Read A Good Book Lately?
One in four read no books last year
WASHINGTON - There it sits on your night stand, that book you've meant to read for who knows how long but haven't yet cracked open. Tonight, as you feel its stare from beneath that teetering pile of magazines, know one thing — you are not alone.
One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices. . .
People from the West and Midwest are more likely to have read at least one book in the past year. Southerners who do read, however, tend to read more books, mostly religious books and romance novels, than people from other regions. Whites read more than blacks and Hispanics, and those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently.
There was even some political variety evident, with Democrats and liberals typically reading slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives.
The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories. Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels. Every other genre — including politics, poetry and classical literature — were named by fewer than five percent of readers. . .
Comments
This makes me scared and depressed.
This "study" doesn't include all reading.
Is reading the new Harry Potter inherently better than reading what's on this website?
No, reading a book is not "better" than reading a blog (and I'm Potterphile myself). Yet as both a reader and writer of books, I can tell you that a reaction formation of sorts has set in against reading (Norm: what are your traffic numbers on days where you have reading material only here vs. days when you post a Colbert, Stewart, or other video?).
I've had two fairly high-powered NYC lit agents represent my own work, and they've both failed to get a deal. Once I completed the "I'm not good enough" reaction phase, I began to reasonably sort out the factors involved. No lit agent, for one thing, is going to take on an author out of the goodness of his heart: these guys are after money. When they represent you, they have one thing in mind--a contract--and thus need to have the confidence that the work they're representing merits one.
So what's behind all this? I think part of it, at least, is systemic: the Rupert Murdoch, oligopolistic, one-size-fits-all model of publishing. We have a political hegemony that also supports and reinforces this corporate plutocracy and the shallowness and narrowness of product that it spawns. In short, our corporate systems make reading less interesting.
Whatever the cause or causes, these are disturbing numbers: if 25% of your reading public can't handle anything more than a newspaper or a caption to an online video, you have a problem. It is nothing less, in my view, than another symptom of a culture in a precipitous decline.
It always creeps me out when I go to someone’s house and they have no books or magazines. I don’t know if owning big piles of books prompts people to read more, but not having a single book in the house certainly limits your literacy. I love it when people say that they don’t have time to read. Granted, reading is a very time-consuming process but it is also the most efficient way to ingest information. These same people who don’t have time to read the news will watch an hour of CNN every day. The newspapers delivered to my building in Seattle lie on the first landing. I used to joke that I could get more news reading the front page of The New York Times as I walked down those 20 or so steps than from watching an hour of CNN. People who claim not to have time to read are probably the half-wits who watch farting cat videos on youtube all morning.
I sound like some crabby old man bitching about the kids but there really isn’t much hope for a post-literate society.
I just finished reading one of the worst novels I have ever bothered to finish. Ironically, it was one of the better books I have read for improving my Spanish. I can’t explain it.
All we are missing is the nuke explosion...(you know what Im talking about if you read Canticle for Leibowitz)
Daily Rev, That link to the Tao of Hogwarts has made you instantly likeable.
The assumption here is that reading any old book is inherently "good for you", i.e. reading Harry Potter is a "gateway" book to Faulkner or at least Hemingway, right? It's a slippery slope in reverse; you start out reading trashy romance novels and before you know it you're reading "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man".
If people stop reading Tom Clancy novels the world won't stop turning.
I love this quote from the article: "Charlotte Fuller, 64, a retired nurse from Seminole, Fla., who said she read 70 books in the last year. 'I read so many sometimes I get the stories mixed up.'"
It's typical crisis of the week journalism.
My husband doesn't read books, but he reads tons of articles in magazines (hard copy and online). He knows far more about computers than I do (and I'm the one with the comp sci degree).
I read almost every day, but I've noticed that the amount of books I read in a year has decreased over tha last year or two. I think it has a lot to do with reading more non-fiction than fiction. Not only are non-fiction books usually lengthy, but they also take more time to digest. I don't read a page of non-fiction as fast as I read a page of fiction, even if the fiction is somewhat tech-y.
It doesn't surprise me that people that read more volume in books read more religious work, popular fiction, and romance novels. I'm not knocking any of those three, but they're aimed more at general audiences (in my experience). They're not meant to be hard. They're meant to be entertaining.
