Yesterday, I encountered a very depressing statistic--very few undergraduates read for pleasure. Less than twenty percent. (I can't quote the exact statistics to you because I was in one of those brain-glazing TA training seminars where pretty much everything was sort of depressing.) So after reading Tess Garritsen's post about Legume Literature, I began thinking--maybe part of the reason why people don't read is because of school. Specifically, English lit requirements.
Okay, I admit, I have never taken a literature class I didn't want to. I majored in biology so anything non-science related (aside from two humanities requirements) was completely optional. Perhaps for most people, reading gets associated with school (and yes, for some people, that can be a bad thing).
Then there is Garritsen's point--when we get older, we're expected to read literature that is good for us. The key here is "literature". I think that in today's culture, there's this totally bogus expectation that literary fiction is actually good. The only thing that's true is that literary fiction is good for those who think so. If somebody looks down on your reading taste, they just don't understand the whole concept of actually reading. Otherwise, why waste your time reading what's good for you when in reality it's really to look good for other people?
