Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Via Galleycat, today I read about an event entitled “Great Expectations: A Reading Marathon.” Scheduled to occur this October, and started by the RiverRun Bookstore in New Hampshire, the plan is for independent bookstores to host “24-hour reading marathons in their stores, designed to highlight the importance of reading to our culture, as well as create an opportunity for booklovers to tackle the next book on their to-read pile.” And while I appreciate the spirit behind “Great Expectations,” I think that this doesn’t do anything to “highlight the importance of reading.” Instead it’s just, as Galleycat describes, a stunt. I mean, I think it’s great when Symphony Space reads the entirety of Ulysses on Bloomsday; that makes perfect thematic sense (something which the RiverRun bookstore, with such a Joycean name, must appreciate). But to just pick one day a year when everyone sort of crams words into their head just for the sake of doing so, in a literary version of the Coney Island Nathan’s hot dog eating contest, only further marginalizes reading rather than truly endorsing it. And while I have indeed read books in one sitting — in marathon stretches — when I was struck by certain material, to force people around the country to hunker down and read non-stop seems almost like punishment (no matter how RiverRun tries to spice things up in their Handy Tips for Hosting a Read-A-Thon: “Break up the round-the-clock reading with a few activities. Literary Trivial Pursuit, local author readings, and midnight snacks all are fun possibilities”: going home early is also a fun possibility). And if this caught on, and became an annual thing, then I could see reading becoming for people a yearly chore akin to having their teeth cleaned. The bottomline is that we need to try and get people to read more, but I’m not sure this is the best way to do so.