Let's not forget the failure of our education system. I was a year from graduation(reading and spelling on a first grade level) before a teacher discovered I was dyslexic. Since then I have set my sights on all the books I could not read before. (1984,the jungle,any thing by chuck) When the US has and illiteracy rate of 15% how much of it is due to lack of education?
Reading books isn't "better" than anything, period. The only thing reading a lot of books does is make you more familiar with the books you read. The knowledge/experience does not necessarily transfer.
For example, a person could watch nothing but studies of historical events on their television and end up a much smarter person than their neighbor who is an Oprah Book Club member. Kids play math video games and end up much better at math than when they just study textbooks. As in all things, it's about the substance, not the superficial.
Jerry Seinfeld nailed it - what's the deal with people buying and keeping books, displaying them like they're trophies? There are good books, to be sure, and reading is a great experience. But it is by no means an inherently more valuable experience than any other.
you know what, tea? attacking books, and the culture of books, and talking about how people get "smarter" by doing this and that...i can't stomach it, i had to say something. you're full of shit here.
how very generous of you. but you're simply off base here- yes, reading BOOKS IS a more "inherently valuable experience" than many, many others. i hope, for your sake and that of future generations of little t4ts, that you are not a parent. i find it hard to believe that you really believe what you are saying, and aren't just being contentious for the sake of it (somthing i do have a certain sympathy for) but if so it would explain certain things i've been wondering about.
signed, an unrepentant book lover.
It is a false comparison T4 makes. I would expect that a person who watches a lot of science and history programming on TV to know more about the world than a person who is a persistent reader of romance novels.
Now, let's make an apples to apples comparison between the science and history channel devotee and a person who reads the books those programs are based on. Which is more likely to have the deeper understanding and knowledge about the topics?
Contrarians are often fond of that variety of false comparison and the false dichotomy gambit.
The simple fact that the ideas and stories are printed and put between cardboard covers does not make the contents ‘better’ or morally improved. The difference between print and other mediums is the level of personal engagement the reader has with the contents.
The content of any visual or audio medium is strictly dictated by time. You always have X number of minutes to present X number of ideas and images. To do this and make a program interesting and watchable, many, many, many important supporting facts and details that draw a more complete picture are necessarily left out.
Books are not time restricted in the same way that electronic medium always is.
Likewise, the receiver (reader/watcher) necessarily receives the information as quickly as the medium demands, with little time for reflection before the next image and part of the information is presented. If you begin to think about other things you've learned that relate to the information, either negatively or positively, you lose the next bit. Not the case with books.
So, to start with you have more detail and more opportunity to think about the information as it comes in at the speed you are running at not the commercial scheduling.
The science and history programming gives you enough information to talk about something but talk to someone who read the books the programs were based on and you will have a radically different learning experience than you will get from the lady who reads tons of romance novels.
Regarding fiction, you still have time and lack of detail factor in film and video and you still don't have the same factor in books. But, the important difference between Video and text are the many things you learn about the characters and the story when you have the opportunity to personally engage with those details and involve your own experience and your own questions that the characters and situations inspire. You get some of that in a movie but you don't have time to experience it fully. Reading is a more personally engaging experience.
But some, nay many books are trash with no real content and no purpose other than to be sold. I think of many books as little more than printed television.
Personally I would rather watch Tele tubbies than read a romance novel or one of the many Star Trek 'novels' being published or fans of Printed TV.
So, you have to compare content and topic as well as the medium.
T, nobody is preventing you from masturbating.
Thomas, You've put your finger on it - exactly. I just spent a week visiting my mother who has been so blind for the past few years that she can no longer read books. When I saw T4T's post I called her and asked her whether she thought, even with the history channel, documentaries, and books on tape if she had come anywhere close to replacing books as source of information. You know the answer.
