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"I cannot
live without books," wrote Thomas Jefferson in an 1815 letter
to his friend and fellow Founder, John Adams. Both men were
voracious readers and counted their personal libraries among
their most cherished possessions.
Adams
once counseled his son John Quincy to always carry a book
with him in case he had a spare moment to read. "You will
never be alone with a poet in your pocket," the elder Adams
told his son.
Jefferson
and Adams could not live without their books, and neither
can I. But apparently a growing number of Americans can get
along without them just fine.
A recently
released Associated Press-Ipsos poll says one in four adults
didn't read a single book last year.
Zero.
Zilch. Zip. Nada.
That
this poll came out shortly after the release of Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows, which shattered all kinds of
book-buying records and had people behaving like teenage girls
at a Beatles concert, was not lost on me. It seemed like everyone
in America (including me) scarfed up that book—but apparently,
only three out of four Americans actually scarfed it at all.
A lot
of big-brained people who are smarter than I am have offered
a multitude of reasons for America's poor reading habits.
TV is the obvious scapegoat. We could blame the internet,
too, for good measure. Today's world offers too many entertainment
alternatives and too many sources of information, and nearly
all of them take less effort than reading.
Reading,
after all, requires work—although most readers wouldn't
characterize it as such. A good book invites a reader into
a conversation with the writer. Such a conversation, however,
requires imagination, a willingness to be challenged and,
most of all, time. And let's face it: In the hurly-burly hustle
and bustle of today's world, do any of us really have enough
time?
 I
hazard to guess the answer is "No," but then the question
becomes one of priorities: Do you have enough time for reading?
Are you willing to make time? Apparently, more and more people
are still answering negatively to those questions, too.
The news
of America's poor reading habits hardly comes as a surprise
to people in the publishing world. Fewer readers means publishers
are making fewer dollars. In response, publishers tend only
to publish "safe" works, with a heavy emphasis on established
writers, leaving less room for new authors to break into the
market. The overall selection of books becomes more homogenous—which,
in turn, tends to drive away a certain segment of the book-buying
public. That leaves fewer readers, and that leads to...
You see
where I'm going.
I realize
I'm preaching to the choir since, after all, you read. You
wouldn't be reading the Hipster Book Club if you didn't. You
know how important reading is, how satisfying it is, how enjoyable
it is.
Reading
a book, in particular, provides its own unique joys. I like
the small heft of a book in my hands, the smooth feel of a
slick dust jacket, the crinkle of a page as I turn it. I appreciate
a book's "bookness"—its identity as a complete package,
a work of art, an individual identity. This, I can say to
myself as I hold a book, is a worthwhile way to spend my time.
"What
kind of life can you have in a house without books?" asks
the main character in Sherman Alexie's novel Flight.
I cannot even fathom it. My own home library contains thousands
of volumes. "I think the house would fall down if it didn't
have books along the walls, holding them up," my wife recently
quipped.
 I've
been reading as long as I can remember. I taught myself by
reading The Incredible Hulk comic books. Back then,
the Hulk said things like, "Hulk smash puny humans," which
was pretty easy for a kid to pick up.
But the
earliest reading experience I can remember that left an indelible
mark on me happened in my early teens. My mother's father
was hospitalized for something serious enough for the family
to gather. While the adults held vigil, I went to the top-floor
solarium with a book. It was Herman Melville's Moby Dick,
arguably the greatest novel in American history. Melville
had me with his first line, "Call me Ishmael." I read the
book straight through.
The paperback
wasn't thick, but it was dense—544 pages printed on paper
so thin I could almost read the words on the other side of
each sheet. The cover boasted a sperm whale that was splintering
a whaleboat across its back as the men leapt (or fell) from
their doomed craft. I suppose the author intended the whale
to look ferocious but I thought it looked sleepy. The whole
scene was painted in drab greens and grays.
Each
page took me some place new, introduced me to interesting
people, taught me something fascinating, worked language in
a way I wasn't used to reading. The specter of Gregory Peck-as-Abe
Lincoln-as-Ahab growled lines like, "Will you give me as much
blood as will cover this barb?" every time the captain spoke.
The book's paperback smell swished up at me each time I turned
the page.
 Since
then, books have been my own white whale. I have pursued them
relentlessly. They symbolize for me all that is magnificent
and powerful and wonderful in the world. Fortunately, I've
never had a book bite my leg off and leave me hobbling around
on a peg like Ahab—but there have been plenty of books
that have grabbed hold of me and never let go. Even now, long
after I've read them, those books remain with me.
Mostly,
I feel sorry for those people who don't read. After all, an
unfortunate number of people can't read and wish they could.
And, as Mark Twain once observed, "The man who doesn't read
good books has no advantage over the man who can't."
In other
places and other times, people couldn't read because they
weren't allowed. Censorship, one of civilization's greatest
malignancies, has run rampant through our history, prompting
everything from book bannings to book burnings. But as Ray
Bradbury, author of the classic censorship novel Fahrenheit
451, once observed, "There are worse crimes than burning
books. One of them is not reading them."
People
who don't read miss out on a book's ability to stimulate thinking,
to explore new perspectives, to inspire the imagination. Saddest
of all, they don't even know the pleasure they're missing
(even if they think they do).
The canvas
bag I take with me to work has Jefferson's words emblazoned
across the front. I cannot live without my books. But as the
publishing industry is discovering, many other people can
live without books. The question, really, is whether books
can live without people.
(September,
2007)
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