Get nephew books for Christmas and birthday presents

>get nephew books for Christmas and birthday presents
>get him stuff I enjoyed at that age such as Tolkien, and Jack London
>found out recently doesn't read them
>he doesn't read anything
>he just plays video games all day while the books gather dust
>talk to my brother
>try to get him to encourage his son to read more
>say video games will do nothing good for him and tell him to get rid of them
>he gets mad and says video games aren't bad and that they play together and bond
>he says I'm just jealous I don't have a wife and family like him
>tells me not to bother seeing him again until I "get a life"

I'm going to make one last effort to get my nephew into literature again. I don't know how yet, but I will try to give him one more book. I don't think it's too late for him. But what should I give him to give him that one push if he ignored all my other requests? Maybe if I go all out and give him something more adult and patrician, maybe a Library of America edition of Moby-Dick, or a fancy complete Shakespeare, he might finally see books as precious and get into serious reading.

How old is the nephew?

>>get nephew books for Christmas

stopped reading right there, use the term "the holidays" if you expect anyone to read your shit, bigot

Almost 13. Gore Vidal says that kids need to get into reading between 6 and 13 or they will never learn to read well, so there's not much time to waste here.

You shouldn't. You should just catfish him on Facebook by pretending to be a cute girl his age who enjoys books, if he gets into books during this arrange a meet where you do not show up because you're not a cute young girl at all but his uncle and he learns a valuable lesson about trusting strangers on the internet. If he still doesn't then continue to string him along until he presses the issue and tell him you just want to be friends, that'll give him a good kick in the teeth for being a DYER.

If buying him good books didn't work before it's not going to work now.

lmao this is your fault for not knowing your nephew


good presents would be something like tickets to the museum or concert tickets or like 6 flags or whatever

Alright listen here, when i was young, i got loads of books, nice books, even got the hobbit illustrated hardback. I didn't give a fuck, i just played games. Now i'm older i regret being an ingrate, the books were all lovely presents.

Kekel

This desu

>tells me not to bother seeing him again until I "get a life"
>And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

pretty good advice.

Way too late. My 6 year old is reading me and my wife the secret garden right now, and we are constantly praising her and pointing out that there are 2 types of people, those who read and those who dont.

Your cousin has to come to it himself or not at all. Also you should change tactics and get him brutal books about serial killers and war. Young boys are susceptible to the crocodile brain.

It's too late my dood. The younger generation has no attention span and they are completely addicted to technology, resulting in a future much like F451. I teach kids in English and they cant read for 10min without being distracted

Why do you feel compelled to push your hobby on someone else who clearly has no interest in it?

Call him an idiot or illiterate until he starts reading.

Get your head out of your ass, you cheeto eating basement dweller

Why are people so immature? I would never dream of cutting my brother off over something so stupid

This was the least surprising part of the story for me. Family can be trash.

>get video games for my nephew for Christmas
>get him the stuff that I used to enjoy playing when I was a kid, Grand theft auto, Halo, Call of Duty
>Turns out he doesn't play them
>he doesn't play anything
>he just watches Youtubers play them while the video games gather dust

It's someone else's son. What the fuck. You're not the kid's dad for fuck sake, whatever it is you should get your brother to change his son, not you as a third party come in to mess with family matters. Your brother clearly doesn't want his son to turn into you.

I bet he'd read Lolita.

"Man's duty is to improve himself; to cultivate his mind", said Immanuel.
It's probably bullshit, but I think it's universally true that reading makes you at least a little bit smarter

Got my young stepbrother that sweet, leatherbound Hitchhiker's Guide compilation and he proceeded to put it on his shelf to gathr dust forever. Was my fault for projecting my interests onto him. He usually just plays PS4 (mostly retarded football/basketball games), so now I get him games that aren't shit. I still project what I like on him, but through a medium he's interested in.

How could he not love Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy. The first two are some of the funniest things I've read

...

Ha ha, great fun. I'm not saying it's the literary masterpiece of the science-fiction genre, I'm just saying that I love that Monty Python-kind of british humor when applied to science fiction. Come on, it's fun

I have a question for thee alone, my brother: like a sounding-lead, cast I this question into thy soul, that I may know its depth.

Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art thou a man entitled to desire a child?

Art thou the victorious one, the self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues? Thus do I ask thee.

Or does the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or discord in thee?

I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child. Living monuments shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation.

Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul.

Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward! For that purpose may the garden of marriage help thee!

A higher body shalt thou create, a first movement, a spontaneously rolling wheel—a creating one shalt thou create.

Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it. The reverence for one another, as those exercising such a will, call I marriage.

Let this be the significance and the truth of thy marriage.

The only thing that comes to mind is reading to him aloud before going to bed. I doubt you're over at your brother's house that frequently so just write it off as a lost cause and blame your brainlet brother.

