By Hasso Hering
Albany Democrat-Herald | Posted: Sunday, August 26, 2007 12:00 am
If one in four didn't read one, three apparently did
On Wednesday the papers carried the news that "one in four adults read no books at all in the past year." Alarming? Not really.
This story was based on the results of a poll. It's hard to say what is worse, that some people don't read a lot of books or that anybody has time to do a survey that proves as shallow as this. First you have to wonder whether people can be trusted to tell survey takers the truth when it comes to a question like that. But assuming that the results reflect at least a portion of reality, then three people out of four read at least one book last year.
That's something, especially considering all the demands on most people's time. E-mail alone takes up so much of some literate people's days and nights that it's a wonder they have time for much else.
Add to that the temptations of the World Wide Web to check to one more thing. You crank up your computer to look up, say, a detailed map of the coast of Brittany because you wonder just exactly what the geography looks like around the bays that lead from the Atlantic to Brest. But in addition to the maps you want, Google also brings up lists of real estate for sale in that region of France.
Well, that could be interesting. And before long you have scrolled through dozens of real estate ads for everything from little stone cottages for 65,000 Euros to country estates "near a pretty market town" for upwards of half a million.
And why, of all things, were you wondering about the approaches to Brest? Because, as it happens, you were reading a book for relaxation. You were rereading "Hornblower and the Hotspur," one of the many volumes in C.S. Forester's 11 superbly entertaining novels about this fictional naval hero during the Napoleonic wars.
According to the survey, the typical American claimed to have read four books during the past year. That's not bad, especially if the typical person read four books all the way through.
But what happens a lot is this: You get a book and you feel an obligation to read it. You open it up and give it a good shot. By page 14 you start to have doubts. This book could be interesting. The subject could be fascinating. The writing could sparkle. But in fact the writing is flat and the subject, while significant, is on the dull side. And there are another 400 pages to go. So what do you do? You put it down.
Conclusion: More people would read more books if more books were truly worth more readers' time.
The Associated Press story on that survey quotes a report by the National Endowment for the Arts which found that "only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002."
Wait a minute! That means 43 percent had not read a book in 2002. But in the past year, the AP poll found only 25 percent had not read a book. So book reading is up, way up? Maybe that's what the newspapers should have said.