The 50 Shades of Grey trilogy has set the record for the fastest selling book of all time. The Hunger Games trilogy has sold more than 23.5 million books in the U.S alone. Yet, teenagers are reading fewer books for fun.
hayden crosby | rawr
University of Idaho junior Emily Williams, a theater arts major, reads the Splendid Wayfaring by Haldane Macfall at Bucer’s Coffee House Pub, located on Main Street in downtown Moscow. Williams said she enjoys reading fictional books.
“I think when an author comes along and has something really important to say that people will flock to read them.” Jonah Mix, a BookPeople of Moscow Inc. employee said, “I think that the fact we don’t read recreationally quite as much has more to due to the fact that we need more writers that address the things we actually care about”
According to the National Endowment of the Arts, nearly half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure. This number has doubled since the same question was asked twenty years ago.
“I enjoy reading since it gets you away from the stresses of life and put yourself in a different world,” freshman Tim Martin said.
Companies all over the world are figuring out how to make people interested in reading again. According to Amazon, less than four years after the first Kindle e-reader was introduced, e-book sales exceeded the sales of both print and hardback books combined.
“I personally far prefer having paper books and having them in my house,” Mix said. “But I think that e-readers serve people that don’t read as much and enable them to read on-the-go and read things faster.”
E-books are becoming part of everyday life. iPads, Kindles, and Nooks all have apps that cater to electronic reading. The University of Idaho bookstore offers e-textbooks for students. At the same time, the prevalence of e-books is leading to the closure of bookstores nationwide. In 2011, Borders — the nation’s second largest bookstore — closed its doors
Some bookstores are adapting in order to survive. BookPeople hopes to have e-books available at their store by the end of the year, and many bookstores still have a loyal fan-base that prefers paper books.
“I think that the kids who are growing up today and are ten and twelve and that are on the Internet all the time are going to go from reading Tweets and stuff like that to reading real books.” Mix said.
Aleya Ericson can be reached at [email protected]