>get tapes of Youtubers playing video games for my nephew for Christmas
>get him the stuff that kids seem to enjoy the most, Yogscast, PewdiePie, star_
>Turns out he doesn't watch them
>he doesn't watch anybody playing games
>he just watched other Youtubers react to Youtubers playing games, while the tapes gather dust

Better to not even be around people like that. My brother is an anti intellectual. He works as a "graphic designer" for a mega church in Kentucky. My niece's entire identity is built on Disney cartoons and this limp-wristed Christianity most Southerners practice. I mentioned reading to her one time, his response was "why waste time reading anything besides the Bible." We don't talk much.

>Maybe if I go all out and give him something more adult and patrician
Or maybe just something like
Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live

This are the dangers of religion. Next time slap her in the face and start reading Marquis De Sade, Naked Lunch and Gravity's Rainbow, while forcing her to continuously listen to Nabokov's voice repeating "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul. Lo lee ta. The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Tah."

*these, pardon

Those people are really intelligent desu, they can get the meaning of the Bible instantly without reading commentaries.
>tfw when people pretend to follow 'the religion of the book' and do not give a shit about books

That's a good example of why I haven't liked Nabokov since my early 20s. So affected it's nauseating.

There's nothing easier than calling something "affected"—right up there with tryhard

As revenge turn him into a weeb. I don't know anime enough to recc, but I'm sure there's some kind of slippery slope of animu you could lead an unsuspecting young lad down until his life is ruined.

Considering I rarely call acclaimed writers affected, it doesn't seem that easy to me. Ol' Nabby is one of the few. (Of course many unpublished writers churn out affected prose, but that is a whole another thing.) I liked him back when I was about 21-22-ish. Eventually I realized most of his works are gilded rubbish. Some of his other tendencies like the affectedly (!) nonchalant way of preemptively dismissing a range of possible interpretations and readings is irritating too.

lmao do this OP, your brother will hate you

>rectangular
hm?

Nabokov is such a mediocre prose stylist. Should have just written in Russian.

I wasn't well versed on reading until i was 15 and I think I pretty well read user.

He's not even your son, why are you so intent on getting him to read if he clearly chooses to do the opposite, with his dad in full support.

Just get a wife and son nigga wtf

disguise yourself as Walt Whitman and wait for your nephew to get out of school, then surprise him with Leaves of Grass and tell him it's a secret just between the two of you, and not to tell his parents.
He will not only love Whitman's free verse, he will also be thrilled by the idea of a secret pact with a dead man.

>wants to compete with immediate gratification of vidya with Moby Dick
Better idea: try again when he's 25

This, except with the Talmud.

Kids know not to talk to strangers out of the womb these days. Unless you are telling OP to shoot the kid a message on insta or something that is retarded.

Op just fuck you are nephew

Nice rare pepe.

This is what my brother does. Only he asks for the games. But never plays them, not even once.
He has got propper autism though, so maybe he's just collecting them.

OP, do this, is the only way

Shit I read Walter White instead of Walt Whitman. It still made sense, in a way

>Why should you care about your family?

Kill them all. Save yourself.

There's nothing inherently wrong with what you're trying to do. Books are the key to having intelligent children and video games are not. I think you're fighting a larger, more systemic issue of shitty parents and an ADD generation.

this. I'm 19 and used to play a ton of video games and still dropped out of MD about halfway through.

>Give nephew a fun fantasy book with lots of sex and violence
>???
>profit!

I wanted to do this for my nieces when they get older cause Australian public schools won't read non-Australian books or teach you non-Australian history and brother doesn't know anything about either. I was just going to buy them stuff like Horrible Histories when they turn 7 or 8, hopefully before they've become addicted to technology and can focus on a book.

It's nice that you've tried to get him into reading. But "tried" is enough, don't force him.
What does good to a specific person varies. Someone gets escapionism by books, someone by video games etc.
Reading is different from studying. Maybe you should force someone to study, as a chore, but don't force someone to read, as a hobby.
Who knows, maybe one day he'll get interested in reading himself and become better reader than you.

This right here

I graduated from a "top" high school 7 years ago, all advanced classes. Not a single person read every assigned book, maybe two or three reas half. The majority read not even one.

And these were not lengthy books: the scarlet letter, the picture of dorian gray, a few shitty shoehorned diversity novels, etc

>get my nephew videotapes of youtubers reacting to other youtubers playing video games
>he leaves them to gather dust so he can "read shakespeare"

You can only do so much to guide someone else in a certain direction before you start being annoying, which it seems you've already done.

In my college history class this year me and two others were the only ones to do the reading out of a 40 person class or so. It truly is too late for this generation. Marshall McLuhan was 100% right, the age of literacy has passed, electronic media has changed everything.

Read Discworld instead. It remains coherent past the first book.

Only help those who ask for help.

Learn this and you'll live a serene life

>Don't help children who don't know any better
I'm sure you'll be a great father, user.

>tells me not to bother seeing him again until I "get a life"
Seems like an overreaction.

>>tells me not to bother seeing him again until I "get a life"
I feel like you're missing out details of your argument. I don't believe someone would sperg out so badly.

underrated

Kek

Harry Potter[\spoiler]
:( [\spoiler]

As much as The Classics are great, especially with today's kids, I'd recommend raunchier and/or funnier stuff to get kids hooked.
Just my two cents.

