My whole life can be categorized by the books I’ve read.
Mysteries as a kid, Judy Blume as a tween, sci-fi as a teen. I was an English major in college, reading Shakespeare, Chaucer and Stephen Crane poetry. In grad school, I delved into nonfiction, consuming biographies and anything by David Sedaris.
And then there was J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter series.
It reminded me what it was like to be a kid eager to read. I loved it when my parents would banish me to my room. Little did they know their punishment was my reward. I could, without guilt, crawl in bed and read. It’s still one of my favorite things to do.
So it scares me when I hear people aren’t reading as much as they used to.
According to a story in The Economist last year, book publishing is heading the way of newspapers — down. While revenues are fairly stable, the climate is changing, the article said. It’s not so much about a great story but the ability for that story to turn into a blockbuster motion picture, to sell as e-books, to live beyond the bookshelf.
Why don’t we love to read anymore?
I couldn’t stop reading the Hunger Games triology — and on my full-color, industry-destroying Kindle Fire — and I felt this pang in my chest when I neared the end of the third book. It’s over. The books. There aren’t any more.
I hope my kids — all kids! — love to read as much as me, that they rely more on their imagination than on the visuals fed to them on TVs and iPad screens. I feel like my brain gets some exercise when I read, and the characters become people who live in my mind for awhile.
Anyone else feel the same way?
6 Comments
What we read is changing and the three dimensionality of it certainly has, but people are actually reading more than eve before. Sure, 30,000 tweets isn’t Hemmingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in paperback. I’m a book guy, but you know, I have about 20 classics on my iPad, and if it meant lugging the physical book around for a year, I probably never would have read “Don Quixote” in Spanish. I’m about half way through, and it’s my favorite airplane reading.
One I remember from my own young parenthood: “Read to your bunny often. It’s 20 minutes of fun. Twenty minutes of moonlight, 20 minutes of fun. Twenty old favorite minutes, twenty minutes brand new. Read to your bunny often, and your bunny will read to you.” It’s mostly homework help or blips of things from the internet these days, but I love having my children read to me.
I agree with you 100% Cat. I was always an avid reader; I think it helped me later in life in English classes. I remember reading David Copperfield when I was in the 3rd grade because it was a big book and I wanted to challenge myself. I still love “escaping” in a science fiction or murder/mystery novel.
My daughters love reading and we’ll often swap books or titles that catch our interest. We started reading to them before they started school and that interest hasn’t waned a bit.
Books that are transferred to cinema don’t always make the grade. Rarely does a movie ever exceed a book in descriptive detail and plot development.
I have read almost exclusively electronic content for the last few years and if able will likely buy an iPad3 to continue this personal trend. Watch TV on the PC as well. Books are heavy and take up space… plain and simple.
I love to read. didn’t have a tv, growing up, so my entertainment, at home, was one book after another. Matthew Christopher’s sports stories, Encyclopedia Brown, Henry Huggins, Beezus, Ramona. Later, the We Were There series of historical fiction for kids. when my dad went on a business trip to the continent, he’d always hit up some used book stores to find a new title for me.
as an adult, I got into pulp fiction/noir mysteries. Mostly classics like Chandler and Hammet. also, modern mysteries (mostly serials) from the likes of Pronzini, Muller, Grimes.
I’ve recently branched into a little bit of forensic mysteries like Simon Beckett and Jefferson Bass, a little bit of spy thrillers like Barry Eisler, the whole biblical thriller types like steve berry and Paul Christopher (kinda like dan brown but with better writing), or modern noir like Lawrence Block. also, every few months, I’ll pick up and reread a classic, just to make sure my brain doesn’t go completely to mush.
my son, 6, just started reading chapter books, and loves it. I forget the series he started reading in school, but I introduced him to Sobol, Cleary, Christopher and Mcloskey, and he is enthralled.
I’ve loved books since I was a kid too! They were my escape from the “real world” and they still are. I’ve moved to reading books on my Kindle and found that I’m actually reading more now! The Kindle so is light that I always have it in my bag and read when I’m waiting in line at the bank, Starbucks, or waiting for a friend for lunch or drinks.
I’m passing on my love for books to the next generation too. Ever since my nieces and nephews were born, I’ve made it a tradition to gift them with a book on their birthdays and Christmas. Sometimes they’re just fun books (Transformers, Spider-Man, etc.) other times they’re classics (Winnie the Pooh, Dr. Seuss, Wild Things, Charlotte’s Web), but they’re always age appropriate. My siblings and I also make sure that there’s always time for story time. Before they could read on their own, we never turned down the kids request to have a book read to them – bed time or not. Now I have them read to me! I love it!
Nice touch with the photo, Cat. Did you take it yourself?