Good News for Our Tribe

[madrobins]

Here's some welcome news. Fiction reading "in adults" is up. Of course, this is the first time the NEA has asked about online or electronic reading, as opposed to meatbooks (as it were-meatbooks would be what you read in meatspace, no?) which may have made the numbers more reflective of real numbers than they'd been in the past. But the NEA, at least, doesn't see that as the whole reason for the increase. They credit book groups, Oprah, and the popularity of things like Twilight and Harry Potter, with bringing people back to the written word. Me, I find this a touch disingenuous: Potter's been out, and taking the world by storm, for a decade, give or take. Twilight for at least three years. Does this mean adults are just slow on the uptake?

As usual with this sort of report, I don't know whether to scoff or embrace this tiny shoot of hope. But if everyone embraces reading and we all walk around with our noses in books, book geeks will have to find another tribal identifier! Wigs! Funny hats! Nostril jewelry. Okay, maybe not.