Occasionally, those who break out a book in public—in a café, for instance, or a doctor’s waiting room—will rouse some curious observer to ask, “What are you reading?” Given that most people nowadays have their eyes glued to a screen rather than to print and paper (in my favorite coffee shop, those staring into their phones or laptops outnumber bookies at least five or six to one), the question undoubtedly arises with less frequency.
To answer this question is easy enough. Far more difficult to answer is another question, rare as a February marigold yet more apropos today than 30 years ago: “Why are you reading a book?”
A Few Stats
Since the advent of the digital age, the number of books Americans read annually has declined. The average American now reads around 12 books per year, down two or three books from a decade earlier. Given that today we can carry a vast arcade of games, movies, music, social media, and podcasts in a machine that fits in our pocket, the wonder isn’t in the decline but that anyone reads books at all. We have at our fingertips entertainment undreamed of just 50 years ago.
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
