Are we reading fewer books than we used to?

Is buying and reading paper books declining as a habit?  

It certainly appears to be the case in this digital age, where people are increasingly turning to e-books, audiobooks, and podcasts. E-books, in particular, are more accessible and convenient to buy, store and read.

As we do at every opportunity, my wife and I recently visited a book sale close to our home in suburban Mumbai. Under a large shamiana (or tent), there were hundreds of thousands of books—mostly paperbacks in near-mint condition—neatly lined in rows, their spines and titles facing up. As book exhibitions go, this one was quite impressive. The collection ranged from classic literature to contemporary bestsellers and everything in between.

Except for one thing.

The books seemed to be more on display than for sale. During our visit, most people appeared to be casual browsers, drifting in more out of curiosity than any real intent to buy. They would linger for a few minutes before moving on to other attractions—the colourful handlooms and handicrafts in the adjoining tents.

For over a decade now, the only people I regularly discuss books with are my family members and a few online friends who blog about the books they read. Almost no one in my immediate circle seems to be reading books. And if they are, I rarely hear about it.

Here are five reasons why people are probably no longer buying or reading books as they once did.

• Digital media—social media, smartphones and streaming services—offer constant entertainment and quick, short-term diversions, often displacing leisure reading.
• There appears to be a gradual decline in reading culture, particularly among younger generations, possibly due to reduced exposure to books within families and everyday life. My wife and I, like many of our generation, grew up surrounded by books, and they have stayed with us into adulthood.
• Many people say they simply do not have the time to read, citing busy schedules, constant multitasking, and long, tiring commutes.
• The attention economy—the digitally driven overload of information—may also be eroding sustained focus, making it harder for people to engage with long-form content such as books. In contrast, short-form content like posts, videos and stories is easier to consume and more engaging.
• Physical books are often perceived as less accessible and more expensive than e-books, especially in places where bookstores and libraries are limited. Bookshops and even secondhand bookstalls are also slowly disappearing, and not everyone can afford to buy books regularly.
  

While book sales may be declining, as people are either buying fewer books or reading less, they are still actively engaging with other forms of written content online—social media posts, articles, blogs and webzines.

This suggests that books are still very much present; it is our reading habits and preferences that have changed. It also means that my wife and I often have book fairs almost entirely to ourselves. And perhaps that is not such a bad thing after all.

Two debut thrillers and an exciting ebook

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides and Shiver by Allie Reynolds were gifts from my daughter. She'd enjoyed reading both the thrillers and thought my wife and I'd like them too. Her choice of crime fiction comes with high recommendations.

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The Silent Patient is described as "A shocking psychological thriller of a woman's act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive."

The blurb on the back of the 339-page book tells us about the story of Alicia Berenson who "lived a seemingly perfect life until one day six years ago (when) she shot her husband in the head five times. Since then she hasn't spoken a single word. It's time to find out why."

"They were all there. So which one of them did it?" says the cover of Shiver (Headline, 2021). The 425-page book tells the story of "A reunion weekend in the French Alps (that turns deadly when five friends discover that someone has deliberately stranded them at their remote mountaintop resort during a snowstorm."

The Silent Patient and Shiver are both debut novels and were to be developed as a movie and a television series, respectively; although, I have no updates about either of the ventures.

Carolyn Arnold's The Little Grave (2021) is the first Detective Amanda Steele book in what appears to be a series of ten books. The 324-page Kindle edition was available for free on Amazon. My thanks to the author.

This is what the book is about:

"It's been five years since Detective Amanda Steele's life was derailed by the tragic death of her young daughter. The small community of Dumfries, Virginia, may have moved on, but Amanda cannot. When the man who killed Lindsey is found murdered, she can't keep away from the case. Fighting her sergeant to be allowed to work such a personal investigation, Amanda is in a race to prove that she can uncover the truth. But the more she digs into the past of the man who destroyed her future, the more shocking discoveries she makes."

At present, I'm reading The Silent Patient in paperback and The Little Grave on my tablet.

Why I chose to give away my books

Each one of us has a unique relationship with books. We all have anecdotes and stories to tell about the books we buy, collect, read, hoard, and never read. Then, one day, something—I don't know if it's age, wisdom, or common sense—prompts us to do what once seemed unthinkable: downsize our collection. Give away books we have been holding on to for years. Free up space on shelves, in cabinets, and up in the loft. And start again, one book at a time.

At least, that was my plan.

I owned very few books in my youth, the years between 14 and 25 when I read the most books. In those days, I could finish a novel in two or three sittings, sometimes in half a day, and start another by night. I borrowed books from private circulating libraries, the British Council Library and the American Library. 

Then, somewhere down the years, career and family life took precedence. I stopped going to libraries because of the distance and lack of time, and instead started buying books—more than I could read. Not that anyone or anything stopped me from reading as I did before. Yet, somehow, I never quite read with the same intensity again.

