From the Director
Library news and happenings.
Fiction Reading Revival
A just-released report from the National Endowment for the Arts reports a reversal of the decline in fiction reading. For the first time since 1982, the percentage of adults 18 and older who said they had read a novel, short story, play, or poem in the previous twelve months increased AND the most dramatic increase was among 18-24 year olds. Since this is the group who grew up on the Harry Potter novels, it’s not surprising, BUT certainly reassuring. (I count my 22 year old son solidly in that group; Harry Potter made him a leisure reader.)
The national print media has had several articles about this study and reading in general. Author Ann Patchett, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says it well: “I am a firm believer in the fact that it isn’t so much what you read, it’s that you read. Reading fiction not only develops our imagination and creativity, it gives us the skills to be alone. It gives us the ability to feel empathy for people we’ve never met, living lives we couldn’t possibly experience for ourselves, because the book puts us inside the character’s skin.”
All fiction readers would agree with her!
Come visit soon and find a fiction book for these cold winter evenings. Browse our new adult fiction, skim the Hot Picks shelves, stroll the fiction aisles. We have a lot of good ones!
Book
New Fiction
fiction-sign-160
http://www.kpl.gov/books/new-fiction.aspx