Evolution of reading in the home

I’ve always loved reading. Or at least the idea of it. For me, It’s always been painted as the pastime of intellectuals. I was told that I could learn anything I wanted to learn from books. So I learned a lot about elves and dragons.

In those days, bookshelves were a standard piece of furniture in every home, filled with novels whose spines were still uncracked since the day they left the bookstore. I say I loved the idea because I touted my love for reading but rarely turned the last page of any book. To encourage myself, I planned to invest in a beautiful shelf on which I would only put books I’d finished. It was the only trophy case I cared about. And one I never really followed through on.

This kind of religion around books created a strong association between reading and my home life. Books were unwieldy and unpocketable, so reading was mostly reserved for the home. I could define each member of my family by what they read, since their books became temporary decorations around the house. My older brother was a fan of Terry Brooks before he fell into a dark fascination with Stephen King’s novels. It was his initial interest in fantasy that quickly colored my own and I found myself slogging through The Lord of the Rings, though the horror stuff never quite caught on with me. My mom and my sister shared interest in historical fiction, though from different eras. Mom still obsesses over pioneers and my sister learned a lot about life as a World War II refugee. Dad could never get enough historical non-fiction, mostly centering on the second great war as well. I guess my sister’s reading list was a nice blend of Mom and Dad’s. And finally, my little brother tore through a few Captain Underpants and Percy Jackson novels before trading them in for books with darker covers and more nebulous titles.

So, at least in our house, reading became a collage of the home and the people who lived in it. It drove discussion and influenced our thinking. In a way, it defined us. And when it came to reading, the selection was wide but the method narrow. Words on a page. Simple tech for a profound practice.

Today, reading is more confusing than ever. The act is the same, but the ways are vastly different. Many people still go the old paper route, proudly collecting their tomes to decorate their bookshelves as I once aspired to do. But around 2010, e-readers hit the scene. For the first time since Gutenburg, people were trying to revolutionize the reading experience. Now you could carry thousands of books in your pocket, define a word with a single touch, read in the dark, and access a library of stories far beyond the reaches of any bookstore. Even writers found hope in the new trend as it opened a way to circumvent the whole publishing process, skyrocketing rejected authors to the top of the “Best Seller” list. It was supposed to be the future of reading, much like when the TVs went from round to flat. Except that it wasn’t. Growth flatlined in just a few years and reading decreased on all pages, ink or digital. But it wasn’t the ebook that disrupted the industry. And it wasn’t our own lack of attention. It was the audiobook.

Books on tape are old news, but the convenience was never quite there. And the price for a full box of cassettes or CD’s was outrageous. People had the option of a $7 novel or a $54 set of discs, a luxury saved for family road trips. Then audible took the scene and offered books for a much lower price, always on hand, beautifully narrated. Today, this has become the new top dog of the literary world much in the way that people thought e-readers would, convincing many to drop their paper counterparts for the spoken variant. It even turned the non-prolific into avid consumers. So the question I wonder, when looking back on my childhood, is how does this not just change reading, but the home?

As the way we consume books becomes increasingly diverse, the rituals we performed to consume them change as well. For my family, reading in the nook of a couch has become antiquated. Now reading is set aside for the bus or the train. Listening is a constant pastime while driving to work or doing chores around the house. Books are hidden away on smart devices, never coloring the room or decorating the coffee table. Their covers are rarely seen even by the reader. The monument of the bookshelf has gone the way of old greek statues, no longer there to act as a reminder of the endeavor for knowledge. And because of the instant and easy access to every new novel, the hype and community that surrounded a new release with parties and fanfare has become a subtle transaction. But along with that are new ways to connect, some of them even older than the ways we are used to. Digital books give me access to a larger community than I have ever had access to before—like a book club with the world. Within my family, we can read the same book simultaneously, rather than playing pass the pig with every read. I can even follow along with my siblings across the country without needing to ask “where have you read?” And I can even see my own little family gathering around an Amazon Alexa to listen to an audiobook as my grandparents once did with old radio plays. Simply put, I don’t think any of this is really bad for the home, but it does make it different. I sometimes wonder what nostalgia’s my children will create around books and stories now that all mine are nearly gone. But they have them, even if they look different from mine.