For a long time, I’ve been aware of statistics saying that a huge portion of the American population hasn’t read a book in years–maybe not since leaving school. How the hell could this be? Books have been central to my life from a young age, so I just didn’t get it. But yesterday, while reading The Dumbest Generation, I got the answer in the form of a quote straight from a non-reader: “Because of all the boring stuff the teachers assign.”
Mark Bauerlein, author of Dumbest Generation, uses this as an occasion to express outrage that someone could be so open about not wanting to read.* But I think this is the most insightful comment in the entire book, and sadly obvious in retrospect. School reading lists suck, and high school reading lists–which should be students’ introduction to reading like adults–are often the worst. lThink of your favorite books? How many of them were you forced to read in high school? How many of them did you have to discover on your own? My Facebook page currently lists thirty-three favorite books, only one of them (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) was a book I read for a school class. All the others I had to discover on my own.
To get a little more specific: in high school, required reading consists almost entirely of two things: (1) textbooks (2) novels picked out by people who liked Ulysses. Though good books occasionally get into category 2 by accident, on the whole these are not books normal people read voluntarily. Not even most of the people who are tut-tutting the loudest over reading statistics.
The gap between school reading and normal adult reading is even bigger when you stop thinking about “reading” so much in terms of novels and more in terms of popular non-fiction. I don’t think most people realize this, but nowadays sales of non-fiction books are far greater than fiction (about 20 times greater, if one statistic I read is to be believed). It isn’t hard to figure out why: while good written narrative is a beautiful thing, relatively free from executive meddling, it has serious shortfalls that make it easy to understand why most people prefer TV: no one wants to read the thousand words it takes to make up for one lost picture, and when it comes to understanding characters, written narrative deprives us of facial expressions, body language, movement, tone of voice, and timing, things that are so critical to real human interactions. What isn’t lost is information, which is the purpose of the non-fiction dominating today’s book market.
Looking back on my early schooling, it seems a small miracle that I’m as much of a reader as I am. Though I have no trouble discovering good non-fiction nowadays, I wouldn’t even know there was good non-fiction out there to discover if not for a handful of lucky accidents in middle school and high school. And those lucky accidents I owe to book stores and libraries; school reading lists had nothing to do with it. But how different the situation might have been–for every American of my generation–if people like Dawkins and Gould (or their counterparts on any subject you please) had been part of the assigned reading.
*This is not the first book I’ve read where a quote from a nobody was more insightful than anything the author had to say. See my review of Ariel Levy.
I read quite a bit and I think that there is even more good stuff out there now (at least among non-fiction) than there was when I started out. Maybe I just like the modern style more than the older style of writing, and maybe my tastes have changed.
I agree that much of what is assigned in school is boring. But we should also consider that reading isn’t for everyone either. Of course I think it’s a good idea that everyone should be *able* to read – but it may not be an appealing hobby for everyone.
But I read very little fiction these days as there’s so much interesting stuff going on in the real world I can’t be bothered anymore.
Not only is it true that a lot of people don’t read, the books that a lot of people do read are devoid of meaningful content. Within the realm of non-fiction, things like “Chicken Soup For The Soul” books, “The Secret,” and other sorts of content-free “self-help” books dominate the sales charts.
The best thing that can be done is to get kids reading. The Harry Potter books are a perfect long-term antidote for the mental rot that has driven people from the library — they are powerfully entertaining, within the grasp of kids, and lengthy, so they teach children that reading is both fun and a lifetime commitment.
Re: proudfootz:
The “reading as a hobby” thing is the wrong way to look at it. I wouldn’t expect everyone on Earth to be as serious about reading as serious hobbists are about poker, ballroom dancing, Dungeons and Dragons, or whatever their hobby is. I’d just like to see ordinary people reading more often to improve their understanding of the world.
Maybe ‘hobby’ was an ill-chosen word – what I meant was reading for pleasure. I find it pleasant to read (and therefore read more) than some do.
While I’d *like* people to read more, and read things I think would be edifying for them to read, I understand why some choose not to read as much.
As Transplanted Lawyer points out, it’s *what* people read that will determine how they understand the world.