Small Business Boomers

Are Baby Boomers the Last Readers?

by Jean on August 25th, 2008

My favorite Twilight Zone episode is one with Burgess Meredith titled “Time Enough at Last,” in which he plays a henpecked husband who just wants to find time to read.  Remember it?

Well, it appears that book reading is becoming less popular among the younger generations (X and Y), and independent bookstores, even in highly literate places like Seattle, are having a hard time competing for attention with the big chains, and, of course, with Amazon and other online bookstores. An article in the Seattle Times Book Section comments that “running a bookstore has always been an occupation for dreamers.”  Very true. I’d love to own a bookstore, but it would be more for my own pleasure than to make money.  The bookstore owner in the article (his bookstore was closing after two decades) says, “I’d like to have one copy of everything in existence.”  Gotta agree.

I buy books online, but I also frequent bookstores.  There is nothing better on a Friday night after dinner to wander through a bookstore checking out the bargain books and finding a new gem that I’ve been waiting for in paperback.  And, I confess, I love the look and the smell of books.  And I’m not alone, a Zogby survey in May found that 82% of readers prefer to curl up with a book.  How can you get emotionally involved with Kindle?

How many books do you buy a year?  Do you buy them online or at a bookstore?  Do you prefer printed books or online ones?

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POSTED IN: Boomer Books, Boomer Life, Businesses for Boomers