I don't read books. I burn them.
Posted on 08/21/2007 2:24:45 PM PDT by Nachum
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 say they 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 seniors were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.
The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.
"I just get sleepy when I read," said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.
That choice by Bustos and others is reflected in book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.
When the Gallup poll asked in 2005 how many books people had at least started — a similar but not directly comparable question — the typical answer was five. That was down from 10 in 1999, but close to the 1990 response of six.
In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled "Reading at Risk" found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002, a four percentage point drop in a decade. The study faulted television, movies and the Internet.
Who are the 27 percent of people the AP-Ipsos poll found hadn't read a single book this year? Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women fit that category. They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious.
At the same time, book enthusiasts abound. Many in the survey reported reading dozens of books and said they couldn't do without them.
"I go into another world when I read," said 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."
Among those who said they had read books, the median figure — with half reading more, half fewer — was nine books for women and five for men. The figures also indicated that those with college degrees read the most, and people aged 50 and up read more than those who are younger.
Pollyann Baird, 84, a retired school librarian in Loveland, Colo., says J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series is her favorite. But she has forced herself to not read the latest and final installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," because she has yet to file her income taxes this year due to an illness and worries that once she started the book, "I know I'd have to finish it."
People from the South read a bit more than those from other regions, mostly religious books and romance novels. 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.
More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography. Industry experts said that confirms their observation that men tend to prefer nonfiction.
"Fiction just doesn't interest me," said Bob Ryan, 41, who works for a construction company in Guntersville, Ala. "If I'm going to get a story, I'll get a movie."
Those likeliest to read religious books included older and married women, lower earners, minorities, lesser educated people, Southerners, rural residents, Republicans and conservatives.
The publishing business totaled $35.7 billion in global sales last year, 3 percent more than the previous year, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a trade association. About 3.1 billion books were sold, an increase of less than 1 percent.
The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted from August 6 to 8 and involved telephone interviews with 1,003 adults. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
But I’ll bet those same folks watched four television show is a night........rme
You can check books out for free at a library.
Having the time to invest in a book is considered a luxury in the same way that having time to go to the gym is considered a luxury.
I will have to write that one down. Right now she is reading Terry Pratchett, Guards, Guards, I think. Her Uncle highly recommended them, and he also is a big reader and loves the fact that she is too.
I too love the aspect of reading and then discussing a book with her. It is does allow for more bonding, specially as they get older.
History, historical fiction, technical, occasional sci-fi/fantasy, the odd classic for it’s own sake, here and there. I have less time than I used to to devote to it, but I still call myself a voracious reader.
I usually have several books going at one time. I cannot understand why people don’t read more. I developed the habit when I was a youngster, going through some difficult circumstances. It was my bound, rectangular ‘escape hatch’.
That would not do!!! Keep looking!!
I’m a total sucker at library book sales, when it’s 50 cent paperback time I’ll grab anything, if I think there’s even the slightest possibility of me actually wanting to read the book at some point before I die it’s in the bag. Because heck it’s 50 cents, two books for the price of a vending machine soda hard to feel like you’re wasting money. Thrift shops are great too, never really know what you’ll find but it’ll be dirt cheap, along with dirt cheap music. I often find it hard to excuse buying entertainment products new.
The library bag sales are also the way I find bunches of old mysteries from the forties and fifties...my personal weakness when it comes to quick and easy reading. But really, but the time they get to the “stuff a bag” stage, I’ll take any genre, any style, anything I might possibly read - it’s a good way to find new authors. Even if some of the books end up being unreadable or just plain silly, it’s a lot cheaper and less risky than renting campy movies with the hope that they’ll be bad in a good way. ;-)
Oh please neither is even close to a luxury. Real readers know this well, as we all bring books to the bathroom. Sure you might not have the time to sit down comfortably for a couple hours of pure read time, but there is ALWAYS time to read, even if it is just while you make #2. And as for the gym, half an hour a couple times a week just ain’t that tough, and of course you don’t even have to go to the gym for exercise. People calling things like that luxuries are just excuse mongering laziness and illiteracy.
Yeah, it is amazing what a little bit of encouragement will do. Once my daughter took off reading Nancy Drew after getting her feet wet with the Boxcar Children, it was off she went. The only book that she has complained about was Moby Dick. If that is the only one so far, I must be doing something right. They can learn so much from books, it is really a treasure to one’s soul to see the children reading.
I miss the old-fashioned linear "READING" but if it's a choice between living wholly without books and having to read carefully through page after page to the end, I don't know which I'd choose (scary thought).
One of the things about going to college to learn how to "REALLY READ" is that it gets to be such a chore after a while one stops bothering.
Me, too! I average 12 a month-good grief, how can there be people who read NOTHING in a whole year???? (BTW, the majority of what I read is nonfiction, despite my two X chromosomes.)
From my observations, the world seems to be dividing up pretty in the way folks are judged. The overweight guy sitting in front of the big screen TV eating junk food versus the normal weight, active reader, etc.
These are stereotypes based on appearance, but I’ve seen it influence careers.
Their may be a few people who work so long and so hard that they never have any time. God bless them. Most people don’t read because they watch to much T.V.
Wow talk about flinging yourself off into left field. How did we get from reading is a luxury to fat asses don’t read?! And as for fat asses don’t read get yourself to a convention, there’s plenty (must resist urge to say “tons”) of overweight readers, it’s a sedentary activity that lends itself to gaining weight, unless we fight the urge. During my weight gaining phase I was much more of a junk food junky while reading than watching TV, a bag of Doritos and a book was my favorite Saturday afternoon.
That doesn't work for me. I read non-fiction almost exclusively (Can't resist Harry Bosh crime novels by Michael Connelly, though) and I can't read a book without annotating it. You can tell one of my books because of all the underlining, margin notes and cross-references which I invariably pencil in. I'm so bad about it I had to get one of those 3 in 1 pens (black ink, red ink and pencil lead) just to use when marking up a book.
Yes, the pendulum can swing, but is this horse buggies, or something deeper?
I believe that the lack of the basics along with the very increasing reach of DVD’s and MP3’s, very few of the current generation will not wish to read. That will kill reading for a long time to come. Children are more inclined to read if their parents read. Less parents reading equals less children reading. Less children growing up to read, later there wil be even more children not reading. And then they have children. On it goes.
At least, that is how I see it.
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