WHERE HAVE ALL THE WRITERS GONE?

"One in four adults read no books at all in the past year," according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. "Of those who did read, women and older people were the most avid." The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. It seems that people would rather do just about anything other than read. This is reflected by book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. The article about this poll said that analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.

In 2004, A National Endowment for the Arts report titled, "Reading at Risk" found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002, a four percentage point drop in a decade. The study faulted television, movies and the Internet.

All of this is quite disheartening to me. I am a voracious reader - and a struggling writer, so it effects me in two ways. The publishing industry seems to back only a handful of successful writers these days. Authors like James Patterson and Danielle Steele receive the lion's share of marketing in the business, and the mega-bookstores, which have squeezed out the smaller, more intimate book shops of the past, cater to mass sales, instead of stocking works by new writers published by smaller presses. Once again, business trumps art, making it nearly impossible for an unknown, no matter how gifted, to get anywhere.

We are a nation of instant gratification...a people who have left behind a rich history of creative story-telling in favor of Cliff Notes. Why take the time to read a book - when the movie will be out in a few months? Reading requires a stillness of soul - a time set apart from the whirlwind of living to become absorbed in worlds created by words only, where our imaginations provide the visuals, without Dolby Sound and computer generated special effects.

In the quest for publication and agent representation, the author is now instructed to grab a reader in the first sentence. Actually, agents say that if an author has not hooked them with something unique in the first couple of sentences, they do not bother to read any further. This would mean that great works of literature, like Gone with the Wind, Red Badge of Courage, anything by Jane Austen or even Hemingway, would probably never get to first base in today's world of publishing.

We are becoming people of the digital age. Using cash is frowned upon...CD's are being replaced by music downloads...and there are rumblings of the same thing happening with books. Books can be downloaded and read online. Is this a good thing? Not in my opinion.

I love the feel of the book in my hand - the smell of the pages and the tightness of a new book when I first open it. I also loved the well-worn book - the books purchased second-hand, passed from one reader to the next. I like wondering who read it before me - what did they think of it? Did they talk about the book with their friends, or their family? Did the characters in the book appear in their dreams or pop up in their thoughts during the day?

Sadly, we book lovers may soon be a minority. Not sure how to change this trend - but thought it was worth discussing.

When was the last time you read a book?