![[Logo]](/images/101ReasonsLogo.png "101 Reasons to Stop Writing")
Writers tend to laugh at the wannabe writers who exclaim that it’s okay for them to spend their lives cranking out Dharma & Greg/Invader ZIM slashfic because “I’m writing it for myself, and I don’t care about finding an audience.” They’re laughing because it’s as much of a lie as “We can’t afford to pay for your submissions right now, but we hope to one of these days.” However, we can’t say that they aren’t honest about their intended audience: based on an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released on August 21, one in four Americans polled said they read no books at all in 2006, with the typical person claiming to have read four books in that time. Seeing as how one of the most-cited works read in the poll was the Bible, anyone familiar with the habits of people fond of quoting the Bible but who can’t get the quotes right should make you suspect of the number of books they’re really reading. Considering the number of Americans who share the sentiments of telecom project manager Richard Bustos of Dallas, who says “I just get sleepy when I read,” who’s really lying: the wannabes who say they’re writing just for themselves, or the “pros” who think that anyone’s going to read their work after it’s published?
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How many of those 25% of Americans who haven’t read a book in the past year think they can write a book? I’d say 100%. At least.
=boggle= I can’t understand people not reading. Maybe not burning through 5 books a week like some people -innocent look-, but not reading at all? Those people frighten me.
What that study doesn’t reveal is that 25% of Americans only read books with “Harry Potter” or “Dr Phil” on the cover, and another 25% think that TV Guide counts as a book.
Nathan, I’d say the number of people who haven’t read a book since grade school who think they could write one is 100 percent. Well, that is, they know they have an idea for a book that’ll sell millions, if they could only get off the couch, turn off the TV, and waddle through the piles of old Doritos bags and popsicle sticks to get to a typewriter.
It gets worse (at least for me): 46% of Spaniards “never” or “almost never” read (their Mommy’s told ‘em not to lie when they were little. 13% read occasionally (ie never) and 41% boast a fluid morality and say they “often” read.
The average spending in books in Spain is 66,7 euros, which, given the price of the average hard-back (the book everyone gives in Christmas when they can’t think of anything else), means that Spaniards are buying about 2-3 books a year and reading less (since that novel given/received in Christmas is usually the winner of the Premio Planeta and of irregular quality). I also suspect those 66.7 euros include textbooks.
Spanish libraries boast less than one book per person, but it doesn’t matter, since only 0,77 books per person are borrowed each year. http://exlibris.usal.es/bibesp/nopago/dossier.pdf
The overemphasis on the classics in school is partly to blame. The Quixote, the only outstanding book a Spaniard ever wrote, gets shoved down every one’s throats and by the time a kid is old enough to understand it, they’re so sick of reading the first page that they’ll never pick it up. I suspect people are going to start citing great books by Spanish writers: before you do, double check that the writer isn’t South American. Nothing I’ve said applies to South America and most of the great literature in Spanish was written after 1492, if you know what I mean.
As a further measure to pre-empt endless citations: Lorca. There, it’s said.
Sara, I was reading yesterday about Spanish playwright Félix Lope de Vega, who stopped writing the hard way in 1635, and I understand more of what you’re saying. His reputation is purportedly second only to Cervantes, yet of the 1500+ (!) plays he wrote, only 400 or so were good enough for anyone to bother preserving a copy.
They claim to read the Bible, but really if they read the whole thing it would take them the whole year. Makes me wonder if my reading one to three books per week (or more)is a result of some form of mental illness, lol.
Exactly Sean, you got my gist.
There’s a reading incentive program going on now where they post the first pages of books inside metro wagons, theoretically to peak people’s interest and get them to read the whole thing. Except for one poem by Lorca, I haven’t yet read a single one of these posters that I like (and being a compulsive reader I have to read every single one of them, every single time I’m in the Metro. Torture really).
The problem with these “books” is:
1. No f– plot discernable in the first page
2. Starting with childhood memories, which judging by the historical references all belong to a 50+ person, mostly male.
3. About half are classical children stories. Why someone should get credit and free publicity for retyping classic nursery rhymes is beyond me.
4. Atrocious writing. 200+ word phrases and such. In Spanish, you can get away with a 100-130 word phrase, but 200 is pushing it, even for a language based on subordinate clauses.
5. The poetry is… imagine a bunch of fifteen-year-olds told to write poetry in a classroom without teachers full of nice runny red paint. Or alternatively, imagine a social gathering of some seven sixty-year old women married to civil servants, sipping coffe and gossiping when suddenly, one of them says: say, I’ve decided to become a poet.
6. They’re making me read this, dammit! I have rights!
Scary, very scary.
Hell, I can burn through a Harry Potter epic in one day. Most weeks I read at LEAST a book a day.
I work in my clients’ homes, and I was deeply disturbed the first few times I worked in a house that HAD NO BOOKS. I mean, my parents don’t read voraciously like I do, but they still have shelves and shelves of books around. I still find it hard to imagine what on earth people could be doing with their lives that precludes owning even a cookbook or reference work.
They’re getting everything they need from that newfangled radio gizmo. Books are for people with smarts.
Illitate means “unable to read or write.” I don’t think this article is appropriately titled. Choosing not to read is not the same thing as being unable to read (for instance street signs, job application papers, etc), although I agree it is shocking how little few books many people read.
Three books a week? Are you cutting back? I read about maybe, 5-7 books a week. Yeah, about one every day.
My mom reads at least two books a day… I don’t think it’s really possible for her to read less. She’s a journalist. Is it even possible for people to not read? I mean, you get bored, you grab a book. I never leave the house without a book, in case I’m walking and I suddenly think, “Gee, I’m kinda bored.”, and I just take the book out.