Why just focus on classics? Why not read some recent authors. Joy Fielding books can make you feel like you're watching a movie. She's a pretty much painless read. It's genre but as far as I'm concerned any reading is good - mix it up a bit.
"Take a butcher's"? I'm not familiar with that expression. Can you explain it for us boneheaded Californians?
'take a butcher's' seems to be cockney rhyming slang for 'take a look'... in re the elided 'hook' of 'butcher's hook'... though why a scot from the highands would be using london's east ender jargon, i've no clue...
I used to read way more a few years back, and now I have trouble immersing myself in a story. I get binges, but I manage to finish like 2 books in a year, so I guess it's not that odd not to read a lot yet still wanting and needing to write. I do crawl through novels, at snail pace, yeah, but usually I read like one page of some piece of fiction every day. However, I agree that one has to read, preferebly a lot, to be a good writer. Audio books are a neat little invention for those of us who struggle picking up a book-book. ETA: I do love to read though, so I guess I just decay more slowly or whatever. But for some reason my attention span has suffered (too much reading for school I guess), that I can't sit down and really read like I used to. Tbh, it sucks.
This is an excellent comparison. Making a movie without having seen many movies is akin to living in a vacuum - you won't know what's being done, what's been done, or how the process even works. You don't have to compare yourself to great filmmakers in terms of skill (trying to be the next Coppola or Kubrick, instead of doing your own thing and forming your own skill and voice, is going to lead to dead ends in creativity and a pretty big psychological fuck-up of inadequate feelings), but in terms of what's been done in the form, it's necessary. Same with writing.
It just means 'look at.' And I lived near London for a while, until I went back up to Stirling uni, where I currently am. I just pick and choose neat phrases from all the places I've visited and throw them around randomly.
Haven't gone down and read other's response so I will address the OP directly. I have been in your position before. I didn't like reading fiction, but I did enjoy non-fiction, mostly philosophy and psychology. That was before Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. I was glued to this book and loved every scene, every moment, every character in it. It fed your imagination, and it played with your emotion. Books also do more things than movies -- you read what the characters think, smell what they smell, feel the punch below the belt. And the emotions take you as well, as if you were experiencing their dilemmas directly. That got me into writing. And I started to appreciate fiction. Enjoyed them more as I read on and on. Books are still better than movies with regards to intimacy. When a movie comes out based on a novel, I try to read the book first before watching.
If I don't read, I'm sure I wouldn't write. I tend to read a lot of fiction with one or two biographys thrown in here and there. But I will say that what I write isn't always matched up with what I read. But reading will help you as a writer. For me, reading has helped me find my writing 'POV', meaning I like to read in first person and I like to write in first person. And I tend to read the books before I watch the films and nine times out of ten, I perfer the books. But as a lot of people will say (or have said), reading will help you in a big way.