Books...Who Reads Books Anymore?
 

This site has a jillion statistics about the publishing business, some of which I found depressing. That sounds rather dire but I suppose with all the entertainment/time-filling options available (with their instant gratification), it's a lot of competition for books.
If you get gratification from reading it's instant, but if the gratification doesn't come till you finish the book, some electronic options might appear more attractive.

Yeah, I know....too damn busy. Life can be pretty hectic and it's hard to read when you fall asleep on the first paragraph.

But there are a lot of books being published. Especially with the rise of small or self publishers, enabled by electronics.

Some of the statistics are dated but interesting anyway.....at least to me.:blush:

Speaking of books;
Everyone knows you're not allowed to have sex standing up because it leads to dancing, right?

Here is a free online book, "From Ball Room to Hell", by T. A. Faulkner, "Formerly Proprietor of the Los Angeles Dancing Academy and ex-President of Dancing Masters' Association of the Pacific Coast", Copyright 1892, 40 pages.Funny stuff. :D

Yeah it's pretty sad. Nobody at work talks about books, just about movies and TV. (I'm guilty of that too, even tho I do read a lot.)

My partner and I have quite a large library, split into rough thirds by fiction, general non-fiction, and my geek books (computer, math, graphics, etc.) We've actually had a hard time finding decent bookshelves. Nobody seems to sell them anymore.

I love books and still read them. I also prefer reading the newspaper in paper form rather than on a computer screen. I am currently reading "Rats" by Michael Sullivan who researched the subject of rats particularly in New York City, and wrote abouat them. Interesting stuff.

Explain to me why this is a bad thing. If you look at the quality of most of those books being published, I don't know that we would be better off for having read them.

If I decide to watch something on the History Channel or PBS instead of reading a trash fiction novel, isn't that a better choice? Why is the printed word more sacred than then spoken or visual word?

With your examples, sure. In general, though, books require more interaction than tv, more mental exercise. Of course, many of the folks watching History Channel are the same ones reading real books. I can't have cable in my house, since I'm raising children, so its books for me.

Can someone please explain to me how how school graduates fail to graduate from high school?

LOL, how funny.

I work in the children's dept. of our public library, and it's SUMMER VACATION. Which means Summer Reading Lists, and there's a ZILLION kids visiting us every single day. Of course, this is good news.....except for those who work in the library and have to lookup, find, and SHELVE all those bloody books!!!

Rant over! Thank you....just another month to go. :blush:

I would be the one person who still is reading. Given the amount of other stuff I do, my average number of books completed per month is down, but I'm still reading.

Great catch Patrick! I think those survey numbers may be a little inflated. Still...

I love to read.
I've had down times where I didn't have the time to read the back of a box of brownies.... hence all of the screaming & running....lol

My husband has a helluva book coming out early this fall, and I'm excited beyond excited!! It's a gathering of some of the greatest forensic minds out there, and it's been a long time coming.

I love to read and typically have 2 or 3 books going at a time. My wife also reads quite often and both my kids (4 and 6) are really into reading, we read every night. Unfortunately most parents don't read to their kids so it becomes something they have to do for school and of course school equals work which is no fun. It is so much easier to sit and stare at a screen or play video games then actually read.

Smoothmoniker - you make it sound like all books are crap. Have you read the top 100 books of all time yet (you can google it)? It's a very interesting list. It should take a while to read all of those even if you read four or more per year.

My mom said that when I was a kid, if there were nothing else around to read, I would read every word on the cereal box. So many of my educated colleagues don't read; have never read classics; don't bother with any of it. I think it's sad what passes for education.

My summer reads so far this year:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Lucky by Alice Sebold (I love her writing style)
The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen
And, re-reading Jane Eyre, again!

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to work on reading the many that I have not. I was pleased to see The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen on the list. An email pen pal recommended that one to me and I loved it!

I have a wall full of books, but the web has left my attention span at too low a setting to read/use them.

Online, I now read much more than I have ever done in my lifetime, and that includes when I was 8 and would stay awake at night and read with a flashlight under the covers.

I won't read opinion offline at all; there is so much better available on. Whenever I read hard copy opinion, I keep reaching for the reply button that doesn't exist and it pisses me off.

