You also do need a lot of -- SOLITARY time to read books. (Or at least I do.) Non-distracted, solitary time.
I know some can read with a nuclear war going on around them; I can't.
This sort of solitary, contemplative time, to ruminate and really ingest what's read, is something I haven't heard discussed much. If you're "always busy," whatever that means, I dunno how much knowledge is retained form whatever pursuit one's engaged in.
And then there's also retaining what you read, a knack for which I've noticed other have had and that I've envied them endlessly for.
Like Schopenhauer said, "The buying of books does not include the buying of the time required to read them."
-B.
Carrol Cox wrote:
> I'm too much detached from campus to know, but my
feeling is that today
> both grad students & faculty spen less time in
coffee shops, bars, &
> parties talking to each other (as in Whitman's loaf
and invite my soul),
> & if this true, it represents an intellectual loss.
Books have a real
> effect only within a rich oral culture.