— Richard Seaver
Book reading by Americans has nosedived in the past five years, according to a new Gallup poll.
While, on average, Americans read 12 books in 2021, that's three fewer than in 2016.
Pollsters attribute the drop to the ready availability of other entertainments.
Poor education doesn't factor into the decline: the steepest falloff in book reading was among college graduates.
Age doesn't either: Americans 55 and older—traditionally the most voracious book readers—read the same number of books, on average, as all other Americans.
The fewer books we read, the poorer our worlds become.
The fewer books we read, the shorter our attention spans grow.
And the fewer books we read, the more hidebound we're apt to be.
The fewer books we read, the shorter our attention spans grow.
And the fewer books we read, the more hidebound we're apt to be.
I get why TV, games and social media are crowding out books.
Books, on the other hand, can burden you—especially if they're well written. They can tax your thought, shake your faith, wake you up, or give you nightmares.
And unlike the crap on this month's Netflix menu, there's no lack of good books to read.
Identifying good books is easy:
- Explore series. Great series abound. I love Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer, Robert B. Parker's Spenser, and Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander.
- Explore prize winners. I have never read a Pulitzer or Booker prize-winning book that wasn't great.
- Explore individual authors. Choose an exceptional author and read every book he or she has written. I've done that with William Faulkner, John Updike, Philip Roth, and Richard Ford, and am doing it now with Erik Larson. You won't be disappointed.
- Explore subgenres. Pick a genre (sci-fi or history or memoir, for example) and then a subgenre (dystopian sci-fi or historical westerns or celebrity memoirs) and read the most popular book by each of the subgenre's foremost authors.
- Explore classics. They're classics for a reason, so find out why. Just for starters, read Dracula, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Oil!, The Scarlet Letter, Treasure Island, Bleak House, Martin Eden, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Secret Agent, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Breakfast at Tiffany's, A Farewell to Arms, The Long Goodbye, Eye of the Needle, The Time Machine, Outerbridge Reach, Moby Dick, Catch-22, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Trout Fishing in America, The Moviegoer, Worlds' Fair, From the Terrace, The Wonder Boys, Nausea, White Noise, Amsterdam, Deliverance, The Killer Angels, A Flash of Green, The Razor's Edge, The Confessions of Nat Turner, On the Road, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, A River Runs Through It, Crossing to Safety, Slaughterhouse-Five, War and Remembrance, or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
And good books are handy and cheap. Use your local library and check out online seller Thriftbooks.com, if you don't believe me.
Make it your goal to read at least three books every month.
Do so, and you can boast to your friends and family that you read three times more than the average American!
