(And I'm guilty too.)
I and many of my cohorts (me and many of my cohorts?) have been grousing of late about the absence of dedicated readers and the susequent falling number of books sold.
Confession coming:
I am one of those deliquent readers.
See, I just realized I spend a lot of time on ye olde computer; I watch TV way more than is good for me (especially during baseball season), I have to see all the new movies coming out, and now that it's summer I spend more time out of doors, where the sounds of birdsong and falling water falling induce sleep rather than reading....
In short: I read less.
But reading is wonderful! Think of the magic: you look at a line of symbols, which form words in your head, which then form scenes and soon you're watching your own private movie or TV show.
Reading means the ability to think in symbols. No other creature on the planet can do that. (...except for cats, which I suspect are sneaky readers. Dogs prefer the comics.)
Most animals think in images.
I foresee a future of humans who think in pictures.
Yipes.
...and yet, and yet.... I'm as guilty as any of this generation's absent readers.
It isn't the quality of the books, well, not so much. Nor the topics. It's my lack of time. But I had oddles of time before I started googling.
Are you experiencing the same thing?
If not, why not?
best,
Edith, fast becoming one of the illiterati