Shame on me: I Don't Read.

I'm sure this is common.  Many people I know feel with money and time pressures reading is a secondary thought.  I am a graduate student  in an Elementary education program.  My concentration is literacy.  I don't read.  Not really.  Yes, I read research for school and I read informational text for my job.  I don't, however, read for pleasure.  My fear is this will seep into the consciousness of every student I teach.  "If Mr. Denton doesn't like to read, why should I do this?"

I love stories.  I've gotten lazy.  I was born and bred on television and movies.  Also, due to some of my personal deficiencies, I feel I  have the attention span of a gnat and the energy to boot.  Many times I have attempted to read only to stop.  I STOP in the middle of stories!  Sometimes I fall asleep.  Sometimes I fall prey to a "Eurogamer" view of storytelling.  I hate, I absolutely HATE pointless deaths in a story; why develop a character over time only to SPLAT them after 200 pages?  I have a strange aversion to pain in stories sometimes, knowing full well THAT is character development.

My wife is probably THE most prolific reader I know.  Even so, I had to somehow console her through the Dark Tower series and a Kaarin Slaughter book (if you read her stuff, you know, or will know why soon enough.)

When I told my wife I wanted to attempt to read for pleasure again, she was overjoyed.  However, I'm a pain in the ass when it comes to reading choices.  I actually have read mostly Young Adult stuff.  Not too depressing, light, etc.  I'm actually considering Lawrence Block this go-round:  easy reading, and it seems like my kind of stuff.  I have typically read come of the Mystery crime stuff:  Gregory McDonald, Sue Grafton, Janet Evonovich.  I also have read some of the lighter fantasy stuff such as Myth Inc. 

 Any suggestions would be appreciated as far as my leisure reading goes.

My reading bleeds over ito the gaming hobby.  I'm bad.

Very rarely do I even attempt to pre- read  rules to a game I plan on playing soon.  It's not that I can't, or even that I don't have the time.  I just feel someone in my group is more adept at rules explaining than myself.  Which is BAD for a literacy teacher (potential teacher) to think.  I'm planning to try leading a game (again) soon.  Any pointers other than get off my lazy ass and read the rules?

Very rarely is reading a social event for me.  Rules reading is one of those times.  People clamoring for the rulebook to a new game.  It can be a roundtable of discussion about a rule interpretation.  In the past, I have wanted to be right so badly I have shied away from rules reading in the past for fear of being wrong.  If I battle through my issues with my own fear of being wrong, I could be better equipped to help a kid with his/her own fears.  I know, they're only rules, but they tie in to my teaching skills.