I mean it's not a surprise considering that 54% of Americans are functionally illiterate (<5th grade level).
My curiosity is about why aren't the big publishers setting up literacy programs to grow their marketshare?
Why aren't shareholders up in arms about not growing the potential reader base?
fullshark · 2h ago
And the Americans who do mostly read genre fiction exclusively. The Americans who read "literature" for pleasure read for social signaling reasons.
pinewurst · 1h ago
Can you blame them though? Contemporary non-genre fiction is almost completely written as/for signalling. Maybe there’s a chance that this bolus of woke will pass…
goyagoji · 51m ago
There's more than enough historical literature of a high enough ilk that missing references to it is a signal. I think contemporary literature can do whatever it wants and its not an adequate explanation, OTOH contemporary other media being an important reference is an explanation for not reading.
My curiosity is about why aren't the big publishers setting up literacy programs to grow their marketshare?
Why aren't shareholders up in arms about not growing the potential reader base?