Buying a Book Without Reading It Is Perfectly OK!

The NEA's recently-released study on the state of book reading today is laced with glass-half-empty charts tracking declines in reading for all but the oldest and frailest among us. But the good news is that people are still buying books. They're just not reading them anymore, a minor detail.

Never mind about that. We're moving into the crucial-for-our-economy gift-buying and gift giving season, and books are just about perfect. They're cheap, (unless you get into the big hardbacks) portable, easy-to-wrap, and carry with them a subtle compliment that you consider the giftee fully capable of reading. Among the scores of charts in the NEA's report is one showing that academic success is correlated nicely with the number of books in your home. Not the number you've read, just the number you own. So simply buying a book will add to your success, or the success of a loved one, no matter what.

In 2006 book sellers had $28.6 billion in sales, up $800 million from the previous year! Unfortunately, that figure wasn't broken down between books and latte grandes purchased at the in-store coffee bars, which probably account for most of it. But that's not the point. Being pumped by caffeine makes you more likely to purchase a book. And then just by having it, your test scores are going through the roof! Our economy is saved, everybody gets a nice, inexpensive gift they don't have to make much of a fuss over, and the best part is, you really don't have to read it!

Our recent book, The Ultimate Counterterrorist Home Companion, for example, is a terrific book for buying. (It's also a swell book for reading, but let's not take our eye off the ball here.) The main thing is the book purchase. Reading is like an extra-credit option, a good way to get additional points, but not really necessary. In fact, you can buy our book, not read it, and still pass the occasional quizzes inside because they are unbelievably easy, and also you can cheat.

So go out and buy a book, it doesn't even have to be ours (though it should be.)

Comments

[JamieFrevele]

I'm guilty of this, completely. It's not for lack of interest, I just happen to be a slooooooow reader and when I do read, it makes me sleepy. I'm trying to get better though, because I really, really do want to read my Autobiography of Ben Franklin, Worse Than Watergate, Weimar Culture...­hell, I'd like to read my book about increasing my reading speed. 100% guilty as charged.
I like public libraries too. Old book smell is comforting.

[swift goat pet for truth]

Sort of like "He who dies with the most toys wins".

Don't have to be good at playing with them. Don't even have to play with them at all.
Just own them.

As for books, I like public libraries.