Do People Read More or Less

[Mr. Pedantic]

I suppose that people may read more, but with lower quality of writing. Of course, I base this on what I see around my college campus. Most people I know read Steven King or Michael Crichton, and seldom expose themselves to serious literature.

I view this as a serious problem. I'm not sure who blame. My finger's pointed at modern authors, the public for not challenging themselves, television and the Internet for distracting people, and the publishing industry for not taking risks and only publishing safe bets that are sure to sell.

I'm wondering whether this is a growing trend or if most people never flocked to more challenging literature and classics. However, as a young man my data on this subject are weak.

Do people read more or less then they did twenty years ago? Please discuss, particularly older members who have more life experience regarding the subject.

[Jassy Melson]

There are more books being published and more people reading than ever before.

[LitNetIsGreat]

No difference. People read the same as they did 20 years ago. 20 years is nothing!

Like any art form, literature is something of a niche market, whereby the amount of people willing to invest the time and study in understanding literature to a greater degree is always going to be in the minority. I believe that you get out what you put in many times over, but you are not going to see the average Joe reading Milton at the bus stop, not because they aren't necessarily "smart" enough to "get it" but rather, it is going to appear removed from what they generally see and follow in the public eye. It's just the way it is, no real worries.

[spookymulder93]

You might catch me reading Milton at the bus stop.

The first seal has been broken! Our time is at hand.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh of course, me too, many people on here will - but what percentage of people will do so? The average reader is not likely to go into a book shop and pick up Milton or Shakespeare, most of them are still scarred with Shakespeare from school to even think about it, this is why most "literature" sections are to be found right at the back of the shops in little dusty corners, where no one but students or the odd freaky stray dares to venture.

[Alexander III]

Hmm I think the "poor quality writing" which circulates and amasses large popularity in 2010 is more or less the same as that of 1810. The difference is we do not know of all the trash lit from 1810 as after a few years it died, while collerige, keats ect. lived on, not because they were remarkably popular ( I think the only one from that period in Britain who amassed extensive popularity was Byron). To put it bluntly same ****, different day.

[Heteronym]

Only a small elite likes the arts. The millions who in the past read penny dreadfuls and pulp magazines have logically moved to similar modern entertainments: videogames, TV series, etc. The form changed, but the content remains: sexual titilation, crime, likeable heroes, simple morals. There's not much of a difference between CSI and all the square-jawed detectives of Edwardian times.

A small core of readers always remains who love what is called high literature.

[Drkshadow03]

Oh of course, me too, many people on here will - but what percentage of people will do so? The average reader is not likely to go into a book shop and pick up Milton or Shakespeare, most of them are still scarred with Shakespeare from school to even think about it, this is why most "literature" sections are to be found right at the back of the shops in little dusty corners, where no one but students or the odd freaky stray dares to venture.

Really? Is this a British thing? The literature section in most Barnes & Nobles or Borders in America is usually prominent, larger than any other section, and right there at the front/side of the story, running across the entire wall of the store usually. Sometimes it's right in the middle of the store too. But almost never in the back.

The "literature" section is usually one of the first sections you see in most used bookstores too. Usually the genre fiction (SF and fantasy and horror is in the little dusty corner).

[LitNetIsGreat]

Use bookstores are different things altogether, but yes generally my experience is that most "literature" sections in small to moderate sized bookstores at least, are not too prominent. My local W H Smiths for example has a tiny literature section and no poetry at all. Waterstones is a little better, but there is not much out of the ordinary - Dickens, Austen etc, etc, and that section is located right at the back of the store. The used bookshop I sometimes go to is about ten times smaller than Waterstones with about the same about of classic books on offer. If you are a bookseller it makes perfect sense to place the popular books, the best sellers and the like at the front of the store - it's just good business sense, like putting more expensive items on the top of supermarket shelves. However I mostly buy my books online so it doesn't make much difference to me, I rarely buy new books anyway.

[PeterL]

People read essentially the same as they did a hundred fifty years ago. Reading is more popular now than it has been for decades Popular authors probably are better than the popular authors of the past, but we are not familiar with the popular authors of the past, thank the Gods. If you can find a "penny dreadful", then see if you can read it. It probably was written by someone who wasn't as good a writer as whoever wrote the left behind series.

