Friday, September 22, 2006

Reading

There was an article in the NYT this morning about the fall-off in reading that has been going on for many years now. More books are published but fewer read than ever before. Aside from the distractions of technology, I have a few other ideas about why my reading has fallen off.
I used to read a lot more when I smoked 18 years ago. There was nothing more relaxing than sitting down with a book and a pack of cigs. The cigarette made me docile. Now I seldom read for more than ten or fifteen minutes without interruption. Right now I have twenty books reserved at the local library. I will probably only finish 2-3 of them and not because they're not good books. That doesn't take into account the pile I have bought. Taking the bus to work means I get a little more reading done but sometimes my own stories take over and I realize I haven't read at all. Reading the Clair Messaud book right now and still working on the Prose book.
I had another idea about why my reading has fallen off but I forgot it. See how distractable I am.
Oh, yeah, I remember. I read a lot more stories on the web and from my writing group. So there fleeting memory.

2 comments:

David said...

You have some very interesting points.

Sandra Ruttan said...

Last article I saw on this in Canada said reading here wasn't in decline.

But I'll stay away from speculating on politics as a contributing factor to the decline of reading in some places...