I always have a book going. Almost all is strictly entertainment - sci fi/fantasy, or mystery/suspense - real escapism stuff. And about the only time I get to read is on the throne or at the beach. My 15 yr-old hangs at Borders - she and my 12 y-o son read ALOT, which makes me happy. :)

I am at my desk working all day, then I often play online games in the evening. I have tried reading online books but to be honest, it's just too much desk/computer time. To me, a good book should be read curled up on a comfy seat with some music in the background and a nice hot cup of tea or coffee nearby.

I have been an avid reader of books since I began reading at age 4. At that time, I read every book in the house, including the encyclopedia. I read extremely fast and as a result, I out-read my wallet in that I can't afford to buy all the books I could and would like to read. I rarely buy hardback because the price tag is too steep. As it is, I've recently bought another bookcase to house the ones I can't bear to part with.

Most of the books I choose to read are escapism, in my opinion. I've usually read the top 10 or 20 fictional bestsellers. I also have tons of books (dozens) about abuse, emotional health, raising children, poetry, art, music, history, mythology, astrology, gardening, sewing and some odd-ball stuff like palmistry, celestial navigation, and various crafts. I have a few classics as well as some collectables that I stumbled across.

Books are extremely important to me and always have been. Television and computers can never take the place of those written words coupled with my vivid imagination. Speaking of imagination, most of the movies I've seen that were made from books I read, never came close to the scenes played out in my head.

Stormie

Stormie...you said pretty much what I was thinking!

I just moved in with my boyfriend, and he has a small house. Therefore, our garage is filled with boxes of books. I have kept pretty much every book I have ever owned. I have a little of everything: fiction, fact, reference, childrens...even without the internet at home I can find a lot of what I need from my books; I was playing a Nancy Drew game (don't laugh, they're fun) and needed to know a specific fact. I found it in one of my books.

B/f doesn't understand why I want to keep all those books. It is a collection, like any collector. Have I read every single one of them? No. Are there some I may never read again? Yes. But you don't expect people with, say, a salt shaker collection to use them all at the kitchen table. He just doesn't get it!

You can have my books when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. :)

:lol:

Shawnee
You are a kindred spirit . I am the sort of person who wakes up panting at night remembering that so-and-so has still not remembered to give me back that tatty paperback about the reproductive cycle of the humming-bird . I harbour murderous thoughts into the dawn , and worry myself sick about how to ask for it back politely .

But I have had to change recently .


I am moving from Europe to the Caribbean , and I simply cannot afford to take my thousands of books with me . I have thinned my library , and I am giving the rest away . I am giving them away carefully , thinking about my friends' tastes . I put my books into letterboxes . I sent one book to a journalist who had mentioned in an article that he collected the French Guides Bleus .

The amount of goodwill and warmth I have received as a result is quite extraordinary , and yet I thought I would suffer . I am not suffering at all , on the contrary .


( My generosity has its limits of course . NO-ONE will be getting their hands on my complete Gibbon for example . )

I remember the time a few years ago, in Singapore, spending almost all of our 7-hour layover sitting under a table (dont ask) in Barnes and Noble, because I hadnt seen so many english books in the same place in a year or so.

I read about five books in those five hours. Full books, coupleathree hundred pages.

I've been reading since I was two and don't plan on stopping till I'm a hundred and two. Or later, if I live that long and my sight holds up.

I think most of the music on the radio today is crap. That doesn't stop me from enjoying some of it.

I enjoyed the Jurassic Park movies, but I've also read the books. The images and thoughts in the books become part of me that wouldn't be there if I had not read them.

I just finished a collection of writings on software development that gave me a number of thoughts and ideas I would not have gotten had I not taken the trouble.

You don't have to read everything that's published, surely. But I think it's awfully limiting to exclude an entire medium.

*not seriously - but*
The main reason to read books instead of watch TV is that books have no commercials or fund-raisers.

Books books books. MMMmmmmm lots of books. Though I'm starting to get rid of some, and rely mroe heavily on the library--we're just running out of space.

I love books, I love to read. Always have, I cannot pass anything with letters on it and not read that as well. Most of what I read is esacpism: scifi/fantasy a lot, pagan stuff, historic novels, poetry, some regular lit. Hardly any of the flimsy books though, they have to have some body (and then I don't mean number of pages).

