What I'm Reading This Week-- March 28, 2010
Quote de jour
"Reading is my greatest luxury and necessity."
~LMW
I Googled some reading stats this morning and almost spat my coffee out. In 2007, one in four people in the U.S. had read NO books in the past year. Oddly enough, 80% of the same population wanted to write a book. Hmmm, I needed to find out more. The following statistics about book publishing and reading were found on www.parapub.com,
With a logjam of books to clear, I'm reading only one new book this week. Shadow Tag is the latest novel from Louise Erdrich, a prolific Native American writer, poet and independent bookseller. This interview of the writer captures her spirit. I love that she owns an old-fashioned bookstore.http://www.birchbarkbooks.com We need more places like this. If you haven't visited your local bookstore lately (I don't mean the big ones), please do. The novel set in snowy Minnesota, chronicles a crumbling marriage zigzagging between two diaries. The main character Irene, writes opens the novel by confessing, "I have two diaries now." In the blue diary, stored in a safe deposit box, she records her truth: the anger and frustration with her artist hubby Gil, who won't agree to dissolve their floundering marriage. In the red diary hidden at home where she knows Gil will read it, she makes up lies of infidelity carefully constructed to incense him to the brink. In between diary entries, details filled in by an omniscient narrator (whose identity isn’t revealed until the last chapter). I'm half way through this cautionary tale of that straddles the thin line between love and hate. I find her prose muscular and compelling as driving past a burning train wreck.
To recap reading from last week. I LOVED beaucoup Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard. Do not read this on an empty stomach but do read it and her blog http://www.elizabethbard.blogspot.com
I have a friend on march break in Paris and I'm vert with envy. Can... not... wait... to... kiss... French... soil... again.
"Reading is my greatest luxury and necessity."
~LMW
I Googled some reading stats this morning and almost spat my coffee out. In 2007, one in four people in the U.S. had read NO books in the past year. Oddly enough, 80% of the same population wanted to write a book. Hmmm, I needed to find out more. The following statistics about book publishing and reading were found on www.parapub.com,
1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion. ( or in my case, lots of skimming)
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)
53 percent read fiction, 43 percent read nonfiction. The favorite fiction category is mystery and suspence, at 19 percent.
55 percent of fiction is bought by women, 45 percent by men.
(Source: Publishers Weekly)
About 120,000 books are published each year in the U.S.
(Source: www.bookwire.com)
A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.
A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.
(Source: Authors Guild, www.authorsguild.org)
On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.
(Source: Para Publishing, www.parapub.com)
Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.
(Source: Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment banker).
Are you as shocked as I am? I read for about two hours a day and still have time for TV. Mind you, I did go a bit overboard with the magazines this week...
Are you as shocked as I am? I read for about two hours a day and still have time for TV. Mind you, I did go a bit overboard with the magazines this week...
With a logjam of books to clear, I'm reading only one new book this week. Shadow Tag is the latest novel from Louise Erdrich, a prolific Native American writer, poet and independent bookseller. This interview of the writer captures her spirit. I love that she owns an old-fashioned bookstore.http://www.birchbarkbooks.com We need more places like this. If you haven't visited your local bookstore lately (I don't mean the big ones), please do.
To recap reading from last week. I LOVED beaucoup Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard. Do not read this on an empty stomach but do read it and her blog http://www.elizabethbard.blogspot.com
Posted by Layla Morgan Wilde at 3/28/2010 10:16 AM 
Categories: What I'm Reading This Week
Tags: Louise Erdrich what I'm reading this week Shadow Tag
Categories: What I'm Reading This Week
Tags: Louise Erdrich what I'm reading this week Shadow Tag
Boy those stats are really something. Blew me away. I am really surprised. I watched the video and she looks like a wonderful author. Some day I would love to read some of her books. I love to read and usually read everyday. I cannot imagine not reading. And I do love to read to learn. Now I am doing a lot of that on the computer. Thanks for intro to this new author for me.
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Aren't they scary stats.? I wonder how it is in other parts of the world.
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Oui, je suis vert avec la jalousie, aussi. Mais mes etudiantes anglaises de langage seconde retourne cette semaine de France, ...et alors, avec mes etudiantes Francaises et Montreal, il me semble que j'habite au France. LOL.
I must read that French book.
As shocking as the statistics are..and I have read similar before...
In the 50s, 60s and 70s only 1 percent of the US population went into a bookstore more than once a year to buy a book. When bookstores were cozy, dusty stores or small, very small Barnes and Noble stores, before the advent of le 'word processor' in the 80s that accounted for a huge influx in publishing and reading...In the 50s, I am guessing only about 25 - 50,000 books were even published per year, and a lot were textbooks.
I think about 100,000 books began to be published in the 80s, and about 200,000 not including self published or small press these days, but perhaps 400,000 if you include self published and small press.
Romance novels account for 1 out of 4 or 1 out of 2 fiction books bought in the US.
Erdrich is amazing. She and her husband taught at Dartmouth. Then ...many troubles.
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Moi aussi. You would like the book, good recipes too. Stata are incroyable.
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For me, writing is air. To write, I must also read. Books, I mean.
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Writers need to do both: like eating and drinking.
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I'd seen some of these stats before, and they are very sad. I think the one that shocked me the most is that 70% of adults have not been in a bookstore in five years. Reading, to me, is like breathing - I couldn't live without either!
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It boggles the mind.doesn't it?
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Well I must say that I could spend a good hour looking at some of the front covers of Vogue,
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