The Distant Suns of Gene Wolfe

don doggett · 03 Jun 2007, 20:57 · from 2007-June.txt.gz

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From: kingwukong at yahoo.com (don doggett)
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 13:57:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) The Distant Suns of Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <200706031620.12417.ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
Message-ID: <472456.80742.qm at web32401.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Sorry, I don't buy it. The guy got his stats from google, and I can tell you that our store, which I won't name, made 4 million dollars last year, two thirds of which were from book sales. People read; we're probably more literate as humans than at any other point in our history, but literacy doesn't equal critical thinking. It may make people feel good to think we're part of a dying breed as readers, the same way that celebrating banned books month makes people feel like they're fighting oppression (even though every book on that list is readily available everywhere in the US every day) but I personally don't believe it's that simple. Or maybe it's simply that the written word is so prevalent that it's not precious anymore. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Don

Daniel D Jones <ddjones at riddlemaster.org> wrote: On Saturday 02 June 2007 17:03, Daniel D Jones wrote:
> Readers are becoming a distinct minority.  And for most of those who do
> cling to the habit, many or most of them use it as a means of escape and
> relaxation.  They don't want a writer who demands so much of them.  Those
> of us who enjoy literature which requires active participation are a
> minority within a minority.

Replying to my own post, but I recently ran across this blog which really 
brings home the point I was making.  It's a blog, so take it with a grain of 
salt but there's a link to a Slate article which backs up the essence of what 
it says (although not the actual figures quoted.)

http://newpairodimes.blogspot.com/2007/06/u.html

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The Evangelists: a Lesser Apocrypha                                                                        http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=178109961

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