Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thornton
From what I could tell from a quick look at the national statistics site, literacy is looking pretty solid.
I'm not convinced that young people are not reading. There are lots of things competing for their time, but I think that the lack of physical exercise is more worrying than the lack of mental exercise.
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I'm not sure that book sales figures on their own tell the full story. If a recent visit to a local bookshop is any guide, few of the books they stock now would be likely to attract a big audience among many young people. The biggest categories seemed to be Cookbooks, Gardening, Self Help, Romances, Sword and Sorcery, Murder Mysteries, Thrillers, Personal Tell-Alls etc. In many sections, some kind of celebrity tie-in seemed almost a required feature, to the extent that parts were starting to look surprisingly like a somewhat up-market version of the supermarket magazine racks.
A recent TV show suggested that the biggest market for e-book was middle aged women, and that would seem to line up with what I've seen locally. All the local bookshops in my area are owned and/or staffed by middle aged women. The members of the local social book discussion groups are overwhelmingly middle aged women. Among my friends who read it's mostly the women who plough through books by the kilo rather than spend weeks pondering single volumes. Then they swap them amongst themselves, by the bag-full.
Of course, there is another category that is still flourishing and that is illustrated children's books. There was a very impressive selection at the bookshop (many written and illustrated by extremely talented women.... of a certain age...). And guess who was buying them for their children and grandchildren.....
There's always Harry Potter of course, and lots of teens apparently read that - as soon Mum's finished reading the copy that she bought....
A big thank you to all the women on the forum - you seem to be keeping the book trade alive.
Cheers,
Chris