Book Sales Higher During Recessionary Periods!

I recently came across an article in the newspaper written by Cassandra Jardine (not too sure for which publication she originally wrote the article for but it appeared on our shores on 15 March 2009). In this article is a line that reads: “…staying in is the new going out. Paperbacks costs less than a cinema ticket and provide many more hours of amusement.”

Now, this statement may be true for many a first world country and for their countrymen, but the truth is that the inverse is true for most of the developing and under-developed world. This includes the city (and country) that I reside in. (Paperbacks costs the price of cinema tickets for 2 adults at the very least, although the part of providing many more hours of amusement may still hold true.)

Some will argue that, with demand will come the lower prices. But how and from where are we to generate this demand when everything is working against us? Including public policy, societal customs and culture, and just generally, the lack of time? (It is a highly Asian thing to stick the kids in front of the TV instead of spending time to teach them to read, and eventually have them read on their own.)

For the ones who read, like me, it is a constant struggle to justify spending so much of our disposable incomes on a book(s), particularly if you have a family to feed. For the luckier ones, one book each (or more) for the entire family is actually not too big an expense. However, the majority of the country is not quite in that boat, actually put aside the income factor, the majority of the country is not even in the boat that reads.

Here, books are a middle income family type of entertainment, something that anyone earning less with 5 mouths to feed will not consider buying even. The trouble is, this country is not one with predominantly middle income earning families, especially when one deducts expenses on cars out of the pay packet before considering if one is middle income.

Yet, cars are still a necessary evil, robbing commuters of precious time that could be spent catching up on sleep, music and reading. Something that many commuters of highly accessible public transportation systems can enjoy and at the same time, saves the money spent on automobiles for other activities. All of these culminate in a far better quality of life and a relatively culturally enriched life because your brain has been freed of the burden of concentrating on the road, and you can spend more time thinking about more constructive thoughts and ideas.

For me, I think that the low level of literacy and the sorely low number of books each individual reads in one year could be pinned onto the government – for not doing enough to ensure that public transportation is efficient and accessible, for not doing enough to ensure that cars are not encouraged as a mode of transportation for most purposes, for not being able to steadfastly champion a proven education policy and at the same time be flexible enough to make changes where they are needed.

Of course, factors other than public policy affects how children are brought up and ultimately the sort of adult they become. However, in order to assist other efforts, basic infrastructure such as the availability of public libraries are still needed. Which we also sorely lack...