Is Reading Paper-bound Novels in Trouble?

It’s no secret that the publishing business, like the “old-fashioned” newspaper has been in steady decline for some time now. In fact, just 5 years ago, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) issued an alarming report called Reading at Risk, which declared that literary reading was in dramatic decline. The reported highlighted a sharp drop from 1982 to 2002 in the proportion of people who were reading any kind of literature. Fewer than half of adults, the NEA said, had read any single work of literature during 2003, the previous year. What happened in 2003 that was so important that many people never picked up a real book? Beats me! Dana Gioia, then the chairman of the NEA, called the decline of literary reading a national crisis that represented a “general collapse in advanced literacy.”

So how can schools, communities and government agencies combat this problem? Get off the internet and read something for real. BookPal is working to make it easier than ever by offering deep discounts for buying multiple copies of any single title. In fact, a newer study found that when groups commit to reading and discussing a book together the rate of retention and enjoyment goes up. And earlier this year the NEA reported a turnaround in literacy, the first up-swing since 1982!

Everyone today reads online, we read text messages and milk cartons, but do we go out and seek classic novels that challenge our intellect and encourage open dialect on subjects that extend outside what Paris Hilton did last night or why Sandra Bullock got divorced? Sadly, unless the book was made into a Blockbuster movie the general public rarely gets to experience it. One great example of a success story is noted in the article mentioned below by Diane Ravitch where she was visiting a town in Wyoming where many people were reading the same book, and she could see that The Big Read (what they titled the group reading project) was a wonderful idea. Everyone was discussing the book. And isn’t everything in life more enjoyable when it’s done together? Whether it’s laundry or a barbeque at home- every activity, especially reading is better together.

At BookPal we not only encourage reading in groups we are setup to help you succeed in doing so by offering discounts on books in bulk. Let me leave you with this amazing quote on the subject. “The ability to read challenging books helps make one more independent-minded. It encourages a way of thinking that is not a product of the mass media. It gives one the ability to think for oneself and entertain contrary opinions, and the freedom from dependence on Hollywood for a view of the world. The literary culture is the last bastion of the individualist. Our society, our culture, even our economy depend on preserving freethinking dissidents. And there is nothing that works better to free a mind from cant and superstition than to engage with the ideas of the world’s greatest writers.” ~ All Twitter, No Twain by Diane Ravitch