The decline in serious reading

[Anonymous]

I am 46 and I read (listen to audiobooks) most days. A combination of light and heavy. I have 10 and 12 year old kids. I'm in a book club in a neighborhood you all like to make fun of and we all read. A lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am 45 and almost all of my friends read. My circle of "mom friends" all read, but yes mainly chick lit, mysteries, and best sellers.

A good percentage of my work colleagues read as well (ranging in age from 25-60). I wonder if the fact that we're in an arts field correlates to producing readers? This circle reads more widely - lots of nonfiction and classics, also books in translation.

I read about 80 books a year - a mix of contemporary award winners (Women's Prize for Fiction, Booker, International Booker, National Book Award, etc.), classics (I read all of Proust last year as an example), nonfiction on historical biographies/exploration/etc., and lighter fare like mysteries and historical fiction.

Both of my kids read (they are boys 14 and 12)

how do you have time?

I don't watch tv/movies and I spent minimal time on the internet - maybe an hour a day if you add it all up. I read during my kids' sports and music lessons. I read before bed. I probably find about 1.5 hours a day to read. That adds up if you do it every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know it’s ironic to be recommending a book here, but I found Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari to be very enlightening. It goes into depth on what has already been said here (we can’t read books because our attention spans are shot from scrolling our phones, etc), and really inspired me to change my habits. It’s a very well-researched and well-written book.

Does the book go into why so many of us have been diagnosed with Adhd later in life? I truly thought I was developing early dementia until my MRI and neuropsych were done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the popular YA series are 400-600 pages each and have 2-6 installments.

I’m reading a historical fiction series that on book 18 and each book is 350-400 pages.

There are new books that are destined to be classics.

Also, Charles Dickens was a horrible person and I can’t separate his art from who he was, so I’m fine leaving him behind. Bah humbug.

How exactly was Dickens a horrible person? I'm looking at his wiki biography and don't see anything "horrible" by any stretch of the imagination. His marriage clearly was not fulfilling but that's not tantamount to being horrible. But you make it sound like he hired child labor and was cruel to the women of the slums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the popular YA series are 400-600 pages each and have 2-6 installments.

I’m reading a historical fiction series that on book 18 and each book is 350-400 pages.

There are new books that are destined to be classics.

Also, Charles Dickens was a horrible person and I can’t separate his art from who he was, so I’m fine leaving him behind. Bah humbug.

How exactly was Dickens a horrible person? I'm looking at his wiki biography and don't see anything "horrible" by any stretch of the imagination. His marriage clearly was not fulfilling but that's not tantamount to being horrible. But you make it sound like he hired child labor and was cruel to the women of the slums.

His wife was pregnant almost non-stop for ten years. He was also carrying on affairs and she only found out when he accidentally sent a gift for a mistress to his wife.

Then they separated and he decided he would keep four kids and she would figure out the other six.

There’s more to it, but this is common knowledge among British people. It’s a little strange that Americans don’t know and get mad about it if you tell them.

I’m going to guess the wiki for his wife talks about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People's capacity to read books has absolutely declined. There's no question about it. A 400 page novel used to be easy reading for any reasonably intelligent adult. But these days if you pop into a bookstore everything seems to be novellas if we can call it that. But now we as a society struggle with anything longer than a short magazine article.

I must admit I was once a voracious reader and now in my 40s I barely read a full book in a year. I'm embarrassed by it. But I also notice that when I go into a bookstore to browse the new books, the quality of current fiction seems to have also declined. And the stories themselves? It's either best selling authors from 25 years ago tiredly churning out another version of the same book, or the new young writers all writing the same story, just changing the skin colors or ethnicity, but it's effectively still the same woke story. It's rare for a new book to truly grab me.

What bookstore only sells novellas? Most books are 300-400 pages with YA books tending to be 400-500.

I think some people need to get a little perspective. Young people are reading, but perhaps the young people in your life aren’t reading.

Booktok, bookstagram, and Book Club on YikYak (specific to college kids) are huge. So huge that publishers cater to it.

The book box companies have exploded - younger people are paying big bucks for special editions. They are reviving something that was almost gone for a while.

There are kids literally crying on social media because they got their hands on an early copy of a certain book that comes out on Tuesday.

Maybe the real issue is with old farts who think only certain kinds of books (serious reading) are worthy and valid?

[Anonymous]

I used to be a constant reader - in the gaining of four university degrees, two of them literature, one political science and one law degree I amassed well over a thousand books and at least a thousand more for pleasure alone and not counting the countless library books I borrowed over the decades.

Somehow in my 40s I stopped reading much and since I am unmarried and have no kids, I can blame this on nobody but myself. It’s the digital devices, the phone and the tablets and the streaming services that mean there is always something to watch that’s interesting. I still take out stacks of books from the library and most get skimmed at best.