There are good documentaries, to be sure - but reading good books in the same areas covered by films or TV shows IS inherently more valuable, period. For example, try to find any video-based presentation or series of presentations that reveals as much about cosmology as a reasonably challenging book for nonexperts on the subject (example: Joseph Silk's "A Short History of the Universe"). I've been teaching a graduate course to chemists for years that is fairly mathematical in its prerequisites and content, and I'm absolutely certain that I have never had a single good student who would have attributed his/her mathematical abilities to video-game experience. Being good at math requires having devoted extended lengths of time to concentration – which is not something video games encourage and which almost required of a person who reads and studies math books.
ah, thomas, salaam aleikum. i shall pick up that humble, sullied gauntlet and wear it- i shall accept the inherently ridiculous position of defender of the romance novel, not in spite of but because of its reductio ad absurdum nature.
i would like to first point out that i don't think i have ever read a romance novel, at least of the type and genre that i think you are referring to- the so-called "bodice ripper". i would say also that your opinion of this type of book is probably related to your status as a lover of books, and not the opposite. but i believe a case could be made that even this lowly form of literary "culture" could be a superior experience, in terms of the edification and education of the human soul (sorry:)) to almost anything that might appear on a television screen. i do not necessarily accept, however, your implied contention that the "purpose" of reading is educational, or information gathering, but for the sake of argument:
if a man wants to "learn" something about the workings of the human heart, more specifically the female heart, or at least a particular kind of female heart, the discovery channel would be hard pressed to provide a superior learning environment to an afternoon spent with a glass of wine or two and such a "bodice ripper". oh, wait. that's totally repulsive. never mind.
:)
What I find extra disturbing is that a lot of people are proud of not reading, and express a kind of bewildered disdain for those who do.
Human civilization has failed. We'll be wiping ourselves out shortly I'm sure, and then Nature can try something different and hopefully less... you know... stupid.
What I find extra disturbing is that a lot of people are proud of not reading, and express a kind of bewildered disdain for those who do.
Human civilization has failed. We'll be wiping ourselves out shortly I'm sure, and then Nature can try something different and hopefully less... you know... stupid.
Grrrrr! If Norm ever upgrades his blog software to something less retarded and broken, I may very well piss myself with joy.
Thanks for the chuckle Jonathan.
To clarify, I don't see reading as just for information gathering and education, at least not in the usual sense of the word 'education'.
The 'purpose' of reading goes well beyond the information gained. Once again, it is the experience the reader under goes while processing the information, the story.
My post could easily give the impression you got but that's just me being pedantic.
When reading fantasy novels which I am periodically fond of, I don't really think information regarding flying dragons or magic swords is of much 'use'. But the unfolding of the story, the development of characters and the relationships and dialog between characters, even in the lesser novels, always gives one things to think about.
Take your classic coming of age hero story. If you have read a couple, you have read them all as it is always a retelling of the same stories.
It is in your relationship to the characters and the circumstances that the individual finds the value of reading as opposed to watching. You have time to think of yourself in similar circumstances. You find yourself thinking about the same moral question the hero is plagued with. You see other poeple you have known in the relationships and characters.
I have found ideas in silly fantasy novels that relate to my own life and my own attitudes toward the world, as presented by the writer via his characters. A book engages your mind in ways that images and sound do not because the reading experience is less passive than the watching experience.
Reading is more work and requires more of your brain to be active than is required by the viewing experience.
At the same time, music and images combined can give you a very powerful and immediate emotional experience that is different from the emotional experiences one finds in a gripping book.
I dropped out of one of the worst school systems in the US, in semi-rural Alabama. I didn't learn to read anything heavier than a comic book or a news paper until after i quit school to be a musician, back when a folksy bluesy kid with a guitar could actually make a living. Back in the ancient days of coffee houses. :)
I started reading stuff than my intellectual hippie friends gave me. By the time I was dragged into the military (Veitnam era) those books and the ones I continued to read in the military made me unfit for military duty. Not because of the content. It wasn't political stuff I was reading.
But the places I went to and the thoughts and ideas i engaged with while reading, made it almost impossible for me to be restrained in a world where no questions could be asked, where irrational actions were glorified and the human reality had no value. Things like the Tolkien trilogy, One Flew Over the Coo Coos' nest, and Keroac's (can never remember the spelling) On the Road, Dharma Bums, etc. made me mentaly unfit for servitude.
Real education is of immeasurable value and the lack of it is very obvious in the current situation regarding American democracy.
The violent anti-intellectualism of much of Islam scares me but to see the same thing taking root so deep in America scares the hell out of me.
The long term price of forgetting how to read and think deeper than a TV program, is unimaginable.
Thanks for the chuckle Jonathan.
To clarify, I don't see reading as just for information gathering and education, at least not in the usual sense of the word 'education'.
