*Book Privilege

People don’t read anymore–that’s the common wisdom. Except that, even in this recession, book sales are up in some places, in others down but less so than anything else.

But this is what everyone knows:
People don’t read anymore because they’re all on the internet.

And when I was a kid, people didn’t read anymore because they were watching tv.

And before that people didn’t read anymore because they were at the movies, and children of that decadent younger generation were spending all afternoon at the matinee on Saturdays!

And before that people didn’t read because children had to go to work at eleven to support their families (though workers’ circles and women’s guilds were full of people attending lectures, as well as getting books from workers’ clubs which had lending libraries, and The Story of Philosphy was a bestseller.)

Some time before that a lot of people didn’t read, it’s true. Because they couldn’t. When A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, only 45% of women and 65% of men were literate. So, it’s true, about half the population couldn’t read it, but it was still a bestseller and those who couldn’t listened to those who could read aloud.

By the time Dickens’s last book was published, a lot more people could read and public education in the west was on the rise so that within another generation nearly everyone could read and did. They haven’t stopped despite matinees, tv, the internet, economic depressions, wars, and other distracting matters.

I’m thinking about this because my childhood wasn’t filled with books. My family valued an education for what it provided: income, status, security. There were books as decoration and furniture in the house, a static collection that didn’t change until after I’d left home. As a kid, I read everything in my school library and traveled by bus (on my own) to another school, which had a library open to the public, so that I could pick up a few more.

So when I began university, and there were floors and floors of books in the library, I thought I’d arrived in heaven. Not only that, but the city itself had a magnificent public library system with many branches that quickly transferred books from one to the other.

My children are growing up within a few blocks of one of those branches. It’s a five minute walk, a walk we take together every Saturday. They have no idea how lucky they are. It’s just a matter of course to them that they are surrounded by books, that if they happen to want one that our small branch doesn’t have, I’ll place it on hold and the next Saturday it’s theirs. Not to mention the shelves and shelves of books in our home, bought, given away, re-stocked.

There is something else they have: the peace to read.

There have been times in my life when reading saved me by carrying me into another world. And there have been other times when reading was closed to me, because the pain that had been shoved away for so long rose up and closed down my ability to concentrate.

I’m thinking of this because I finished Snow Falling on Cedars yesterday and I started Water for Elephants today. I am exquisitely aware that I haven’t always had books at my fingertips, on my shelves, at the library, at bookstores new and used. That I haven’t always been able to read the books I had. And today I do, one bought, one from the library. I have quiet spaces to read, the children asleep, my husband lying at the other end of the couch, our legs entwined. My heart is quiet, and I can focus.

I don’t know if you can understand: it is blindness and then sight.

It is wordlessness and then speech.

When I was in my 20’s, I stopped writing, because the marriage that took me to a nudist camp prevented any sort of creative expression. When I began to write again, I left the marriage. When I began to write again, I felt as if I’d had no arms and didn’t know it until my arms were restored to me.

So when I think of the words to Amazing Grace, I think about books, mine and others, and the blessing that is the sharing of these.

There are many beautiful renditions of that old song–but in the course of looking for the right one, instead I came across this.

Read–and share it. That’s all we need to do.