Making - and Breaking - a Reader

Clare and Laura recently wrote terrific posts on the future of publishing (see Delivering a Strike for Futurism and Means of Production).

Depending on your point of view, the probable demise of paper publishing is either tragic or a happy inevitability. Me? I'm more worried about the future of books, period...paper or digital.

The New York Times' Week in Review includes a commentary by Motoko Rich on Alan Bennett's novella, "The Uncommon Reader," about an adult non-reader who, on the strength of one beloved novel, becomes a voracious reader late in life.

M. Rich is skeptical. In A Good Mystery: Why We Read, she ponders how and why people get turned on to reading. She suggests they get hooked when they discover, in a character, a reflection of themselves. Given the current competition from MySpace and television, that worries her.

"The question of whether reading, or reading books in particular, is essential is complicated by the fact that part of what draws people to books can now be found elsewhere — and there is only so much time to consume it all.

Readers who want to know they are not alone are finding reflections of themselves in the confessional blogs sprouting across the Internet. And television shows like 'The Sopranos' or 'Lost' can satisfy the hunger for narrative and richly textured characters in a way that only books could in a previous age."

Is she right to wonder whether kids will ever become book lovers, given the alternatives? Do even great readers read fewer books?

I was raised by a dad who banned tv - back when movie theaters played the same double feature for weeks - so I had little choice but to fall in love with books. The authors who turned me into an avid reader evoked a world rich enough to lift me out of my own.

These days, my attention span is on the skids. My reading time's shrinking. I've begun to toss books aside when they don't satisfy. Netflix, the internet, and occasionally great television (rented sans-commercials on DVD) increasingly steal what little free time I have.

Only...it takes a novel to consume me enough to let a take-out meal turn rock hard in the microwave. Why is it the good ones are so hard to find?

I still crave transport to a fictional world, and I don't believe I'm all that demanding. I don't require characters who are just like me...I want them to challenge and change me. I don't need immediate action and a dead body in chapter one...I want a good story. The crime fiction I love tends to be on the dark side, but given a terrific caper, I'm equally happy.

What is it the best have in common? I think it's delicious language and a theme that rings true. It's nuance. And irony. But hey, tastes differ.

I'm still buying and borrowing books, attempting to read four or five at a time. But the sheer volume is daunting, and my eyes sometimes sting. Maybe if there weren't so many satisfying cyber spots and DVDs, the next great read wouldn't languish unopened in toppling stacks.

Reality check: I've learned how hard it is to write a novel. I don't fool myself into thinking my first is one of the very greats. Great, yes of course...but I've a hunch it'll take a couple more to make me a star :-)

Is dissatisfaction - mine and others' - due to a fever pitch of distraction these days? Whatever it is, as a consumer, I grieve that compelling books seem so few and far between. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one discovering the occasionally attractive alternatives....

Beware the competition. A few loving readers are losing steam.

(Image from www.turningpointbooks.com)

- Lois