Books can be amazing. A spectacular one can be life-changing. It remains the best option we have to getting into someone else’s head and letting their thoughts fill our minds for a while. And thanks to technologies such as e-readers and smart phones, people can now take their entire library with them everywhere they go. I’m certainly not knocking the medium.
But I have to admit that in recent months and years, I’ve become cynical and jaded about books.
I think it started because of J.D. Vance. Years ago, all the buzz was about this “incredible” new book called Hillbilly Elegy. It was being discussed on all the podcasts, and everyone who was everyone was reading it. As someone who actually grew up lower-class-ish in a poor area in the Appalachian mountains, I assumed it would resonate with me.
I bought a hardcover copy, started reading it, and my god it was horrible. I could not get through the first few chapters. Nothing there resonated with me, and I found that I was having a hard time slogging through it. It wasn’t long until I abandoned the book.
I honestly felt some measure of guilt over it. Was I broken? Am I stupid? Why wasn’t I getting anything out of it the way that other people were?
What I didn’t realize at the time was that J.D. Vance, the author, was an alt-right douchebag who was working for a venture capital firm in silicon valley, and whose publishing was being artificially propped up by the system.
Then I stumbled on the essay “No one buys books”, and a lot of the picture started to crystallize for me. The book market is a business, and in almost all cases, the only authors whose books make it to the public zeitgeist and on the shelves at your local book shops are the ones who can make money for the publishers. If you start out with a large audience, or your name is well-known, you can probably get your book published. Everyone else can kick rocks. Books don’t sell as much as you think, and if you aren’t able to market your book to your existing audience, you aren’t worth the trouble.
That means that famous YouTubers, TikTokers, and celebrities (or rather, their ghost-writers) can churn out books and make a reasonable profit, but they almost never have anything worthwhile to say. The authors with novel ideas, original writing, and a purpose? You’ll never even know they or their books exist.
I’m now more forgiving to myself for not constantly having my nose in a book. I used to try to read x number of books a year, and would feel guilt for not achieving the goal. Now, I try to let things happen more naturally. There will be a handful of books that come onto my radar each year, written by someone thoughtful with something interesting to say. New non-fiction books from Cory Doctorow are always must-reads for me. Non-fiction in general, especially from not-well-known authors, are often worth picking up. And Kitchen Confidential remains a yearly re-read. But the vast majority of what’s on the shelf? The paper would be better served as kindling.
That’s not to discount reading. I read all the time, and find it essential and enlightening. I think that blogs are probably the highest form of the written word, despite what snobs will tell you. Real people, living real lives, with thoughtful things to say, written at lengths long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting. It’s the platonic idea of the written word, and there frankly aren’t enough in existence.