Reading - A Dying Art?

[carrie221]

I do not believe that reading is a dying art. I think that it is just that there are always going to be people who do not like to read. Almost everyone know has the ability to read but that doesn't make it so that everyone is going to. I think that there are many more readers now then there were in the past.

About the quality I think that fifty years from now there will be books considered classics that are being written now. It is all a perspective of the socity that you are living in. Also I am all for people running in to read books after seeing the movie. It gets them to read.

[Brown Rat]

Just a thought: are we talking only about books written in English, read by people in the English-speaking countries? Or are we talking about a global phenomenon?

[moonlit_walk]

Originally Posted by Saltheart

People want entertain themselves more than educate themselves, and now, with the technology to enable personalization of media, are finally able to fulfill that desire. Texts nowdays serve mainly to entertain than to provoke critical thinking, and people are able to select whatever media suits their taste buds. While this is all well and good, the outcomes of it are going to be disastrous.

Ever read Farenheit 451?

That's exactly the type of society we are slowly becoming day by day: the news serves to entertain and gain ratings, only cover interest stories and downright lie if neccesary; the premises of books and films are being dummed down to entertain, earn profits; censorship is rising as people just choose not to read books that "offend" them; pulishers cannot afford to publish "boring" books; education has adopted a "everybody is a winner, yay!" policy.

Because people only listen and see what media they want to, they are not exposed to thought-provoking ideas. They are under the control of propoganda and politicans. Further more, conservative ideals are on the rise since the whole "War on Terror"; people are giving away their freedoms for a false sense of security against a straw man engineered by the governing bodies of the world; people are losing the ability to think logically, and give way to appeals to emotions, out of fear. "Terrorist" is a label given to foes and traitors of a nation, even though the nations themselves use fear as a tool to control their own citizens.

People don't think critically because their are fewer and fewer thought-provoking texts to read; thought-provoking texts are becoming fewer and fewer because people refuse to read them: it is a nasty paradox that has resulted because of the personalization of media that technology offers these days.

So, to summarize, yes, reading is becoming a dying art, as well as critical thinking and rationalization; and Ray Bradbury is a genius.

I love what Saltheart was saying about our society becomeing like the society in Farenheit 451... except not to so much extreme...i don't think that we will get to the point were we are buring books, and the only point of firemen, is for them to burn books. That is a little extreme and i don't think it will go that far, because burning books won't ever be acceptable in America.

[DreamsInDigital]

Literature, is in my opinion, is a thing very near death. I, however, am not here to blame technology or lack of imagination, or the readers themselves for its loss, rather to suggest that it may be the authors themselves who are destroying that which they hold dear.
As is becoming glaringly apparent, any hack can be published now a days. Any human with a thesaurus seems to genuinely believe that they can vomit language onto a paper and create something great, something epic, something that will spark a revolution. However, more often than not , they fail to connect the dots in their own minds, and end up with a three hundred page rant that lacks any semblance of relevance.
With so much crap readily available, how is one to know what to read and what to burn? Rarely will someone take the time to distinguish what is great from what is not, and Is then willing to shove anything bound and written in small print down their throats in the name of intellectualism.
That’s why im not surprised that humans are now turning to MTV to do their thinking for them, and Hollywood to stage their emotions. It is easy, it is safe, it is generally accepted as right.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by moonlit_walk

I love what Saltheart was saying about our society becomeing like the society in Farenheit 451... except not to so much extreme...i don't think that we will get to the point were we are buring books, and the only point of firemen, is for them to burn books. That is a little extreme and i don't think it will go that far, because burning books won't ever be acceptable in America.

That's a hopeful thought, but I'm afraid it's hardly quite accurate. America has more than accepted book burnings in the past, from as early as the Puritans on, and is quite likely to again. I myself have seen entire communities have no problem with such... a large chunk of my high-school's library was burnt, for example, the summer after I graduated, and no one seemed to think anything of it. "Good riddance to bad rubbish" was the general tenor concerning this, for instance.

America is no more immune to such things than any other country... unless the people themselves are intelligent, aware, and vigilant in guarding against such....

[andrew.v.spencer]

Aye fink redding aynt dy-ying^ it neffer boffered me

In truth logically fewer books will be read by each individual. With the internet, games and TV on mobile devices the time to view all of this has to come from somewhere.

However increasing affluence and disposable income, along with rising populations mean that in total more books might be bought even if each individual reads less.

As to any hack being published (as above) I'm not sure of that. Even if this is the case then there is still plently of excellent literature coming out. Further there is the enormous stock of great works already in existence.

Generally I do agree that more could be done to encourage reading, to me it is the bedrock of all other learning. Once one gains a love of reading and the entertainment and knowledge it brings, it becomes the gateway to knowledge on any subject.

[Ramoth's Rider]

People will always read. there wll always be those who need to escape from the world into a place where they can use the most brilliant and wonderful tool that they own.......Imagination.

[pyan]

Originally Posted by AVS

Once one gains a love of reading and the entertainment and knowledge it brings, it becomes the gateway to knowledge on any subject.

Originally Posted by RR

People will always read. there wll always be those who need to escape from the world into a place where they can use the most brilliant and wonderful tool that they own.......Imagination.

Exactly...I got into the habit very early, and the ability of a good book to let me escape from the trials and tribulations of life has always been a comfort.

