Maintaining Literacy

I've never been a big book reader, except for maybe a brief stint during my middle school years. Being educated and all, I seem to be the exception rather than norm in this regard amongst my peers. Almost everyone I know seems to be more well read than me. Sure, I read plenty of stuff, but it just doesn't tend to be in book format. I'm more likely to be reading articles (online and dead tree), blogs, forums, etc. Maybe it's because I tend to read more of the "how to do stuff" and "how stuff works" sort of things that my fascination with books never quite took off. I find other sources tend to get me the information faster and are usually a little more up to date.

On the other hand, I did marry an English professor. I'm not entirely sure why she agreed to marry me since I must appear nearly illiterate with the dearth of literature in my collection. But I am working on upping my reading rate. My normal book reading average over the past few years was 1-2 books a year. In the past six months, I've managed to read 3: The Four Hour Work Week (Tim Ferriss), The Subtle Knife (Phillip Pullman), and The Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollan). I'm not counting the strength training anatomy book I read since it was mostly pictures, and I'm currently working on The Amber Spyglass (also by Pullman). If I keep up this pace, I'm probably going double or triple my usual reading average.

I'm ambivalent about my new reading habits. I'm usually too busy tackling more projects than I can feasibly handle. I'm enjoying the ability to read at the moment, so I'm hoping that this reading uptick isn't an outlier.