Interesting quotes from people on the Killjoy Express by way of The New Yorker: “Our wasteful consumer society buys, reads, and discards more brand-new hardcover fiction in a single day than the rest of the industrial world combined. I find that statistic staggering.”
Now, I don’t understand this man testimony: “People don’t seem to care where they start or stop in a book nowadays, so long as they’re reading. . . . And the minute they finish one novel they toss it aside and start another. I’ve seen people on the freeway flip through a novel to the dénouement, read it, and throw the book out the window. Then they’ll swing by a bodega, buy a new novel or two or a dozen, and be on their way. No one bothers to pick up the old novels, so they’re scattered all over, as we know, backing up in storm drains. The excess of it appalls me.”
Where does that happen?
Sounds like those freeway readers turn a book into two hazards in one (a distraction and a missile).
Though new hardcovers tend to be beyond my budget,when I look at all that goes into making a book I’m amazed that they don’t cost even more than they do.
I’m all for it. Buy my books, throw them away. I don’t care what happens to them as long as they’re paid for.