I am blessed to have a wonderful group of supportive, loving, successful friends…most of whom don’t read.
For many of my friends, checking the gas gauge is the equivalent of consuming a literary novel, and some of them stumbled into Barnes and Noble and Vroman’s Bookstore in LA for my recent book launch events looking as if they expected to be arrested on fraud charges.
Part of this is doubtless a result of the fact that we live in Los Angeles, where television and movies are the industry of choice and thus where people’s lips move when they approach a stop sign.
But really – no reading, ever? What is a life that is made up solely of TV and movies and video games, where your eyes are engaged but not your imagination? Although I do admit to once noting, “Cool – they made a novel out of the musical Les Miserables!”, I personally have been a reader for most of my life. Granted, the majority of my reading these days takes place in the car, via audiobook, since I work 12 hour days and have a 90-minute commute. But it does pain me sometimes that we’ve become a culture where other people’s imagination is on display on screens small and large, but your own rarely is.
I’ll climb down off my soapbox now. (I actually just wear platform heels, it’s less dangerous.)