People Who Read Don't Know How to Live

I don't think anyone would be surprised to think that literature is sometimes thought of as being a high brow kind of thing. In fact some probably feel that is a great thing. The idea though that all of reading has moved up to that deluxe apartment in the sky known as the ivory tower is surprising. A recent survey in the UK concerning attitudes about reading found that

in many such families, books were seen as alien and unattractive, while reading was considered an anti-social activity for people who, as one respondent said, "don’t know how to live".

By "such families" the survey is referring to people "characterized as lower income, non-professional families".

I found the survey troubling on many levels. I think simply as a humanitarian, the idea that something that is possibly essential to alleviating poverty (education) would be discounted in such a way. And reading can also convey the things about life that make life worth living. Certainly this is not absolute and one can have a deeply meaningful or wealthy life without reading, but the forces of good often rely on reading.

As someone in the world of publishing I of course found the survey worrisome though not as worrisome. I'm not sure the business of books has relied on this group. As the survey points out though paying attention to this resource is important to the book world. It deserves thought as both a growth opportunity and as a potential market trend that could encompass a greater number of people.

I'm curious how bundled internet data (such as a printed book version of a blog or chat logs printed as novels) will affect this. When someone moans about no one reading anymore, someone often points out that more people read more often, it's just that we tend not to count reading on a screen as "reading". And maybe that's the slight of hand that can allow publishers to reach out to the people in the survey. Get the people reading on screen in blogs, chat rooms, VR worlds (E.G., Second Life), or video games and then put that media into a printed book.

Or maybe don't worry about that, but just concentrate on getting the book content into various nontraditional streams. Which brings me back to my humanitarian perspective which says don't worry about print books, just make sure the ideas that inspire, the thoughts that turn minds, the concepts that create positive change, the tools of a better history; just make sure those things are imparted from generation to generation and the world may be healed some day.