This is something I really want to change in my life. The other day I saw an article about that crypto currency guy who just got convicted and his biographer saying that he will be lost in prison without internet. And I thought someone should explain to him that before digital internet there was another kind of internet, where people wrote their dreams and visions and contemplations in books and those connected us and helped us form a social consciousness and a human culture.

I once read an article about a guy who had to serve a federal prison term and used it to read 1000+ books over a few years time. Every so often I’ll think to myself, I need to do some tax evasion or other federal crime so I can get a few years of uninterrupted reading. But really I just need to ditch this technology crap and go back to being how I used to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the popular YA series are 400-600 pages each and have 2-6 installments.

I’m reading a historical fiction series that on book 18 and each book is 350-400 pages.

There are new books that are destined to be classics.

Also, Charles Dickens was a horrible person and I can’t separate his art from who he was, so I’m fine leaving him behind. Bah humbug.

How exactly was Dickens a horrible person? I'm looking at his wiki biography and don't see anything "horrible" by any stretch of the imagination. His marriage clearly was not fulfilling but that's not tantamount to being horrible. But you make it sound like he hired child labor and was cruel to the women of the slums.

His wife was pregnant almost non-stop for ten years. He was also carrying on affairs and she only found out when he accidentally sent a gift for a mistress to his wife.

Then they separated and he decided he would keep four kids and she would figure out the other six.

There’s more to it, but this is common knowledge among British people. It’s a little strange that Americans don’t know and get mad about it if you tell them.

I’m going to guess the wiki for his wife talks about this.

There are definitely things about Charles Dickens’s life that reveal a flawed character. But you need to take into consideration both the many and awful traumas of his childhood, and the norms of the society in which he lived. Having a dozen children was a normative thing in Victorian England and would still be today had we not figured out reliable birth control - just look at the norm in societies where women don’t have access to education and birth control.

I am probably the angriest feminist on this board, who endlessly fumes about the inequality in our society and reading this board I am daily disgusted by the realities of most marriages - I’m sure at one time or another I’ve clucked with sympathy at your marriage, poster, and how you are used and mistreated by your husband.

That said, I can still recognize the genius of Charles Dickens - and forgive him for being a flawed human being because he was able to convey the frailty of humanity including the terrible flaws of character in so many of his novels depicted in both males and females who abused and mistreated the people they loved. That’s life. Dickens is life, in all its glorious ugliness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the popular YA series are 400-600 pages each and have 2-6 installments.

I’m reading a historical fiction series that on book 18 and each book is 350-400 pages.

There are new books that are destined to be classics.

Also, Charles Dickens was a horrible person and I can’t separate his art from who he was, so I’m fine leaving him behind. Bah humbug.

How exactly was Dickens a horrible person? I'm looking at his wiki biography and don't see anything "horrible" by any stretch of the imagination. His marriage clearly was not fulfilling but that's not tantamount to being horrible. But you make it sound like he hired child labor and was cruel to the women of the slums.

His wife was pregnant almost non-stop for ten years. He was also carrying on affairs and she only found out when he accidentally sent a gift for a mistress to his wife.

Then they separated and he decided he would keep four kids and she would figure out the other six.

There’s more to it, but this is common knowledge among British people. It’s a little strange that Americans don’t know and get mad about it if you tell them.

I’m going to guess the wiki for his wife talks about this.

There are definitely things about Charles Dickens’s life that reveal a flawed character. But you need to take into consideration both the many and awful traumas of his childhood, and the norms of the society in which he lived. Having a dozen children was a normative thing in Victorian England and would still be today had we not figured out reliable birth control - just look at the norm in societies where women don’t have access to education and birth control.

I am probably the angriest feminist on this board, who endlessly fumes about the inequality in our society and reading this board I am daily disgusted by the realities of most marriages - I’m sure at one time or another I’ve clucked with sympathy at your marriage, poster, and how you are used and mistreated by your husband.

That said, I can still recognize the genius of Charles Dickens - and forgive him for being a flawed human being because he was able to convey the frailty of humanity including the terrible flaws of character in so many of his novels depicted in both males and females who abused and mistreated the people they loved. That’s life. Dickens is life, in all its glorious ugliness.

+1 Dickens also used his platform to draw attention to the misery of the poor, was generous to charities, including schools for poor children, and helped establish a charity that provided shelter for "fallen women.".

Clearly he was not a good husband, by current standards, but most people are not all one thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am 45 and almost all of my friends read. My circle of "mom friends" all read, but yes mainly chick lit, mysteries, and best sellers.

A good percentage of my work colleagues read as well (ranging in age from 25-60). I wonder if the fact that we're in an arts field correlates to producing readers? This circle reads more widely - lots of nonfiction and classics, also books in translation.

I read about 80 books a year - a mix of contemporary award winners (Women's Prize for Fiction, Booker, International Booker, National Book Award, etc.), classics (I read all of Proust last year as an example), nonfiction on historical biographies/exploration/etc., and lighter fare like mysteries and historical fiction.

Both of my kids read (they are boys 14 and 12)

how do you have time?

