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Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Who Reads Books Anymore?

posted by on July 9 at 12:15 PM

There’s a great piece today in the San Francisco Chronicle—I know! weird, right?—about reading books. Look, you’re already asleep. You’re already scrolling past this.

Mark Morford writes:

See, I love books. Admire and appreciate and adore. Was a lit major at Berkeley, still love to read, still like to consider myself a big consumer of books and deep thinker about bookish issues and ideas.

And yet, if I’m painfully honest, I have to admit it: I barely read books anymore. Not nearly the way I used to, anyway. Not for a long, long time. And chances are, if you’re at all drawn to the new media vortex, neither do you.

He’s right, of course—the internet’s pulling all of us away from books. Except maybe Paul Constant, who somehow posts more than anyone on Slog (except possibly Savage and ECB) and, at the same time, reads three books per weekend.

RSS icon Comments

1

Who tries to convince people they're smart and sophisticated by attempting to read a book in Pony?

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 9, 2008 12:18 PM
2

Paul Constant *claims* to read books -- since no one else does, who can call him on it?

Posted by spoiler | July 9, 2008 12:18 PM
3

I wasn't bored until I read the words "See, I." No good sentence has ever started with those words. They are synonymous with "Shut up, everyone, I'm brilliant."

Posted by mattymatt | July 9, 2008 12:28 PM
4

@3 : Agreed. "I'm brilliant, but, see, I'm just like you lot!"

If you want to read, you carve out the time to read. Simple as that. I love how so many of these articles are based on a foggy nostalgia for the good old days when you could rip through fifteen billion books a week. You know, when you didn't have a 9-5 job, a relationship, kids, the 'net, social obligations... insert Real Life here.

It's like the sporadic "anti-social Seattle" articles (aren't we due for a new one soon?): "It's so hard to meet people here. It's not like college!" No kidding?

And all you kids stay offa my lawn, dagnabbit!

Posted by Chris B | July 9, 2008 12:45 PM
5

reads three books per weekend

It appears he takes a book to lunch, reads it for a half hour, then discards it. That counts as a read book?

Posted by jmr | July 9, 2008 12:49 PM
6

I admit I often buy books but rarely read them.

Posted by elswinger | July 9, 2008 12:55 PM
7

I love to read, and I always have. I didn't get to read much for pleasure in college, but after college I had tons of time to read on the Metro on my reverse commute home. Nowadays I read mostly for an hour or so before drifting to sleep. Or in the car. I read in the car, too, when I'm a passenger.

Posted by Balt-O-Matt | July 9, 2008 12:58 PM
8

I have 30 books on my nightstand, and another hundred or so on various desks, chairs, tables, floors. I have read or intend to read all of them, and I really do get through them. I've read at least ten since the start of June.

Posted by Fnarf | July 9, 2008 1:10 PM
9

He’s right, of course—the internet’s pulling all of us away from books.

The internet has not pulled me away from books, but it has pulled me away from dead-tree monthly magazine subscriptions. I used to maintain 6-8 subscriptions but have let most of them lapse. That type of content is just too easy to get online.

Posted by jmr | July 9, 2008 1:16 PM
10

Yeah, speak for yourself there, CF. The Internet hasn't pulled me away from books, either.

Also . . . you do realize Mark Morford is an idiot, right? Just checking.

Posted by Levislade | July 9, 2008 1:19 PM
11

Actually, it's not the Internet, but rather television that stole from my reading "time". Pulling the TV out of the bedroom has worked wonders for my girlfriend and I. I finally finished an Aldo Leopold biography which I had started months ago, and am almost through Desolation Angels (which incidentally is much more poorly-written in the second half, so far).

Posted by laterite | July 9, 2008 1:22 PM
12

I go through phases. I can go 3 months without reading anything more than a glossy gossip magazine, and then get back into the zone and rack out 4 or 5 books a week. I don't get this recent phenomenon of literati blaming their dwindling interest in books on the internet.

Posted by Rotten666 | July 9, 2008 1:29 PM
13

Psh maybe they don't think anyone reads because all the people they're asking are on the internet and all the people that are reading are off with a page turner in the park hmmmm?

Posted by SDizzle | July 9, 2008 2:44 PM
14

I'll tell you what's smart and sophisticated in Pony, Mr. Poe...an enormous whozeewhatsit!!!

Posted by Christopher Frizzelle's Enormous Whozeewhatsit | July 9, 2008 2:48 PM
15

Chiming in here with another "speak for yourself" I still read lots of books. I read all the time. And, I still have time for "real life" too. I guess I'm a fast reader or something. I probably read about 30 books in June and NO they weren't all bodice rippers. I also read a bunch of non-fiction and Frankenstein.

Posted by PopTart | July 9, 2008 3:23 PM
16

That's a dumb article, Christopher. The narrow focus on the Internet killing books ignores the greater trend of the Internet AND VIDEO GAMES killing almost every form of entertainment, including network TV, movies, exercise, and hanging out with other people Net- and game-free.

Also, Murakami is not "dense" reading. His prose is clear and lean. If Morford finds Murakami hard to read, then he must have been a different kind of "lit" major than his article leads us to believe.

Posted by Will in 98103 | July 9, 2008 4:38 PM

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