That George Orwell

Sometimes a writer just keeps popping up. I seem to have encountered old George a lot lately. Most recently I have come across this little essay of his, Books vs. Cigarettes, in which he compares his expenditure on books in a year against what he spends on other, optional, past times and indulgences, specifically drinking and smoking.

The government now does this for us. The Bureau of Labor Statistics or some such department gathers all sorts of interesting information including where we spend our money. My recollection is that the last time I looked the average US household spent something on the order of $35 a year on books. Given that half the adult population reads no books (electively) in a given year we could double that to represent what the reading population spends on books. Double again and round to cover magazines, newspapers, etc. and I am pretty sure that you would be very safe in saying that the average US household spends less than $150 per year on reading materials.

Given that the average household income is on the order of $45-55,000 per year, that is an astonishingly small expenditure line item and would support Orwell's conclusion that the complaint that people don't buy books because they are too expensive is without merit.

And if our book consumption remains as low as it has been, at least let us admit that it is because reading is a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub, and not because books, whether bought or borrowed, are too expensive.

These pitifully low numbers will only improve when books are actually valued by people at a greater premium than they do today.