Across the board, Australians are reading less than ever before, with young men reading the least and older women reading the most.
The trend is reinforced from a young age, with parents more likely to read to their daughters than sons.
Australia Reads, a book industry initiative, is calling for a national strategy that reminds people of the fun and comfort that reading can bring.
Funny how folks are different. I always enjoyed reading stuff and making up the ways it can mean stuff. Like, it’s easy to read Dracula and think about feminism and women’s place in the world. (a foreign entity shows up and now women are abandoning their motherly duties, wandering the streets at night? That won’t do. Get some men to hold her down and penetrate her with this big wood. Hmm.)
I often find the opposite mode, the absolute refusal to think about the story beyond “some things that happened”, tiresome. Like, “Ok I get that the story is about how they have to remove, possibly with violence, the competent women ruler and put the child boy on the throne because the rules say that only a man can rule, but why do you have to make this political? it’s just a fun story.”