Adult Readers Advisory: Week 16 Prompt

Both of our readings this week talk about the culture of reading and the future of the book. So I have two questions for you as readers, pulling on your own experiences and all of the readings we have done over the semester: First, how have reading and books changed since you were a child, for you specifically? Second, talk a little about what you see in the future for reading, books, or publishing - say 20 years from now. Will we read more or less, will our reading become more interactive? What will happen to traditional publishing?

I grew up in a "reading" family, surrounding by books, magazines, and newspapers. My parents read to us when we were young and encouraged us to read when we were older, and my parents continue to be voracious readers - my mom reads novels and my dad reads magazines, newspapers, blogs, and the occasional books (mostly nonfiction). Those experiences shaped my reading habits and, to this day, I read a lot. One of the biggest changes since I was a child has been the explosion of books for teens. I work often in our Teen Library and I have to confess that I am a little jealous of the teens that come in - I went pretty much straight from children's chapter books to novels for adults. Honestly, though, I'm so happy that there are so many books in so many different styles and genres written specifically for teens. Provided that teens are given the freedom to explore on their own and read what they want to read, I think this will help build a strong generation of readers - stronger than my generation, that mostly went from children's chapter books to adult books. I just wish John Green, or someone like him, had been writing books for teens when I was a teen - I would have eaten it up!

I also see more and more subgenres and crossover genres, and I really enjoy exploring them. A lot of this is driven by e-books (where you can read romances about gay werewolves in the Army to your heart's content if you want), but these subgenres are creeping into print too. It makes it more difficult for libraries, I think, but as a reader, I love being able to dip my toe into a new type of book.

I think that fracturing is where the future lies, and we need to embrace it (even though it's tougher for the library profession). I'm not super concerned about the future of books, reading, or publishing. As Ursula K. LeGuin pointed out in, "Staying Awake," there's never been a time that everybody has read, and reading has continued. I'd take it a step further and say that storytelling has been around since we had enough language to tell stories, and so, regardless of format, storytelling will continue. If you look at it that way, storytelling has never been more robust. Traditional books may not have quite the market share, but they are still thriving, both in print and in e-books. There are also graphic novels, audiobooks, podcasts (some of which tell stories, like the popular "Welcome to Night Vale" - it's basically a serialized radio drama), magazines, blogs, newspapers, and news sites, not to mention movies, TV shows, and documentary films. Publishing firms are already embracing this, and they will continue to embrace it as they see money in it.

The biggest thing that we, as librarians and as book advocates, need to do is to accept the varied ways that people read and support that. That means different things to different libraries, but the biggest thing is give people the opportunity to find what they like to read, without judgment. That may mean making sure to purchase things in a variety of genres and subgenres, or creating displays and book lists, or boosting your magazine subscriptions or audiobook collection, or getting more e-books, or something else. Whether they're checking out "Great Expectations" or "50 Shades of Grey," it doesn't really matter - the more we accept this, the better off reading will be.