I used to read more when I was younger, but then, that's easier with less responsibilities to take care of and all. Nowadays, depending on what needs to be done in a given month, I generally read between 2/6 books a month.

I have a great many books (600+ atm), am running out of space but will never stop getting more books, I love them too much.

I like to watch tv too and then divide the time between a handful of series I always watch and some freeranging along discovery channel, national geographic channel and animal planet. I watch stuff beside that, but generally only when I accidentally come across while channelflipping.

What is really sad, & a real testament to the sickness of today, is how people used to ask me "what'cha' readin"... now they ask "why are you readin' that".
I'm not kidding, I get asked that all of the time. They ask me that often, also, when I tell them that I'm going to the library as well.
There must be a reason to read, something must be making you do it... it can't be because you like it, especially since I read non-fiction most of the time.

Anyone else like to read in bed before going to sleep? I've done this since I was a kid [back in the dark ages]. I now find it hard to go to sleep unless I read for at least a little bit.

I love to read before going to sleep, but I've had to learn to pace myself. Sometimes if the book is too good, I'll forget to go to sleep!

I have to have some distraction or I just start thinking about stuff and it takes quite a while to get to sleep. Usually reading or listening to music or something will do the trick.

Nah, my computer is within arms reach of my bed, so I stay online on AIM and various web sites until I pass out.

Though I DO sleep listening to music, every single night. I can't sleep without it.

I was in shock for a week when I found out libraries discard books. :shock:

Discard books? Ours sells the ones they don't think they need anymore at really good prices, and use the money to buy more books. I always go and end up bringing home way too much that we don't have shelf space for :)

My bad, I probably should have said divest.
Yes, they try to sell them to recoup their money. I bought a used, out of print, book online from a guy in Philly, that had been in a New Hampshire library. No one checked it out in 6 months so they sold it.

Growing up (actually still), I believed a book was a valuable thing. Even a romance novel has the power to entertain, distract from adversity, teach writing style or level a table leg. There's not a book in the world, I can't learn something from.

I thought libraries would keep every book they ever got in case someone, sometime, wanted to read it. In my mind, a library was a magic place, hallowed ground, divorced from the economic realities of the real world. :blush:

I love books, they are sacred to me. Do not bend pages, write in them or set glasses on them. I love their portable-ness. I can entertain myself anywhere, with a book.

I was a branch librarian in CA before we moved out of state. Most of my patrons were children from the grade school across the street. I firmly believe, if you can instill a love of books/reading at a young age, it will help that child in all aspects of its' life. When they can read and assimilate the information as fast as they can speak or think, it will help them in later schooling when the books are drier and more info-oriented.

I remember going to my local library last summer. There had been a thunder storm move through the area and the internet was down. I walked in to pick up a book I had requested that was in and a little boy jumped up and informed in the most DIRE tone of voice that the internet was "out"...
I smiled at him and told him I was sure glad I didn't go to the library for computers and internet!
The librarian commented that some people actually come to libraries for books. To read.
I don't think he got the joke.
HH

I've actually gotten some good deals on books that libraries discarded.

I also take the used paperbacks that I don't care to keep (I read wayyyy too many to keep all of the ones I read) and trade them in at Paperback Palace for credits against other books. When I find an author I like, I go buy all the books I can find by them and dig in. PP is a great store for that as they generally have a huge selection of used books, sorted by genre/author.

Oh, and I have started writing a book. It will be an autobiography of sorts. Maybe I'll start a thread here somewhere with some of the stories from my life that I'll be including ;) .

Stormie

Having cable and raising children are mutually exclusive?

I read constantly. I LOVE to read. If reading had been a sport in my high school, I would have lettered. If I could be paid to read-that would be my perfect job. I read classics and crap and the O magazine and National Geographic and the indie paper around here and poetry and...and...

I don't buy it. (PDF of NEA 2004 survey results.)

A decline in reading? Yes. "58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school?" I don't think so.

To me, they are. On some other thread, Ibram made a little mistep saying that "society" had f*cked a particular child. The real deal is uninvolved parents destroyed that child by not imposing themselves between society and their offspring. I know cable has some value like propaganda er news channels but right now I have two wonderful kids who come to Pete or myself when the world seems screwed up or scarey, rather than getting their values from Fox or CNN. When they are older and are ready to process all the images, we may get cable, but don't count on it. We broke the tv habit and I'd hate to give up book or Cellar hours to go back.