The 'purpose' of reading goes well beyond the information gained. Once again, it is the experience the reader under goes while processing the information, the story.
My post could easily give the impression you got but that's just me being pedantic.
When reading fantasy novels which I am periodically fond of, I don't really think information regarding flying dragons or magic swords is of much 'use'. But the unfolding of the story, the development of characters and the relationships and dialog between characters, even in the lesser novels, always gives one things to think about.
Take your classic coming of age hero story. If you have read a couple, you have read them all as it is always a retelling of the same stories.
It is in your relationship to the characters and the circumstances that the individual finds the value of reading as opposed to watching. You have time to think of yourself in similar circumstances. You find yourself thinking about the same moral question the hero is plagued with. You see other people you have known in the relationships and characters.
I have found ideas in silly fantasy novels that relate to my own life and my own attitudes toward the world, as presented by the writer via his characters. A book engages your mind in ways that images and sound do not because the reading experience is less passive than the watching experience.
Reading is more work and requires more of your brain to be active than is required by the viewing experience.
At the same time, music and images combined can give you a very powerful and immediate emotional experience that is different from the emotional experiences one finds in a gripping book.
I dropped out of one of the worst school systems in the US, in semi-rural Alabama. I didn't learn to read anything heavier than a comic book or a news paper until after i quit school to be a musician, back when a folksy bluesy kid with a guitar could actually make a living. Back in the ancient days of coffee houses. :)
I started reading stuff than my intellectual hippie friends gave me. By the time I was dragged into the military (Vietnam era) those books and the ones I continued to read in the military made me unfit for military duty. Not because of the content. It wasn't political stuff I was reading.
But the places I went to and the thoughts and ideas i engaged with while reading, made it almost impossible for me to be restrained in a world where no questions could be asked, where irrational actions were glorified and the human reality had no value. Things like the Tolkien trilogy, One Flew Over the Coo Coos' nest, and Keroac's (can never remember the spelling) On the Road, Dharma Bums, etc. made me mentally unfit for servitude.
Real education is of immeasurable value and the lack of it is very obvious in the current situation regarding American democracy.
The violent anti-intellectualism of much of Islam scares me but to see the same thing taking root so deep in America scares the hell out of me.
The long term price of forgetting how to read and think deeper than a TV program, is unimaginable.
Thanks for the chuckle Jonathan.
To clarify, I don't see reading as just for information gathering and education, at least not in the usual sense of the word 'education'.
The 'purpose' of reading goes well beyond the information gained. Once again, it is the experience the reader under goes while processing the information, the story.
My post could easily give the impression you got but that's just me being pedantic.
When reading fantasy novels which I am periodically fond of, I don't really think information regarding flying dragons or magic swords is of much 'use'. But the unfolding of the story, the development of characters and the relationships and dialog between characters, even in the lesser novels, always gives one things to think about.
Take your classic coming of age hero story. If you have read a couple, you have read them all as it is always a retelling of the same stories.
It is in your relationship to the characters and the circumstances that the individual finds the value of reading as opposed to watching. You have time to think of yourself in similar circumstances. You find yourself thinking about the same moral question the hero is plagued with. You see other people you have known in the relationships and characters.
I have found ideas in silly fantasy novels that relate to my own life and my own attitudes toward the world, as presented by the writer via his characters. A book engages your mind in ways that images and sound do not because the reading experience is less passive than the watching experience.
Reading is more work and requires more of your brain to be active than is required by the viewing experience.
At the same time, music and images combined can give you a very powerful and immediate emotional experience that is different from the emotional experiences one finds in a gripping book.
I dropped out of one of the worst school systems in the US, in semi-rural Alabama. I didn't learn to read anything heavier than a comic book or a news paper until after i quit school to be a musician, back when a folksy bluesy kid with a guitar could actually make a living. Back in the ancient days of coffee houses. :)
I started reading stuff than my intellectual hippie friends gave me. By the time I was dragged into the military (Vietnam era) those books and the ones I continued to read in the military made me unfit for military duty. Not because of the content. It wasn't political stuff I was reading.
