When I first saw the title of Vernor Vinge’s new book, Rainbows End, I though it was missing an apostrophe. But no, it’s not.

The book is excellent. I enjoyed the space opera style fiction of A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, but I think I liked the topics of Rainbows End even better. Extremely mild spoiler after the break.

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Posted by M as Recommended Media, Future of books, Book, Libraries at 6:06 PM EDT

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1. 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
2. 42% of college graduates never read another book.
3. 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
4. 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
5. 57% of new books are not read to completion.

These statistics come from the book industry (via kottke.org).

Sadly, I’m not terribly surprised by #1. So many people in high school don’t actually read even the books assigned during school.

I am surprised by #2, though perhaps I shouldn’t be. We hear plenty of complaints directed towards the inadequacies of high school education in this country, particularly in public schools, but I think much less concern about higher ed. Still, if slightly less than half of all college graduates never read another book in their life, how could we not say that education failed them?

I wonder if this doesn’t all suggest that rather than replacing books, as some fear, Internet content might be reclaiming an audience for print media. Sadly, I’d imagine that the Internet probably supplies magazine and news type content to these users rather than in-depth treatments books can provide.

Posted by M as Interesting Link, Recommended Media, Education, Future of books at 1:30 PM EDT

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