When I was younger I watched loads of TV, beat Zelda and Super Mario Bros, honed my Gameboy Tetris skills to near Woz-level, watched skateboard videos over and over again to analyze the moves, futzed around with Amigas and Macs and PCs for hours, ran up my dad's phone bill with long-distance BBS charges, etc. I also read 2-5 entire books per week, got a perfect score on the verbal section of the SAT and the reading comprehension portion of the ACT and subsequently got a full ride academic scholarship to college.
I'm also not convinced that reading a bunch of junk books is actually a great use of one's time. I have a lot of nerd friends who never read anything other than HOWTOs and they are much better at their mathematical software jobs than I am. I can read a 300 page crime novel in about 90 minutes, but what's the point?