[Mr. Pedantic]

Well the responses I got have been uplifting. I reckon every era has its drivel. But, what I'm concerned is with the actual classics not being read. By this I mean Homer, Virgil and stories of the Bible. I feel that these works are superb sources of inspiration that sadly remained untapped by modern writers. Schools aren't as pressed to have everyone classically educated anymore. Rather, they have put an emphasis on modern classics such as Austen and Melville, which are, of course, excellent in their own merits, but lack the scope of true classics. I guess what I'm trying to say is that more people ought to read the ancient classics.

Did any of that make sense?

[spookymulder93]

I don't think the average Joe would find a lot of the ancient classics to be interesting even if they did try to read them.

Times have changed. Authors need to find ways to modernize the classics if they want to reach a wider audience in the new generation. I don't know of any novels that do this, but I know I found the movie "Disturbia" to be more interesting than Hitchcocks "Rear Window", though the camera techniques in "Rear Window" were awesome.

[Drkshadow03]

Well the responses I got have been uplifting. I reckon every era has its drivel. But, what I'm concerned is with the actual classics not being read. By this I mean Homer, Virgil and stories of the Bible. I feel that these works are superb sources of inspiration that sadly remained untapped by modern writers. Schools aren't as pressed to have everyone classically educated anymore. Rather, they have put an emphasis on modern classics such as Austen and Melville, which are, of course, excellent in their own merits, but lack the scope of true classics. I guess what I'm trying to say is that more people ought to read the ancient classics.

Did any of that make sense?

Well, that's an entirely different issue altogether. From what I've seen I would agree colleges have gutted their classics departments (by which I mean specifically, Ancient Greeks and Romans). The departments are shrinking (when tenured professors retire they're not replaced), and you're not required to take any class in the Classics department in many cases. I don't know, maybe mythology is run through the Classics department? When I took a mythology class at a different university it was given as part of the philosophy department. The classics department in one of the other schools I attended was basically there for the people who were majoring or minoring in Classics, which also meant not just reading Virgil and Homer, but actually learning Latin and Greek.


In my English courses, we read Antigone and Oedipus as examples of drama as part of the Intro to Lit survey courses, but otherwise we never touched Classic Lit. All the Classic lit I've ever read I did on my own time in translation of course. This makes some sense in that the discipline is English. So the emphasis is on British Literature and American Literature. If you actually look at the origins of English Literature as a discipline, according to Terry Eagleton at least in his Introduction to Theory, it was seen as a completely different discipline from studying the Classics. The Classics professors looked down at these upstart professors wanting to teach English novels, poetry, and drama. Why would you want to waste your time studying that Shakespeare crap or the Romantic poets when you could be studying important works like Virgil or Homer or Horace?

As far as your original issue, I think there is still plenty of high quality writing to be found being published today in all genres. The classics of literature as a whole (Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, Melville, Joyce and company) still sell solidly, which is why the publishers still publish them (it's not a charity organization after all and most of these works are in the public domain so they're cheap to produce in comparison to other books where you have to pay the author with an advance and royalties), even if a large chunk of these steady sales can be attributed to school required readings and course syllabi.

Most contemporary literary writers also have steady sales. McEwan, Roth, DeLillo, Proulx, Morrison, and company are hardly starving writings living in a garret. So I wouldn't be that worried about an uneducated public reading only Stephen King and James Patterson.

[the facade]

I think that it's normal for people to think that things were better before and that the cultural fabric is deteriorating. It seems to me that more people are reading, even if it's Dan Brown and bunch. We can only hope that it will lead some into more enriching literature like it did for me and which I'm eternally grateful for.
Cheers!

[PeterL]

I think that it's normal for people to think that things were better before and that the cultural fabric is deteriorating. It seems to me that more people are reading, even if it's Dan Brown and bunch. We can only hope that it will lead some into more enriching literature like it did for me and which I'm eternally grateful for.
Cheers!

Everything has been sliding since the time of Socrates, and see how much worse things have become.