But the places I went to and the thoughts and ideas i engaged with while reading, made it almost impossible for me to be restrained in a world where no questions could be asked, where irrational actions were glorified and the human reality had no value. Things like the Tolkien trilogy, One Flew Over the Coo Coos' nest, and Keroac's (can never remember the spelling) On the Road, Dharma Bums, etc. made me mentally unfit for servitude.
Real education is of immeasurable value and the lack of it is very obvious in the current situation regarding American democracy.
The violent anti-intellectualism of much of Islam scares me but to see the same thing taking root so deep in America scares the hell out of me.
The long term price of forgetting how to read and think deeper than a TV program, is unimaginable.
AARRRRRRRRRRRRGGH!!!
wow. Maybe I was a bit harsh with my initial reaction. If articles like this were printed more often, maybe more people would get up in arms about the poor educational system in the US.
In the CIA World Factbook, the USA is listed as having 99% literacy; however, I don't know what standard is being used. Is reading at the level of your average 10 year old considered literacy?
I've changed my stance on this slightly. I'm still not sure how much reading romance novels could help someone if the book contains no new vocabulary nor a better plot than Dallas, Dynasty, or Desperate Housewives. On the other hand, maybe the very act of reading could improve one's ability to think. I don't know. Anyone know of any studies done on the benefits of reading?
The comments here really get me thinking, much more than YouTube comments.
Cheers for the site Norm!
I'm glad I'm not the only one having problems with double posts :/
I see no redeeming social or intellectual value in reading any kind of assembly line write by numbers garbage. If Harlequin Romance and 'novels' based on TV and movies for the fans of those shows is all one is reading, then one might as well watch TV because the brain has lost its' curiosity and boredom modes already.
So, while I think reading is a more enlarging experience than passive viewing there are some exceptions to the rule. :)
An exclusive diet of any genre of pop fiction is probably of limited use. But the universe of books is just that a universe of ideas and exploration, some bits more valuable than others.
If you meet a book on the road, burn it*.
No sacred text. No text sacred.
.
.
*No, not literally, Con-cretin.
I need to post a Bill Hicks quote here, I just have to...
"so I don't end up being a fucking waffle waitress."
Beastly wishfulfilment voodoo-economixed with... end-of-oil (water, whatever) denial.
Yep, "What cha readin' for?" is a truly bizarre question. One more likely to be asked in the deep south than anywhere else. At least that used to be true and it is hard to believe that part has changed.
"One more likely to be asked in the deep south than anywhere else."
Alas.
The South was once more literate than the North. Certainly more deep* (transcendentalism? Phhhhht).
All truly American music is rooted there (New England transcendentalism? Phhhhht).
Rebecca Clarke? Ex-viola sine, OK. If she's not France-rooted. New Orleans, French, Spanish. The South was Republican America's FIRST Iraq-like experiment (Highway of Death, Sherman's March to the see?), the Bellicose Colonies' Colony. Then the West (Indians), then the little Filipinos, then, Pineapples, Bananas, ...now Oil! The Ghettoization of the world. See, Darwin, people are animals, but contra Freud, NOT domesticated. Sorry.
[Love those damn Yankees. And James Gang (redux).]
Hey, I know what, Dawkins, let's rip all the....Pisces, yeah, let's rip all the Pisces to pieces! Helter Skelter. And half the Gemenis don't deserve to live, and..or we could have a lottery...
Sweet Home Allahluyah, gory, gory, the South's going to do it again, just watch and see, and watch Mexico. Cultures "of honor". Of horror.
.
.
*more deep=less shallow.
Verily, many great writers and musicians have come from the south although most left the south to do they work they are known for.
That doesn't alter the fact that the majority of contemorary Southerners are pig ignorant and damned proud of it. Mississippi and Alabama have the worst schools in the country and it really shows in the people.
Southerners have long embraced the cult of anti-intellectualism that has swept the nation.
Having been raised in small town Alabama, I don't buy into to all of the myths and assumptions made about the place and the people but sadly some of them are true and the pride they take in ignorance is very real.
While the rest of the country has little to be proud of regarding this prideful ignorance, the south is a couple of steps ahead of the rest of the country in this regards. It has been practicing it much longer.
I could understand the need to read the bible if one lives in the states. Sometimes you won't be listened to on a logical or ethical debate without some theological argument. If you want to play the serpent you better know how to quote the bible in your own words.
So who wants to play serpent? That is an xian game.
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