I'm with you Griff. Our girls are now 13 & 14. The only broadcast TV they have ever seen at home were the various Olympics. Otherwise our TV is a monitor for the DVD and VCR. On school nights it's never turned on. Obviously that's just one factor, but both girls do well at school.

I have cable TV and my sons have managed not to embrace CNN or Fox or any other network, cable or not, or show for their values. And I can't recall that they ever sought comfort from the scarey world in television, either.

It is only my way. Your mileage may vary.

I just ask myself, would I invite people into my home who behave in ways which seem normalized on tv?

Dude.

Ballard Bookcase. Practically in your neighborhood. Drive by it twice a day. Check 'em out.

My mom made sure we had only a 12" black and white TV, on purpose, and was careful about restrictions, etc.

Today I have the biggest TV I can afford and digital cable with 100 channels + 7 HBOs, TiVo, surround sound, etc. and watch hours upon hours of propaganda every day. In the truck it's Sirius with 150 satellite radio channels.

One of my Radio-TV-Film professors had a standard question on the first day of every class: "How many of you were not allowed to watch television as children?" The percentages were astounding; usually more than half the class.

I watched a lot of TV, but only the fun stuff. If it was supposed to be intellectual or funny or something and wasnt, i didnt care. I think ive always been a bit ahead of the age curve... I started reading when I was two... and here I am as a teenager, hanging with and getting along just fine with a bunch of people twice my age. I cant stand most forums populated by people my age, theyre pretty chaotic yet boring. No real content.

As I was trying to pick out the next book I'm going to read, I had a little movie flashback that should help everyone understand how into books I am ...

You've seen Fahrenheit 451? You know that house, the one where the girl lives with the older folks ... I don't have that much clever space, but I have nearly that many books.

Cool, thank you!

The 3rd-graders I work with don't read. I don't mean it isn't fun, I mean they can barely read. One was sent down the hall last year, to examine how the 5th-graders read. Absolutely no difference. Children see it as a chore, something that they only have to do in school, so they never learn to enjoy it. Think; now teachers are not asking "Can you read this?", they are saying "Read this or you fail." Not exactly positive reenforcement. Then again, the students aren't so eager, with the XBox 360 waiting at home.

Rant finished.

*walks away with head down*

Man, in third grade, the teacher had to keep YELLING at me FOR reading in class.

I had the same problem in 4th grade, especially since I was reading "grown up" books. Like Willard.

Yeah, I was reading 'young adult' fiction and a few classics. I read gulliver's travels, treasure island, etc before fourth grade... and remember none of them.

I recall when I was in 5th grade (mid 70s), we moved from town to the country and the library was far, far away. So I started reading Mom's books; Stephen King is most notable, along with Jaws (scared of water now) and her college classics: Return of the Native, Kim, Scarlet Letter, Catcher in the Rye and Hemingway ~ Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

I'm pretty sure I read the Exorcist in 5th or 6th grade.

What is that book American teenagers always used to read ? The cross and the switch-blade ? Something like that .

I had a teacher take away one of my Stephen King novels because "The movies are rated R, so the books must be too."

An attempt was made at that with me. My mother said, "If she's able to read it, let her. It's not her fault that you wouldn't place her in the grade she tested into. She's bored."

(I had transferred to Catholic school because of a move (my cousins went there, so I also had to go) and tested at the 6th Grade math level and 9th or 10th grade reading level. It is typical practice of Catholic schools to place public school transfer students into the next lower grade because the "public school education is bad". What ended up happening is that even though I was placed into my age-appropriate grade, I lost some serious ground since Catholic school 4th grade math was similar to public school late 2nd grade math in the MidWestern district from which I originated.)

The film in my head after reading 'Misery' is definitely not for children , so perhaps your teacher had a point , Clodfobble ?
Incidentally , 'Misery' is the only good book that Stephen King has ever written .

Incorrect. But it might have been the last.

... and 'Misery ' is bloody brilliant .

The Stand is "bloody brilliant."

Misery was all about the shock.

Well , I have not read that one . I went off Stephen King when he started to go supernatural with clowns . If I want to go American supernatural , I read Poe , or James . No one has ever written anything better than 'The Turn of The Screw' in that sort of vein . Bloody TRULY brilliant .