I’m sorry to inform my dear friends and readers (more on that later), but after exhaustive research and continuous toil involving the consumption of 235 megs of information, 84 gigs of bandwidth and 753 bags of taco chips, I have come to the undeniable conclusion that the independent reader no longer exists. The reader, that is, who simply purchases a book and reads it, with no intention of reviewing, commenting or writing something similar.
As near as I can make out, the last extant reader of books for her own enjoyment is Mrs. Fanny Bruce of Nottinghamshire (pronounced “Notshur”) in England. This poor lady is in the middle stages of dementia. Her family gave her three Agatha Christie mysteries for Christmas in 2013, and her caregiver reads them to her in a continuing sequence. The dear old soul lives in an imaginary world where Agatha Christie is still alive and putting out a new mystery every few months. Continue reading “The Myth of the Reader”