Not PP but I’m 44. I read mostly at night before bed. I also listen to Audible all the time like other PPs. I work full-time but I listen while walking the dogs, folding laundry, washing dishes, etc. I keep my AirPods close and I pop them in whenever I’m alone and doing a mundane task. I also listen whenever I’m in the car alone, even if I’m just driving five minutes down the street to go to the store.

My friends from college and I trade books all the time. I’m in a book club with moms from my kids’ school. We do read some Oprah type books but also heavier stuff and we all always read the book before we meet.

I’m a lawyer so I spend a fair amount of my day reading but I adore escaping into new worlds when I read. To me it’s similar to being engrossed in a TV show. I do watch TV some nights but some nights I also just read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the popular YA series are 400-600 pages each and have 2-6 installments.

I’m reading a historical fiction series that on book 18 and each book is 350-400 pages.

There are new books that are destined to be classics.

Also, Charles Dickens was a horrible person and I can’t separate his art from who he was, so I’m fine leaving him behind. Bah humbug.

How exactly was Dickens a horrible person? I'm looking at his wiki biography and don't see anything "horrible" by any stretch of the imagination. His marriage clearly was not fulfilling but that's not tantamount to being horrible. But you make it sound like he hired child labor and was cruel to the women of the slums.

His wife was pregnant almost non-stop for ten years. He was also carrying on affairs and she only found out when he accidentally sent a gift for a mistress to his wife.

Then they separated and he decided he would keep four kids and she would figure out the other six.

There’s more to it, but this is common knowledge among British people. It’s a little strange that Americans don’t know and get mad about it if you tell them.

I’m going to guess the wiki for his wife talks about this.

There are definitely things about Charles Dickens’s life that reveal a flawed character. But you need to take into consideration both the many and awful traumas of his childhood, and the norms of the society in which he lived. Having a dozen children was a normative thing in Victorian England and would still be today had we not figured out reliable birth control - just look at the norm in societies where women don’t have access to education and birth control.

I am probably the angriest feminist on this board, who endlessly fumes about the inequality in our society and reading this board I am daily disgusted by the realities of most marriages - I’m sure at one time or another I’ve clucked with sympathy at your marriage, poster, and how you are used and mistreated by your husband.

That said, I can still recognize the genius of Charles Dickens - and forgive him for being a flawed human being because he was able to convey the frailty of humanity including the terrible flaws of character in so many of his novels depicted in both males and females who abused and mistreated the people they loved. That’s life. Dickens is life, in all its glorious ugliness.

+1 There are many fascinating stories of writer friendships at the time. Longfellow and Dickens were friends. Dickens gave him (and others) tours of the slums. He truly brought to light some of the grimmest circumstances in his time.

[Anonymous]

There are lots of people in history who got celebrated who we now know weren’t the greatest people.

The reader saying they prefer not to read Dickens because of what we now know about his personal life is doing what’s best for them. They’ll spend their time with other authors.

I don’t understand why people feel the need to convince someone they need to read something because people long ago decided it was a “classic.” Read what you want to read.

[Anonymous]

I think what's most important is that you're reading. I want to enjoy what I'm reading instead of trying to pretend that I'm some sort of "elevated", highly intellectual person interested in deep philosophical conversations. I've never been that person, never will be that person. I'm good with that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think what's most important is that you're reading. I want to enjoy what I'm reading instead of trying to pretend that I'm some sort of "elevated", highly intellectual person interested in deep philosophical conversations. I've never been that person, never will be that person. I'm good with that!

This is me too (I’m the poster that used to read a lot and now struggles to read 30 books a year). I don’t read heavy intellectual material. I want to escape the heavy horrible things happening in this world. And I prefer to read books with Hollywood endings. It’s what works for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People's capacity to read books has absolutely declined. There's no question about it. A 400 page novel used to be easy reading for any reasonably intelligent adult. But these days if you pop into a bookstore everything seems to be novellas if we can call it that. But now we as a society struggle with anything longer than a short magazine article.

I must admit I was once a voracious reader and now in my 40s I barely read a full book in a year. I'm embarrassed by it. But I also notice that when I go into a bookstore to browse the new books, the quality of current fiction seems to have also declined. And the stories themselves? It's either best selling authors from 25 years ago tiredly churning out another version of the same book, or the new young writers all writing the same story, just changing the skin colors or ethnicity, but it's effectively still the same woke story. It's rare for a new book to truly grab me.

THIS!
However, this is the new level of "serious reading" and is what people who read today actually are willing to read.
It isn't just about social media's effect. It's the whole over-stimulation and inability of people to be bored, slow down, or focus on something more than a minute and a half. Public education isn't helping - actually, I think it's contributing. Our high schools aren't making students read many novels. Non-advanced levels of English aren't making students ready ANY full novels, watch youtube videos rather than reading a full print article about something, and don't even bother reading Shakespeare -- just modern English summaries of it.