Reading

 To me one of the great pleasures of holidays especially Christmas holidays is the time to read some really good books. This break I have read a couple of crackers, a dud and revisited a classic. However this summer I have also noticed a disturbing trend. It worries and saddens me so a rant is ahead.

Sitting around the resort pool or the holiday home or on the beach it seems to me that fewer and fewer people are reading. Most people under 30 don’t seem to read at all. In the over 30s it seems it is mostly women who read and by a big margin. By reading I mean reading works of fiction, novels and short stories, poetry and essays for enlightenment or education. The novels don’t have to be three dimensional books made of paper I am happy for kindles and tablets. This is not an argument for one or the other of the vehicles for reading stories. I personally prefer a physical old fashioned book but reading on any format is better than no reading at all. But it is not the medium that I am talking about here. It is the message.

There is of course plenty of other reading going on. Endless tweets and posts on social media, fact and possible fact on any number of the millions of websites but I am talking about  longer reading, reading for enjoyment, relaxation, self-development, learning to know what it is like to be another human being. Well there seems to be much less of that.

Maybe this has been a trend that has been in place for decades, maybe it was always so and I have been slow to realise, maybe I have this all wrong and around the country everybody regardless of gender, age and background are tucking into stories be they by Steven King, Trent Dalton, Michael Connolly, Jane Austin, George Saunders or Marcel Proust.

But I don’t think that I am. This saddens and puzzles and worries me. Clearly I am not the book police or the reading judge and I am not saying that such institutions should be in place to make people read. That scenario is the reverse side of the coin that features book burning and censorship [although this is on the rise as well] but I do wish we could find a way to convince folk especially the young and men that reading stories, be they espionage thrillers or mediations on nature, brings so many benefits.

But I don’t know how and I guess this is the way with so many things associated with media and communication in the both the formal and informal sense. We embrace so many new ways of doing things because they allow more speed, more selection but without thinking about how information is not necessarily knowledge and more choice is not always what is required.

I also wonder about how we teach reading or more importantly the reasons we give to learner readers about why we teach reading. It might seem a ridiculous question to ask- Why do we need to read?

I mean of course everyone should learn how to read but not enough time is given to why beyond the obvious life necessity of being able to function in a shop or a job, basically in the modern world.  But what about the analytical, the moral, the philosophical, the inspirational and educational, all those lifelong services that the practice of reading provides? What about how reading, far ahead of TV or screen grabs or tweets can allow you to experience with depth and wonder not once but again and again the ability to go somewhere new, to experience something different, to understand another human. To not only experience but think about these experiences before during and after. Why don’t we encourage reading with these aspects in mind?

I fear that now days these learnings from books are increasingly undervalued, social media does not educate or bring people together, the very opposite in fact, so I think books are now out of style. Fiction which is escapist like spy thrillers or horror or the so called “Chick lit”, books which are light and feel good and designed to ease our stress and forget the nastiness of the modern world can still have learnings and deeper meanings which help shape us as humans far better than a web post or a TV episode can.

We need to promote these advantages of reading far more and not only to young people but to everyone. Rant over.

The five Books of Summer

Bewilderment – Richard Powers

Wow. His book The Overstory should be on every school reading list. Bewilderment is just as good. The story of a widowed dad, his troubled son, the planet and our place in the universe this book is moving and informative.  If you love the natural world you must read these two books. Simple as that.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain – George Saunders

George is a master story teller and a lecturer at the USA’s finest writing program. Basically how to read like a writer or in other words understand how storytelling really works. Maybe not for everyone but if you write or really love reading meaty fiction this is a must and not as “schoolbook” as it sounds.

Monkey Grip – Helen Garner

Australian classic and love story set in the share houses of bohemian Fitzroy in the 70s. Perfectly of the time and place and proof that you can’t help who you fall in love with

The Unwinding – George Packer

Social history. Cheating a bit here as it is isn’t fiction. History of the USA especially Wall Street and the working class over the last three decades through the eyes of six individuals. Personal and political, a pretty good explanation of how someone like Trump came to power

Appleseed – Matt Bell

Dystopic fiction. Great idea and structure but could lose 100 pages I reckon. I just lost interest as the storytelling got bogged down and became repetitive

Photo by Blaz Photo on Unsplash