Reading and Writing

At the moment I'm reading a Bukowski short story collection (The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and other stories). The writing reminds me very much of Henry Miller in Tropic of Cancer - it's vigorous, bawdy, honest and funny. But as both books are memoirs (of sorts) and therefore about writing as much as what happens in their day to day lives, it's making me think about how much (or how little) I write. And read.
There are simply not enough hours in the day for me to plough through my waiting list of books to read. So much information and tales that I want to gorge myself on yet time slips through my hands like sand.

I need to work out some sort of system for myself whereby I read a book that I class as Literature and then something purely for pleasure. Sometimes these might overlap, but generally the Literature requires me to engage my brain whereas the stuff I look at purely for pleasure doesn't. I suppose it's a bit like food - Literature is a good meal at a top restaurant, pleasure books are the literary equivalent of MacDonalds and Burger King. That said, there are the rare occasions when I pick up what I consider to be a MacBook and it turns out to be a real feast.

Stephen King said somewhere that anyone wishing to pursue writing as a career should read for at least four hours every day. Some days I can probably do that - although most of that will be made up of reading on a pc screen - not what I think he meant at all. I certainly used to read for a good four hours each day and in all honesty it's not a huge amount out of 24 hours. But in our busy 21st century lives it's a massive hole. Audio books I suppose could help - at least for those of us for whom driving is unavoidable.

Hmm…I should be reading now and not writing aimless musings to myself.