To Read or Not....

Are books read or bought?

Allegedly 50,000 copies of Jane Austen are sold a year*. They may be bought, but are they read? If statistics are to be believed, the average household has four books – a Bible, a cookbook, a car or house manual and something else. This may well be different now with electronic book readers. But the point is not so much about people having books but about reading.  I am always amazed when people tell me they ‘never read’, or if they do it is ‘not fiction’. Again, if the statistics are to be believed, on the whole, men and women still reflect stereotypical reading preferences of adventure and romance. However, recently there was a buck in the trend, when women started reading ‘explicit erotic literature’ in their thousands, because they could do so anonymously on electronic book readers.

A real reader, often a solitary creature, will read literally anything. Sitting and holding a book is part of the solitary, personal addiction. This sometimes expensive habit is best fed by libraries, but there are second hand book shops where indescribable experiences of pleasure can take place. For the bibliophile, online secondhand books are a real dilemma and danger, a joy and a betrayal both at the same time. The ubiquitous, anonymous, unfailing online book seller has the book that is ‘wanted’, but at what cost to the usual supplier - the secondhand book shop.

Never was so much owed by so many to so few – the small independent booksellers and secondhand shops who continue their brave fight with passion and love for books and literacy, in the face of philistinism. I must shamefacedly admit that I do not buy new books – I have got to a certain age. But I do want wholeheartedly to support my local shops. Burway Books in Church Stretton http://www.burwaybooks.co.uk/ is a truly great little shop, love of books ooze out of the shelves. Much More Books in Much Wenlock http://www.muchmorebooks.co.uk/  is probably one of the best secondhand book shops in the country. Like all good secondhand book shops there is no snobbery. The owners love and read books too and know what ‘real readers’ want, so there is a Mills and Boon section.

Here is my first suspicion about who are the real readers, if any, of Jane Austen. Mills and Boon the publishers of romance novels and their readers are always looked down upon like the poor relations. I think it is these ‘real readers’ who are responsible for a large part of the 50,000 sales a year of Austen. These avid romance readers also read other classics like the Brontës, George Eliot, Mrs Gaskill etc.

My second suspicion is that people buy books because they think they should read them. This is intellectual ‘improvement’ by association. Years ago I knew someone who always had a worthy tome under their arm and gave the impression of reading them, which made them seem ‘well read’. As a mutual acquaintance pointed out, they had never seen the person in question reading anything, which was pretty much the truth. For non ‘real readers’ there is no guilt attached to buying books and not reading them; books exonerate themselves by being worthy objects to have around the house or be seen with – even more so if they are ‘classics’. The non reader can also claim that the book is in a state of not ‘not read’ just ‘waiting to be read’ – when there is more time – it has been started! A ‘real reader’ knows time to read books is made, or stolen. A ‘real reader’ will give a book a chance, because books have surprises or twists.

A new film or TV series is made of a ‘classic’, the book of the film etc is re-branded with the actors on the cover, and it turns into a impulse purchase. The re-branded ‘classic’ is bought very much like a film magazine, not really for the content but the images. The re-branded book is bought because the person buying it wants to be reminded of the film and associate with it.

One of my favorite books is Vanity Fair – and I do like the idea of Thackeray laughing at me laughing at him – wherever he is. The TV tie-in of Vanity Fair has the dashing Jack Klaff on the cover – what whiskers! Ah! dear reader –

"Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum!" which of us is happy in the world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?"

I truly hope that next years 50,000 copies of Austen are bought ( if they must be) in the independent bookshops…. and some from secondhand book shops

* www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21227207Cached Jane Austen's "one darling child" Pride and Prejudice was published ... that Pride and Prejudice sells up to 50,000 copies each year in the UK.