What the hell is wrong with reading books?

Ok this is somewhat of a rant. As you can tell from very old posts on this blog I am a big fan of Neal Stephenson's novels, especially the Baroque Trilogy. So I am now reading his new work called Anathem. I have to say I was initially unsure about how this was written when I started but am over half way through now and finding it hard to put it down... which is not good when I am supposed to be working! I'd even say this is now my absolute favourite author - which is Umberto Eco's fault for writing such dross as The Eternal Flame of Queen Loana which should only be used as a tool when you are having difficulty sleeping... it is that dull!

Anyway the reason this was called a rant is that over the past week, at least half a dozen people have commented (with intonated surprise) what a large book I was reading and how long they thought I would need to finish it! Does nobody read books anymore or is there a new rule that if it isn't less than 100 pages or on Wikipedia it no longer counts in our 5 second generation. YES I read books, YES I sometimes read very large books, YES it even takes me a while to get to the end... but so what? I enjoy reading - more people should try it, you might even learn something.

Now please go away as I am trying to read.