Get him Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

say no more senpai

here. get fucked you fucking pozzie neo-cuckold freak. it's good being a loner and read a good book, but don't force it upon others expecting them to love your unproductive hobbies, autist

You should get him Culture of Critique by Kevin Macdonald so he redpills himself w/r/t (((videogames)))

>why waste time reading anything besides the Bible
Patrician af

So why don't you have your own children, OP?

It's a lost cause, OP. Once a kid has vidya nothing else will get his attention. It's unfortunate but true. Same thing happened to me. As an adolescent I spent all my free time either playing video games or discussing them on forums online. It wasn't until I was fecking 20 years old that I realized "wow I just wasted 12 years of my youth" and started to get into literature. At least you had good intentions. The only thing to do is to, like your brother said, start your own family.

>tfw going to raise my kids without technology

this

>brother buys books for my kid
>brother is nerdy as fuck keeps talking about Tolkien. doesnt shave or shower.
>my kid asks why my brother keeps forcing shitty gifts on him
>brother comes over to the house flips the fuck out at me and tells me how to raise my own kid
>me and kid play games together we love it
>brother tells me hes envious of me being so lucky
>tell brother he can come over anytime
>brother says he has to go home to do something online

I remember getting pissed as fuck for getting books from family members at the age of 6-7.

I only really developed a taste for books later when reading stuff like Robinson Crusoe, Lord of the Rings and books about the Eastern front.

Then again our household didn't get a computer until I was 10 years old and most holiday homes and older family didn't have those so I had plenty of time to read. Still played Runescape to death though.

don't be a father to children who don't miss one

Ahh this post reminds me of the good ol days of innocent fun on /b/

I would've started by getting the kid interested in reading before giving him a book. Let him know that you enjoy reading, and tell him about some of the things you've read. If he's interested, give him some info, but always cut it off, saying, "it would be better if you just read it yourself." Never give him a book unless he asks for one.

13 is waaay too fucking late.
Like 5 years off.
8 is best and only age for you to have any hope of making a kid interested in reading books.

>Took English honours in high school
>Teacher doesn't have to sacrifice the proper education of competent students to keep incompetent student's heads above the water
>Good literary discussions
>Great books
>All-around great time

Our school system should focus less on bringing up retards and those who are unwilling to learn and focus more on helping those who excell.

I'd rather have few highly educated geniuses than a generation of barely literate zombies

op you're a serial child rapist in the making

>video games are bad because i dont like them
Tool
Books are technology. Stop forcing meme trash onto them and maybe they'll read.

This story is probably just made up but if it isn't then he'll most likely grow out of it, and if he doesn't then your nephew was never gonna make it anyways.
I read a lot when I was a kid and then spent most of my teenage years playing video games all day. It wasn't until about 19 when I started reading seriously again. I still play games occasionally but only for about 4-5 hours a month.

>Not giving him Dark Souls so he can drown in Lore forever.
You fucking idiot.

Your brother is a pleb, OP.

>>tfw going to raise my kids without technology
Don't do this. Just teach them how to use it properly and in moderation.

Honest kek

Jail awaits, you pedo.

>get gf dildos for Christmas and his birthday
>get her stuff I enjoyed at that age such as Dragon Dildos, whips and lubricant
>found out she doesn't use them
>her just jerks off to faggots using them on pornhub while his sex toys collect dust
>talk to my gf's friend
>try to get her to encourage her to use sex toys on herself more
>say porn will do nothing good for her and tell her to get rid of them
>she gets mad at tells me I'm his sister and this is fucked up
>tells me not to bother seeing him again until "i take my meds"

Seems to me like you are blaming the victims of a poor education system. I can imagine that it is difficult to imagine from your perspective but most of those "retards" were probably just from poor families who were never inspired to read or to learn. Some of those students in the non-advanced classes probably wanted to be in Honors courses but were unable due to scheduling constraints. Some schools don't even have the resources. Hardly the fault of the students in most cases that the school environments often instill a mindset of "I'm just here because my parents are working." I was one of those students who was recommended for an Honors English class but could not be admitted due to the circumstances of my schedule. I missed out on a lot in school.

the kid will learn to associate literature with catfishing and wont read books ever again. This is effective short term, but not recommended

>getting gifts you didn't want/don't care about

this triggers me
I stand with your nephew

Good thing I'm not getting books as presents. They'd probably buy me some awfully translated YA or genre fiction and I'll just get frustrated.

I'd rather just be given money so I'd buy exactly what I want.

I only started reading when I was 15-16.
Also there is not much you can do, the kid is just a random kid, he probably won't start reading until he finds out how important it is, which is probably not gonna happen soon since his parents didn't instill it into him. Just accept it user, sorry

Never understood why people give gift cards and shitty presents instead of just giving people money.

A gift card is like money, but shitty and a pain in the ass.

So what do you have against your brother? Your knowledge of what fiction books wrote?

If he is the one with a stable job wife and kids, saying to "get a life" and implying you don't have anything worthwhile done for yourself, then you are in no position to say books will help his son as they clearly didn't help you to "get a life."