The Literary Flame is Dying – Does it Need Kindling?
Last night I spoke with my dad, an independent bookstore owner for 33 years, about Amazon’s introduction of the Kindle. Surprisingly the discussion didn’t end up being about whether this would catch on or not, or whether this means the end of books as we know them. Instead, my dad pointed out a study released by the National Endowment for the Arts the same day as the Kindle, which concludes that young people (college age and younger) are reading books far less than they ever have before. The study also goes on to show how “literary readers” perform better on tests, have higher incomes and are more likely to vote, exercise, and perform volunteer work.
In short, it proved something my dad has been preaching for as long as my sister and I could read: reading leads to good things.
Enabling, encouraging and empowering people to read books is most important. Obviously Amazon wants to make a ton of money selling the Kindle and then the books to read on it, but hopefully it will also reach a big market (which Amazon thinks exists) that needs books to be digitized and accessible online to encourage readership. Just like the iPod and iTunes created music lovers and collectors out of people that previously were not, the Kindle could potentially do the same for books.
Having a successful bookstore was always my dad’s main goal, but empowering people to read was a close second. The guilt I used to get for not reading enough was pretty bad… and rightfully so. The Kindle may not convert paper book readers to digital book readers, but it does have potential to turn Internet generation non-readers into readers. Will that happen? Maybe… Hopefully.
As my dad said, “the important thing is the word, not the format.”