Is this the end of western civilization as we know it?

A National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survey found that less than half of all Americans read not even a single book during the year.

​On November 9, Publishers Weekly reported that book sales had fallen 8% the previous week.

​The NEA survey in particular sends a shiver up my spine. I worry that it may foretell the end of western civilization as we know it.

​Of course, as a boomer, I grew up reading — in fact, devouring — book after book after book.

​I am a bibliophile.

A book-a-holic.

A book addict.

Hooked on books.

But . . .

. . . and although I can’t wrap my mind around it . . .

. . . the truth is that book people today are a minority — and an endangered species.

​I can’t imagine life without books.

Mark Twain said:

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

But apparently, many people can do just fine without them.

​Which then leads to the question . . .

Do books even matter anymore?

To me — and some others — they do.

My writer friend DK says:

“My parents and grandparents always made a point of being ‘well-rounded.’ Read/learn about sports, even if it isn’t your thing. Read the news, history, romance, other nonfiction.​
“My mother and her sisters said this was important to being a good conversationalist and to be interested in many areas of life. I’m glad they encouraged me to do so.”

And in my little writing subspecialty of copywriting, virtually every copywriter I know is a book reader.

Will copywriters save the day?

​So why are most copywriters — indeed, most writers of every description — voracious readers?

Because, as the great ad man James Webb Young wrote in his book A Technique for Producing Ideas:

“Every really good creative person in advertising has always had two noticeable characteristics.”

First, there was no subject under the sun in which he could not easily get interested in — from, say, Egyptian burial customs to modern art.

Second, he was an extensive browser in all sorts of field of information.

Being a writer who does not read is like being a Tesla that is never taken to a charging station: out of fuel and dead in its tracks.

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Robert W. Bly is a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant with 3 decades of experience in business-to-business, high-tech, and direct marketing. He is the first AXIOMS EXPERT at Kallisti Publishing Inc.

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