The Endlessly Dying Book

January 22, 2007

Yet another story on the death of the book… My sagging bookshelves and the joy that can be seen on the faces of bookstore cashiers when I walk through the door attest to my own love for books. When I see a story like this I always assume that it’s another of those stories wrongly focused on the medium not the message. Books may well be dying, but the writing contained in them is not, etc.

I don’t worry a lot about the fate of books, but I do worry about the fate of reading… in particular the reading of literary work. You know, the kind of reading that demands attention and contemplation and even some effort on the part of the reader. I find it hard to believe that teenage children are reading less in general, particularly given the ubiquity of the mostly text-centric WWW, but I’m not surprised that their reading matter is increasingly simplified and their reading habits are goal driven.

But this is the first article I’ve seen in some time that refers to hard data about the decline of readers in America. The NEA sponsored Reading at Risk report is a little scary… and stands somewhat in opposition to the “’twas always thus” crowd’s optimism in such matters.

Perhaps this stems from the fact that the people I talk with about about readers are so often writers themselves. The report does show a 30% increase in the number of people who are writing creatively, perhaps sustaining a false sense of security in the continued population of readers despite the fact that many of us over the years have observed the strange phenomenon of the non-reading writer… particularly in creative writing classes!

Tags: reading, Writing