed mattresses before my library.
Ugh.

[Jay]

Welcome, readaholic Mono!

Ever heard of Brave New World and conditioning?

[papayahed]

HI, my name is Baddad....and I'm a readaholic. It started when I first learned how to spell. I realized my reading habit was getting out of control, getting really extreme in fact, when Papayahed once commented that she would read a cereal box if nothing else was available......and I found myself wondering what was printed on the box, and if she would print it out for me...
*readaholic mantra: "Ommmm...burnthebook...Ommmmm...burnthebook... "*

What's your fax #?

[Nightshade]

What's your fax #?

huh???

[papayahed]

So I can send over the copy of the cereal box

[Rachy]

I definately read too much! I find I'm lost if I don't have my book in my hand. I walk around the house with it, no matter where I'm going, and I take it in the car even if the ride is only 5 mins! I can't help it. I need a book with me! Bit sad really!