I have family members who never, never, never read. As a writer, this distresses me. But it’s a very widespread phenomenon.
Having achieved just about universal literacy, civilization proceeds to throw it away! Voila! The wisdom of centuries–gone! Just like in The Time Machine:
I pray that’s not our future. I can write books, but I can’t get anyone to read.
Authors (me, for one) really hate to hear this: “I don’t read.” But we hear it all the time, and more and more. Is reading going out of fashion? Are we on our way to following buggy-whip manufacturers into oblivion?
I asked a couple of family members if they’ve read any of my books, and they all said no (with the sole exception of my brother, Mark). It’s not that they just don’t care for fantasy novels. They don’t care for any novels, period.
How could this have come to pass? We have the costliest and most intrusive “education” system in world history. And too many, way too many, only read what they’re required to read for work, or comic books, or nothing at all. It’s not that they’re illiterate. Rather, they are aliterate. They have chosen not to read.
I don’t think I could keep my sanity if I didn’t read. Hey, Edgar Rice Burroughs, wait for me–under the moons of Mars! Imaginative fiction is my bag, but there’s vast forest of literature out there, of all kinds, just ripe for exploration. I read history, too. Catherine the Great read it, just to keep her head on straight. And if you read attentively, Agatha Christie’s detective novels have very much to say about real life.
A good story takes you out of yourself. And then you can shut the book and go back in, all the better for being relaxed and refreshed.
I read several chapters of the Bible every day: not for relaxation, but survival. I read classics to grow my understanding. And I read fiction to take a break from nooze. I simply can’t imagine a life without books.
I pray for literacy to make a comeback.
*Sigh* “I don’t read” is not music to a writer’s ears, but I hear it a lot.
Spring is here, it’s getting warmer, and it’s just about time I started writing the next book in my Bell Mountain series. But more and more people don’t read.
I don’t understand this. If books were taken away from me, my mind would starve. Enlightenment. Joy. Excitement. Even escape, at least for a little while. Books provide these things. I couldn’t do without them.
And yet… “I don’t read.” Or else, “I only read things that have to do with my work.” Or even, “I just don’t have the time to read.” As if it were some onerous chore.
I once had a job teaching “developmental reading”–or, more simply, how to read better. It’s not hard to learn. All it takes is practice. But these days I wonder how many students, if any, would sign up for my course.
I’ll keep writing because it’s what I do, it’s who I am. But I wish I knew a way to make reading itself more popular. It’s how the past speaks to us–and the future. It’s how wisdom and experience get passed on from one generation to the next. It’s the only way we have to visit places that don’t actually exist, to learn things that are nevertheless real, and true, despite being cloaked in the imagination.
Give it a chance.
