On the Futility of Reading

KF is writing about the need to re-read. Well, here’s a disconcerting thought: reading is a woefully inefficient way of processing information. (I know, I know: who reads just to “process information”? But bear with me a moment.) Let’s say that you’re a committed reader who completes one book a week, fifty weeks out of the year. (I know, I know: we don’t always read cover to cover. But bear with me a moment.) That’s fifty books a year. Let’s say you start reading at the age of 5, and live to the ripe old age of 85, reading fifty books a year every year in between. That’s a mere 4,000 books in a lifetime. (I know, I know: what does the word “mere” really mean in that sentence?) Now think about how much you actually retain from the books you’ve read, and add KF’s re-reads into the mix.

There are, I believe, something on the order of 50,000 new books published by the major commercial houses every year in the USA (not bad for the “late age of print”). Thus, a dedicated reader, in his or her lifetime, could reasonably expect to finish no more than a fraction of the titles brought to market in a single industrialized country in one year alone. My point is not that we read just to “process information” or that reading can really be measured strictly in quantitative terms. But still: those numbers are a little humbling, aren’t they?

Update: See Jason’s comments here.