It's Hard to Be a Reader

It seems that reading is all around us. Directions, signs, mail, the infamous text message, email, work email, school email, all these nonchalant forms us reading just to make it through everyday life. Sometimes after a busy day at work when I've spent all day trying to read, and decipher, other people’s questions, it's surprising that I want to go home and read for fun.

The idea of reading for fun should be exactly that: fun. On the contrary, sometimes searching for that right book, the book that will hit that arbitrarily established, perfect selection is almost impossible to find. Why is this?

I have a few reasons and a few examples to suggest:

Reason #1:

My first answer to this frustrating question is publishing. Have you ever browsed through a bookstore and seen the massive amount of totally off the wall titles? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there is a book dealing with anything you can think of. Has the publishing world even heard of the word discretion? Do they know the difference between utter garbage and useful, entertaining material? I'm not talking about bestsellers and children's books. I'm talking about the How to Manuals for everything under the sun. The plethora of self helps books that restate the same topics monthly. Do people actually read these books?? I'd just like to know? Are these the types of books that geniuses read so that they can win Jeopardy?

Reason #2

Great Expectations. Anyone who has ever read a really good book, a book that they absolutely just loved, now has their expectations too high to ever really enjoy a good book again. This is why reading a good book is bittersweet. You can no longer purely enjoy a book if you take the time to think about how much you're enjoying it, getting out of it, learning from it and the impression it's made on you. Oh, you can think about it and how much you like it, but in the back of your mind you're gradually counting down to the end.

It gets worse; after you've read that title that blows away all other options you spend the rest of your time trying to find something better. It's a vicious cycle.

#3

Here's a great example: I'm a huge Jane Austen fan. I absolutely love "Sense and Sensibility." Unfortunately, my love of all things Jane Austen does not automatically offshoots and topical related Jane Austen novels any good. I was recently reading "Austenland," a contemporary novel about a New York City writer, of course, lands a trip to a Pride and Prejudice inspired reality vacation. I made the mistake of reading 100 pages more than I should of, trying to trick myself since it's only a 200 page book. Alas, I finally gave up, being bored to death by generic clichés, an obvious story line and a wannabe Carrie Bradshaw. The thing that makes me the most frustrated is that I wasted minutes, hours of my life reading crap that will have no lasting impression. Ugh.

To counter this semi-negative essay I will include some of my favorite titles on the sidebar to the right.

Reading and Vocabulary

This month's cover story in American Libraries, "It's All about Books -- Not!," deals with the ever popular issue of teens and reading.

I think this is an interesting topic to discuss since it addresses the shift in teen reading behavior. I think it's good that the National Endowment for the Arts is going to study teen reading specifically. Although the adult report's definition of reading was a little bit stingy, it was very interesting. The area that I have trouble with is when the article includes reading text messages as a form of reading.

Let's be realistic. Text messaging is a quick form of communication comprised primarily of acronyms and gossip. I don't really see how texting, instant messaging and other like formats should really qualify as a shift in teen reading behavior. I understand that it's really popular and highly used, but how does that play into education and learning? It has been proven time and time again that the more a person reads the larger their vocabulary is and the better they do in school.

While the library can use these tools to get in touch with teens, schools and libraries still need to promote the concept of reading. And by reading I mean physical books, with words printed on the page. I doubt that teenagers are using complex words, spell check, or a thesaurus in their text messages to each other.

In this fast-paced world being able to sit still and read a book for fun is not often looked upon as important. Like I stated before, the effects of reading, especially classic literature has a huge effect on vocabulary development and comprehension.

One of the more prestigious Police Departments I applied for, uses as its first elimination step a reading and vocabulary exam. 1100 people took the exam with me and only 100 people made it onto the next step. I owe my high test score almost exclusively to the extra-curricular reading I did during high school and college. People might be surprised that fields like law enforcement require knowledge of reading comprehension and spelling, but it shows that these are the basic skills that everyone needs to be successful in this world. What's more embarrassing than having a police report, which is an legal document, full of errors and inaccuracies when it's read in a court room? Enough said.