[chrispenycate]

When, this christmas, I asked my grandnephew what he wanted as a present, I was informed "a book".
Well, he is a bit bigger than on my avatar (yes, he's the one without the beard), but as he's barely over two years old I suspect someone else will read it to him, but our family are still producing readers.
Even in Yorkshire.

[andrew.v.spencer]

Hey I'm from Yorkshire.

I read a book.

They drove me out of Leeds with pitchforks and a box of cooks matches.

Amazing what a business empire one can create with pitchforks and matches.

[tangaloomababe]

I have mixed thoughts on this one. From a personal level I love reading and whilst I can still read the bookstore will never go broke! However I find that my son, although once he used to read quite alot, has found other diversions and is lucky even to scan the newspaper.
Thats not to say he won't return to reading one day, I think that he will. Many of my friends read, we swap books constantly.

Oringinally posted by Nesacat

The bookstores here face the same predicament as Teresa elaborated. They sell books when there is a great deal of hype, otherwise they make a greater income from selling stationery, music and even chocolate. Books sell when there are movies as in the case of Lord of The Rings and Harry Potter. It was the same with the Chronicles of Narnia and most recently The Da Vinci Code. When the LOTR movies came out the bookstores had to scramble to handle the demand. They'd never had such a thing happen before apparently.

I agree completely with this comment Nesa. Bookstores would have loved the Harry Potter Books and other such movies which help bring these books to peoples attention. I supose its a good thing, because people might actually go back and find something else to read, rediscover the love of reading!!!!

PS: The Shadow in the Wind remains a firm favorite of mine, brilliant story and beautifully written.

[Nesacat]

There's a new trend here and because I spend most of my weekends at Silverfish books, I've seen it growing. It started towards the end of last year and has been steadily picking up steam.

It would appear that reading is now 'trendy' and one ought to have books in one's home and if possible one needs to have a 'library' complete with shelves of books, leather chairs and a huge table. People are therefore paying interior decorators to buy books.

The more affluent come to the shop asking for matched leather-bound sets and glossy coffee table books.

Others just tell us what their budget is and ask us how many books with 'different coloured spines and sizes' they can get.

Okay we are selling a lot of books and that's good for Silverfish, which is an independent store and needs all the sales it can get but we also know that it's very likely that many if not all of these books will never be read.

What's a lot more disturbing is the fact that libraries are picking up this habit too. Apparently, the Ministry of Education is becoming a lot more strict about budgets allocated to public libraries and schools and want to see that books are actually being bought. So they do the same. Send us a letter saying how much they have and asking for books.

They have no list or anything and they tell us that it does not matter what we give them so long as the numbers add up, which is crazy because some of the libraries are in primary (junior) schools and others are in high schools and even colleges and universities. You can't just dump books in a crate with a calculator in one hand.


So whatever else may be dying ... the buying of books per se seems to be growing.

[Parson]

N-Cat,

What a cautionary tale! There will always be the snobs among us who have to have things to make them look the part they want to play, but "Libraries ordering any old book?!!!" We hope that is just a fad as well, and not a long lived one!!

Interestingly, the last time, or nearly the last time, I was at a book store (An hour's travel one way, so it's not often), I discovered a new thing. I met a lady there taking pictures of SF books with her phone so that she could order them from her public library over interlibrary loan. I am not sure what to make of that. But some things are clear.

1. The public libraries that I frequent have almost no SF books. (Fantasy seems to have a bit more.) So interlibrary loan would be good.

2. It seems like cheating to the book store. --- Much like trying new golf clubs at the club house who has room for that sort of thing, but then buying them at a discounter or over the internet to get the best price. Not illegal, but perhaps not ethical either.

3. Authors and publishers are probably frustrated by this all the way around.

[Lith]

I don't have a cell phone, so I haven't done that particular one, but I do write titles down from time to time to look up at the library. Due to lack of space and money (these days, more to lack of space and tremendous guilt about getting rid of stuff I paid money for), I have a policy to only buy books I've already read or can't get ahold of at the library. I don't see anything wrong with it- if you were to open it up and read a good chunk of it and then not buy it, that would be a different matter. But if it's just titles and covers- it's more like shopping around to see who has what, and then going with the lowest price. More like buying cereal on sale versus at full price (not that anyone's stupid enough to give it away). You can look at it all you want, but you don't open it up and eat it without buying.

This is still arguably bad for the publishing industry, but libraries are nothing new, and the ability to make money off any form of art has always been problematic throughout all history. And now that there's an internet, it'll only get worse. And if you factor in the probability that if you can't handle the book in the store, you probably won't buy it, it gets kind of messy. (I don't, for instance, buy magazines that are wrapped in plastic. At $7-13 each, I'm just not doing it. So they lose the money either way.)

The libraries buying piles of "just books" fits in well with the mentality that "I don't care what the kids are reading, as long as they are reading at all!"

[chrispenycate]

My boss, when he bought his mediaeval château, discovered there was a room totally lined with bookshelves, and since he's not much of a reader, it looked a bit lost. I offered to fill it up, really I did, but he decided my garish covers did not suit the décore. I even spent time searching for mock-leather dust covers, without success.
So he got a man to get book by the metre, for purely aesthetic reasons, and when he sells the place, the books will doubtless stay there.
Easier than when I move with mine, anyway.