Over the next three decades, I accumulated so many books that several of my mysteries, thrillers and westerns followed me to every new place of work. They sat quietly in office desks and cabinets, seldom getting a chance to tell me their stories. Then came the comforts and distractions of the tech age, and my goal of reading a certain number of books and short stories every month—in other words, reducing my TBR pile—went out the window.

About a year after the onset of the pandemic, I decided enough was enough. We were in the middle of a home renovation when I took stock of my collection and removed nearly two hundred books. I eventually gave them away to anyone who was interested or sold them to footpath booksellers at throwaway prices. 

I had little choice. Some of those books had remained unread for years. My logic was simple: if I hadn't read them by then, I sure as hell wasn't going to read them now. Fortunately, most of the books I weeded out were secondhand and didn’t cost a lot of money, though the parting did hurt for a while.

Now I have fewer than a hundred books, mostly paperbacks by some of my favourite authors and a small collection of nonfiction. Among them are a dozen books on the craft of writing by seasoned writers such as Stephen King, Francine Prose, Ray Bradbury, Anne Lamott, Benjamin Dreyer, Annie Dillard, and Bill Bryson. These are the books I return to often. They are my writing companions, offering lessons in craft, sharing the wisdom of experience, and helping me become a better reader and writer.

Over the past three years, I have made up for the "loss" of my books by buying ebooks or downloading them from public-domain and online libraries. I read them on my Kindle and Samsung tablet. I still buy paper books, of course, but no more than half a dozen a year. Most come from Amazon, second-hand booksellers, and book fairs, depending on what I happen to find.

The thing about de-cluttering books, to borrow a phrase from George Bernard Shaw in another context, is the illusion that it has taken place. No matter how many books we discard, there are always plenty around the place. I guess the only way to pare down our collections is to read books as soon as we buy them.

A visit to a book fair in South Mumbai

My wife and I frequently travel to South Mumbai, roughly 22 km (17 miles) from our home in the suburbs, to spend a few delightful hours among its art deco buildings, historical landmarks, art galleries and cultural scenes; walk along the sea-facing promenades; visit footpath booksellers and book exhibitions; shop on the causeway; and eat at traditional restaurants.

The island city holds a special place for us. We both grew up there. You can read more about our trip at our new website Pocketful of Happiness.

Here are a few pictures from a book exhibition that we went to. There were literally thousands of books–fiction and nonfiction, paperbacks and hardbacks. Most books cost no more than a dollar or two. We bought a few. The book fair was organised by Ashish Book Centre and held near Churchgate, which serves as the headquarters of the suburban Western Railway network in South Mumbai.

 

© All photographs by Prashant C. Trikannad

The Ann Patchett excerpt that made me buy her books

Excerpts often influence whether I pick up books by authors I have never read before. That, along with a post on Twitter (now X), is how I discovered the award-winning American author Ann Patchett, who writes both fiction and nonfiction.

I was drawn to her writing when I read about her latest book Tom Lake, which is described as a “Beautiful and moving novel about family, love and growing up” or in the words of The Guardian, “A truth that feels like life rather than literature.”

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Those are the kind of books I have always enjoyed reading, and hope to write someday, now more so since my wife and I launched a website Pocketful of Happiness which stemmed from our desire to be as happy as possible and spread a little joy among our readers. Books like these have a feel-good quality about them. 

Ann Patchett's writing has been variously described as warm, poetic, illuminating, rich, poignant, funny, powerful, compelling and stirring. This was evident from the many excerpts I read including this affecting passage from This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (2013):

“People seem able to love their dogs with an unabashed acceptance that they rarely demonstrate with family or friends. The dogs do not disappoint them, or if they do, the owners manage to forget about it quickly. I want to learn to love people like this, the way I love my dog, with pride and enthusiasm and a complete amnesia for faults. In short, to love others the way my dog loves me.”

It prompted me to buy the book along with These Precious Days: Essays (2021). Both are personal  and literary collections of essays and memoir.

I look forward to reading one of these books as soon as I finish Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links.

Why I left a book fair empty-handed

About a month ago, I visited a Books by Weight exhibition in South Mumbai hosted by Butterfly Books and, in a rare display of self-restraint, left empty-handed. 

It wasn't because there were no good books to buy. I simply didn't feel the urge. Perhaps two years of working from home, followed by a hybrid routine, had something to do with it. Apart from evening walks, the occasional social visit and grocery runs in the neighbourhood, I had barely ventured out until that day.

I was also conscious that there was little point in adding to a collection of books that already contained many unread books. Only a few months earlier, my wife and I had given away more than a hundred paperbacks. I had no desire to replace them with another stack that might sit unread for months, if not years.

As I grow older, though not necessarily wiser, I find myself increasingly drawn to the idea of owning fewer things and making better use of what I already have. That applies to books as much as anything else: read them, enjoy them and then pass them on. 

One evening, my wife asked me, "What are you finally going to do with all your books? It's time to move on." 

She had a point. It's not as though I own a treasure trove of rare and valuable editions, aside from a few out-of-print western paperbacks and some books with particularly memorable covers. What she really meant, I think, was that I needed to outgrow the habit of buying books simply because I loved the idea of owning them. There was a time for that, and perhaps that time had passed.  

