I love to see what books other people are reading. I don't like to be rude, but it's not beyond me to crane my neck or squint a little to decipher the title of a stranger's book. A great time to spy on the reading habits of the general population is when you're flying somewhere. But, if my latest trip was any indicator, the NEA's right. Reading in America is in dramatic decline. Especially literary reading.
From Little Rock to Philadelphia and back, four different flights in all, plus the airport waiting time, these are the only books I saw being read:
Two people were reading Dan Brown's Lost Symbol (both women), one older woman was reading Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, a twenty-something woman was reading Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper, one man was reading Mitch Albom's latest book, Have a Little Faith, an older man was reading a Louis L'Amour novel, and one twenty-something guy was reading Dostoyevsky (I couldn't see the title). I think he gets the prize.
From Little Rock to Philadelphia and back, four different flights in all, plus the airport waiting time, these are the only books I saw being read:
Two people were reading Dan Brown's Lost Symbol (both women), one older woman was reading Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, a twenty-something woman was reading Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper, one man was reading Mitch Albom's latest book, Have a Little Faith, an older man was reading a Louis L'Amour novel, and one twenty-something guy was reading Dostoyevsky (I couldn't see the title). I think he gets the prize.
To be fair, plenty of people could have had a book in their carry-on that they didn't pull out until we were mid-flight, but I thought the numbers were disappointing.
1 comment:
On my last flight I sat next to a guy reading the biography of Flannery O'Connor. Not something you see every day.
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