Read any good books lately?

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor A nother Christmas recently passed, and as is the norm, I received a couple of new books to add to my collection. This year’s offerings were “You Like It Darker,” the latest short story compilation by Stephen King, and “A Short History of the World in 50 Places,” by Dr. Jacob F. Field. I’m sure I will tear through the King book pretty quickly and the history book will become my go-to reading material when I find myself sitting on “the throne,” if you will.

I love getting books. I read, like, a lot. Part of it is a professional requirement – reading whatever comes off the newswire and whatever emails wind up in my inbox during the day. But I also read for enjoyment – the information, entertainment and education I get from reading has been a lifelong thing. It started with those “Little Golden Books” like “The Little Engine that Could,” “The Pokey Little Puppy,” and “The Little Red Hen” – oh, that reminds me, I actually got a third book for Christmas … “The Monster at the End of This Book,” featuring Sesame Street’s most popular blue monster not named Cookie Monster, Grover. My wife got it for me to read to our grandson. It was actually one of my own personal favorites as a kid and my own children all had a copy of it.

I eventually moved up to comic books. At first, I made my Mom read them to me. Once I could read on my own, I kept with the comics but eventually graduated to what I call “chapter books,” although I don’t know if that’s really an official term – stuff like “The Hardy Boys Mysteries” and “Little House on the Prairie” and then all of Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary’s stuff. And, of course, soon came my introduction to Stephen King and his creepy works.

Anyway, I like to read. My wife, the former English teacher and Literacy Coach turned Assistant Principal, also loves to read. But she “cheats” – she’s all about the audio books. And that’s fine, I guess… except for when she falls asleep at night while listening to them and they keep playing until I notice and turn them off.

I tease her that she’s not really reading but rather being read to, but I’m only teasing, as I think it still counts as reading. In fact, reading itself has evolved quite a bit over the years. Audio book are nothing new. Books-on-tape and books-on-CD have been around for decades. It’s only fairly recently that all that got digitized and turned into phone apps like Audible that have full libraries of books you can simply stream.

I got a Kindle several years ago as a Christmas present. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a little tablet, like a small iPad, that you can download and read book on. It’s pretty cool, and I do appreciate the idea that you can carry basically hundreds of books with you in your briefcase, backpack, carry-all or whatever, but I still prefer just having a good-old paper book in my hand. It’s the same argument of holding a printed newspaper in one’s hand versus a digital e-edition, but I guess that’s where all printed material is ultimately headed. I mean, my daughter started college last August and none of her courses required an actual physical textbook (yet, somehow they can still justify charging hundreds of dollars for a digital version, which should be illegal, in my opinion).

Anyway, I get that reading is not for everyone. Chances are, if you’re reading this column in this newspaper, you at least do some kind of casual reading. Not everyone does. It has been a few years since I saw the numbers, but I doubt the statistics have changed much in the interim, but there was a report I saw that said that around 35 percent of adults in the U.S. have not read a book since they left high school. Not one book – more than one out of every three adults. That seems staggering to me. Maybe it’s because I read so much, I just assume that other people do to, but I guess not.

And I sort of get it. Some people simply don’t have high reading comprehension skills – even very smart people. And with so many other ways of getting information these days, you can still be well informed without reading a book. But I think about all the books I’ve read, both fiction and non-fiction, and I can’t help but think about all the stories I would not know if I had not read them. Sure, hundreds of books get turned into movies and TV shows eventually, but I think there’s still plenty to be said in defense of the humble book.

So I’d invite you, if you haven’t in a long time, crack open a book sometime in 2025. You can get them pretty cheap, or even for free. The library is still a thing. Just get a card and get to reading. You won’t regret it!