We still have many books, I more than she. I'm also holding on to my comic books, some of which I've owned for decades. What will become of them when I retire, I don't know. Paper, after all, has a shelf life.

These days, I do most of my reading on a Kindle and a tablet. Both are convenient, reader-friendly and, above all, kind to limited shelf space. Physical books possess a charm that ebooks can never quite replicate, but practicality has led me to draw a line between the two. My reading is now roughly 70 per cent digital and 30 per cent print.

I still buy the occasional paperback from secondhand bookshops and book exhibitions, but only after asking myself if it's really worth having the book and wouldn't an ebook serve my purpose just as well. 

The answer to those questions is increasingly shaping my book-buying habits. Having fewer books doesn't mean reading less.

The last books I bought before lockdown

If there was one thing I missed during the lockdown and the long months of working from home, it was regular visits to secondhand bookshops, pavement booksellers and book exhibitions. 

During that period, I bought only two books from Amazon India—a used but rare Corgi edition of Sudden and a new Fantastic Four: The Coming of Galactus comic-book digest, both featured here. 

Finding Sudden felt like winning the lottery. I was surprised and delighted to come across the paperback—with its striking cover art—on Amazon India for just Rs.295. My favourite western isn't the sort of book one easily stumbles upon at second-hand book sales in Mumbai.

Most of the books in this post, however, were purchased in the weeks and months before the pandemic changed our routines. I've included their covers, original publication years and brief synopses below. 

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The New Collected Short Stories by Jeffrey Archer

"This brand new edition brings together three of Jeffrey Archer's classic collections of short stories—To Cut a Long Story Short, Cat O' Nine Tales and And Thereby Hangs a Tale—showcasing the master storyteller's skill like never before. Every reader will have their own favourites: the choices run from love at first sight across the train tracks to the cleverest of confidence tricks, from the quirks of the legal profession, and those who are able to manipulate both sides of the Bar, to the creative financial talents of a member of Her Majesty's diplomatic service—but for a good cause. In `Caste-Off', Jamwal and Nisha fall in love while waiting for a traffic light to turn green in Delhi, and in `Don't Drink The Water', a company chairman tries to poison his wife while on a trip to St Petersburg, with unexpected consequences... The stories held in these pages are irresistible: ingeniously plotted, with richly drawn characters and deliciously unexpected conclusions. Some will make you laugh. Others will bring you to tears. And, as always, every one of them will keep you spellbound."

The Twisted Thing by Mickey Spillane

"This was some household.

"The kid was a genius, the father a scientist of international repute. Money was problem. Not shortage of money but the opposite: too much. The sort of money that brings the envious and the scheming clustering like flies round a pile of ripe offal: nieces, nephews, cousins - a family of mean minds and gross appetites.

"The hired help had its peculiarities too: the chauffeur, an ex-con; the governess, formerly a featured act in strip clubs from New York and Miami; a secretary with a well developed taste in other women.

"Quite a household. And not one to welcome the arrival of Mike Hammer—not when the kid had been kidnapped and everyone else was a suspect."

Snobs by Julian Fellowes

"The English, of all classes as it happens, are addicted to exclusivity. Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them."

"The best comedies of manners are often deceptively simple, seamlessly blending social critique with character and story. In his superbly observed first novel, Julian Fellowes, creator of the Masterpiece sensation Downton Abbey and winner of an Academy Award for his original screenplay of Gosford Park, brings us an insider's look at a contemporary England that is still not as classless as is popularly supposed.

"Edith Lavery, an English blonde with large eyes and nice manners, is the daughter of a moderately successful accountant and his social-climbing wife. While visiting his parents' stately home as a paying guest, Edith meets Charles, the Earl Broughton, and heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, who runs the family estates in East Sussex and Norfolk. To the gossip columns he is one of the most eligible young aristocrats around.

"When he proposes. Edith accepts. But is she really in love with Charles? Or with his title, his position, and all that goes with it?"

Sudden: Law O' The Lariat by Oliver Strange

"The word had filtered out that Sudden was dead—and there was no one around to contradict it. Men who had cringed before, swaggered now; others boasted of their encounters with Sudden, the coward.

"Only one man stayed quiet: a tall, saturnine fellow wearing two guns tied low. When he heard the rumours, he gave a thin smile; and when someone asked him who he was, he said shortly: James Green. James Green — alias Sudden!"

Maigret and the Headless Corpse by Georges Simenon

"Two brothers find a grisly package clinging to the propeller of their barge in the Canal de Saint Martins, and by the time Maigret arrives most of a mysterious corpse has been assembled, except for the head. The search shifts from finding the missing piece to finding a motive, as the Inspector's keen mind assembles clues from the dismembered torse which lead to a trio of suspects. A flash of intuition linking the principal suspect's sordid life to the whereabouts of her victim on his last day alive closes the case but opens Maigret's mind to the reason for the crime."

I have yet to read Julian Fellowes and Georges Simenon.