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13 Utterly Disappointing Facts About Books

Z

zaky andrian

New Member
1. In a 2012 survey, almost a fifth of children said they would be “embarrassed” if a friend saw them with a book….

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2. …and 54% of those questioned said they preferred watching TV to reading.

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Here’s the study from the National Literary Trust.

3. Fifty Shades of Grey is now the best-selling book of all time in Britain.

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jamesaltucher.com

…topping all the print sales of the Harry Potter series.

4. Snooki is a New York Times best-selling author.

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5. So is Jessica Alba.

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Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

6. This Justin Bieber book? Also a New York Timesbest seller.

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Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

7. Book and e-book sales are down 9.3% in the U.S.

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And the trend is pretty much the same across the globe.

8. The last Borders bookstore closed in September 2011. Barnes and Noble, which is battling a steady sales decline, has been closing about 15 stores a year.

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Sad face.

9. Ebook sales have officially topped printed book sales as of 2011.

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…which isn’t a death knell for reading per se, but it certainly signals the end of a rich historical era. Of paper.

10. Forks, Washington, now has Twilight-themed stores designed to cash in on tourists.

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en.wikipedia.org

11. And the four-book Twilight series has sold over 116 million copies, almost half as many as Stephen King’s entire canon.

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12. It’s gotten so bad, books are now being MASSACRED for crafts.

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Thanks, Lauren Conrad.

13. And the worst: One in four Americans said they read ZERO books in the past year.

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(According to this 2007 Associated Press poll.)

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Appalling. My jaw is hanging open, my brain has stopped dead in its tracks, and my fingers are almost limp and not functioning. Maybe everyone else is in the same condition -- or else watching the Superbowl.
But maybe it will be great to be completely electronified -- based on our happy experiences here with our Kindle Fires.
Or maybe I'll just be phased out for not watching the Superbowl.
 
:O ...
Okay. Astonishment over.

I'm not that surprised, really. Last year I read a grand total of one book (unless you want to count all the crappy fan-fiction I read). Should I be ashamed? Probably, but I'm not (because I was studying).

In the end, book selling is a business. It needs to be able to compete with easier entertainment. Keeping up with the digital world is one way to go about it. Slapping money-making celebrity icons on the cover is another.

It's still pretty unnerving (especially that first item on the list). Sometimes I wonder if people aren't reading less because there's so much crap fudging up new fiction and literature, if you can call it that. I look at a lot of the new books that come out and feel so... uninterested. Maybe it's just me.
 
I think it is the first one that bothers me. Shame is a hard thing to overcome when trying persuade people to do something.
 
Just an observation, and I'm not sure how it fits in.
Shame may keep some from reading. I don't know what to say about that.
But I think that, for anyone who actually wants to find a book to read, it has never been easier. The proliferation of genres and kinds of writng seems to me to have never been greater when I look at all the kinds of books on display at Barnes and Noble. I don't think I have been interested in many of the new types, but I think there have to be collections of books for any kind of reader, ranging from, yes, crap and on upward. Somebody must be interested in them, or at least so the publishers/businessmen think. So, I guess that means that if someone isn't reading it is not for lack of interesting available material, IMO.
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Peder said:
Just an observation, and I'm not sure how it fits in.
Shame may keep some from reading. I don't know what to say about that.
But I think that, for anyone who actually wants to find a book to read, it has never been easier. The proliferation of genres and kinds of writng seems to me to have never been greater when I look at all the kinds of books on display at Barnes and Noble. I don't think I have been interested in many of the new types, but I think there have to be collections of books for any kind of reader, ranging from, yes, crap and on upward. Somebody must be interested in them, or at least so the publishers/businessmen think. ISo, I guess that means that if someone isn't reading it is not for lack of interesting available material, IMO.
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This discussion has come up elsewhere about why people don't read. And as horrifying as these facts are, they don't really address why, just what is.

I think the reasons for not reading are myriad, and there is no one size fits all answer to the problem. I do think though that campaigns to help change perceptions and make reading exciting would help across the board. A kid who is fired up about books, doesn't really care what others think because he/she knows what value there is in books. Ditto for the person who 'has no time'. There is time, but no motivation - make books an exciting alternative to the idiot box and time isn't such an issue.
 
Meadow337 said:
yeah well the reasons for that are as old as the hills :p
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I'm probably in the minority, but I would suggest that at least it was reading.
However, relevant to the discussion here, perhaps reading books is just not as appealing to non-readers as their alternative entertainments. Perhaps Ivanhoe and Tale of Two Cities just don't hack it anymore compared to MMORPG's, or even modern YA books which are getting to have a little more spice in them. Who does read books anymore anyway? What makes us do it? What makes students do it? And so forth, if one wants to get to the root of the problem -- if it is a problem. (Which repeats a question already asked above IIRC.)
Scandalous thought: maybe none of our suggestions appealed to OP in that other, non-reader thread.. :(
Just wonderin' out loud.
 
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I don't have a problem with Harry Potter being the best selling book. It does show that there are millions of kids who are reading. And they are well told stories that aside from the fantasy/magical elements have kids dealing with very real problems that can't be solved by magic.
 
regdog said:
I don't have a problem with Harry Potter being the best selling book. It does show that there are millions of kids who are reading. And they are well told stories that aside from the fantasy/magical elements have kids dealing with very real problems that can't be solved by magic.
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That is a matter of opinion :)
 
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