Recently in Misc. Category

Almost 5 years ago I blog a short article, on a now defunct blog, about the lack of reading in our country. I did so in conjunction with the goal of reading 10 books for 2005. Since then I've made that goal, lately with ease. I'm reposting the article because the topic of aliteracy seems to be recurring.

RIP - RIF
"The Reading is Fundamental program isn't in trouble as the title implies indeed it is sorely needed. While I was at the NYWC one of the speakers noted among other sobering statistics that most high school graduates will not read another non-fiction book. That struck me as odd since I've read 6 just this year - not counting textbooks.

As Teri and I talked we began to wonder what percentage of the population reads 10 or more books each year. While I haven't found the answer to that here's some statistics that shed some light on the sad problem of America's literacy.

• Only about a third of the nation's public school children read proficiently
• Circulation of English-language papers in the United States has declined 11 percent since 1990.
• One-third of high school graduates never read a book for the rest of their lives.
• Fifty-eight percent of the U.S. adult population never reads a book after high school.
• Forty-two percent of college graduates never read another book.
• Eighty percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
• Seventy percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• Fifty-seven percent of new books are not read to completion. Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
• Of the people who do read books 53 percent read fiction 43 percent nonfiction.
• Of the top 50 books fiction outsells nonfiction about 60 percent to 40 percent.
• Each day people in the U.S. spend four hours watching TV three hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.

NEA chairman Dana Gioia said 'We have a lot of functionally literate people who are no longer engaged readers. We're seeing an enormous cultural shift from print media to electronic media and the unintended consequences of that shift.' According to an NEA study only 57% of adults read any book at all during 2002. While the drop in reading is wide spread it was marked for adult men of whom only 38% read any literature.

Of course none of the statistics answered my question "What percentage of the population reads at least 10 books a year(a high volume of books)?" (for children who are encouraged to read by their parents 63% read more than 10 books a year and 51% of children whose parents leave it up to them)

More than a few years ago I set a goal of reading at least 10 books each year. I've not had any problems making this goal - in fact, this year I'm already half way to that goal.
I don't plan on expanding that goal nor do I plan stopping once I reach it but I thought I would change things a little this year by formalizing a reading list. Last year I realized, in December, that I hadn't read any fiction and a lack of variety can lead to burn out foe me - so a reading list may help. Here's what I plan to read this year:

Books Related to Ministry or Leadership

Think Orange: Imagine the Impact When Church and Family Collide...

The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

The Power of Team Leadership: Achieving Success Through Shared Responsibility (Barna Reports)

Leadership Essentials for Children's Ministry: Passion, Attitude, Teamwork, Honor

Parenting

Covering Home: Lessons on the Art of Fathering from the Game of Baseball

Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God

Theology

Theology for the Community of God

How to Think Theologically, 2nd Edition

The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible

Biography

Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables

The Church of 80% Sincerity

Fiction

Angel of Wrath: A Novel (The Voice of God series)

Blown Coverage (Riley Covington Thriller Series #2)

Act of Treason

On his blog this morning, Mark Batterson expresses why, as an author, he thinks You Cannot Give Away Too Many Books. In talking about his first book, he says, "Those hundreds of copies given away translated into thousands of books purchased..."

From the reader perspective, I wholly agree. If an author is confident enough about his book to give some away and it's a good book, people will recommend the book. From the reader side of things I try to do the same thing within my limited budget. If I find a book that I think will help people I'll certainly recommend it, but I try to go a step farther and give it to them. Currently I have a stack of "multiple copy books." That I intend to give away as I come across people that would benefit from reading them. Publishers, E-bay, Amazon and other sites often make it easy to buy multiple copies fairly cheap.

Of course, there's a push back in me as well. I've noticed that our culture has a tendency to devalue things that are free - the assumption is that there is no value in it. Batterson could be taking a huge loss with no benefit when he begins giving away copies of his next book. The books I give away thinking they could add great value to a life could wind up under the couch. But, that's a risk that I'm willing to take.

Have you ever done a book review?

Tons of people have given their opinions about books they've read and added them to the publisher's site, Amazon, or any number of other sites. And, from time to time, you may come across sites that will offer to send you a book for free if you'll promise to review it. While many things on the internet have a catch, these sites generally do not. They may be the author or the publisher trying to drum up publicity for a new book. In fact, I'd venture to say that sending books to the general public if hopes of a review on a blog or Amazon has become pretty common practice.

Enter the FTC. The FTC has ruled that it is going to attempt to regulate blogs. The FTC website says:

The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement.

While I understand the idea is to prevent consumers from being misled by false positive reviews, I still think it's overreaching and basically unmanageable. It shows that the FTC is unaware of how the publishing industry gives away books in exchange for reviews and come close to (or maybe clearly breaches) free speech laws. Publishers don't give bloggers books in exchange for positive reviews - they just want publicity of any kind...and if you don't blog about the book, that's fine too.

Further, who is reading a bloggers review of a book and not double checking other reviews? If you're buying a book because Bob says it's good, even if Bob is famous, and it turns out to be a horrible book, I really don't think that Bob is to blame. If you are not already predisposed to making a purchase, do your research. If you are, don't blame anyone else when you product isn't what you expected.

I thought that this topic would get a bit more fanfare, but other than this New York Times editorial, I didn't find much else. Perhaps everyone is okay with this feeling bloggers simply have to add an "I received this book from Nelson Publishing" at the bottom of their review, what's the problem? The problem I have isn't so much the disclosure, I can certainly add that statement to my reviews...but what about my tweets? What about when I tell someone in one of my classes or at my church about the book I enjoyed? I think it's rather silly that the FTC wants to consider Joe Schmoe who happens to get a free book from a publisher a "word of mouth marketer."

I suppose it's time to figure out how to suggest a book and add "I originally received this book from Random House" in less than 140 characters in case I want to suggest a free book to a friend.