Quote:
Originally Posted by Raphi'Elohim
The only Americans who read to a substantial degree nowadays are elite Americans like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.
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I disagree. I am far from being an elite and I read books and don't watch TV. I buy 4-6 hardcovers (sometimes more) a month for myself and 3-4 books each month for each of my grandchildren. I currently have more than 50 hardcovers on preorder (about 10 of which are for the grandchildren). I also subscribe to multiple magazines and to the newspaper.
My wife is also a big reader, although not at my level. Unlike me, she watches TV (I haven't, except for the Democrat debates, watched TV for any reason in the past 6 months).
I do agree that reading is on the decline; I am amazed at how many people I know who haven't read more than 1 book (and usually zero books) in the past year and who also do not read/subscribe to magazines or newspapers -- if it isn't on TV, they know nothing about it. But reading is not confined to the elite and I think the decline is a result of a lack of encouragement by parents and by a decline in the quality of reading material. I am appalled at the number of errors I find in books and the mini-trend of using plural pronouns for singular pronouns is both distracting and making reading more difficult.