The pleasure of reading
IN a country where a commonly voiced lament is that we are not a society of book readers, any effort to get people interested in literary pursuits is a feat in itself.
From time to time, the National Book Foundation (NBF) has made efforts to promote the reading habit. Its latest move — previously it had appointed ‘book ambassadors’ and honoured authors — has been to institute the Bibliophile of the Year award. For 2011, Ghazi Salahuddin, a senior and competent journalist and for many years my colleague at Dawn, has been named the winner.
Although Ghazi is modest about his achievement — he says there are many people he knows who read more than he does — he admits that he has a passion for promoting books. I can testify to Ghazi’s prolific reading. There were many books I read after he had recommended them.
It is the apathy to books to which is attributed the “literary, educational, intellectual and cultural degradation” in our society (to quote Ghazi). In this intellectual desert that surrounds us it is hardly any comfort to learn that more titles are being published today than before.
To check the claims made by booksellers who are wary about releasing sales figures — I often wonder why — I decided to contact the National Library of Pakistan (NLP), Islamabad, the repository under law of every book published in the country. It is also the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) agency for Pakistan. This number which is country-specific gives a book its own identity and creates a system to keep a count of titles published. Unfortunately the ISBN doesn’t — it is neither possible — shed light on the number of copies printed and the number read.
This investigation unearthed a pleasant surprise. The website of the NLP itself is professionally done — comprehensive, systematically arranged, pleasing in layout and user friendly, though I encountered some technological glitches. Better still, when I called up the telephone number given, I actually got to speak to Mr Irshad Sherwani, editor of the Pakistan National Bibliography, who said he had all the information I needed and more. He had been waiting all these years for someone to ask for it.
Very promptly he emailed me the data he and his staff must have so assiduously collected and arranged. According to this the number of titles published in Pakistan jumped from 691 in 1972 to 2,482 in 2011. It is a four-fold increase when the literacy rate has gone up from 21 per cent in 1972 to the 57 per cent claimed today.
Ghazi says he does not quarrel with the assertion that more books are being published and read today, but this increase does not conform to the steady increase in population, literacy and number of graduates. There I agree with him absolutely.
In fact, in a society rising from such low levels of literacy as Pakistan’s, this increase should have been phenomenal. The print runs are so measly — at the most 1,100 and even as low as 500 in some cases — that the increase in the number of titles cannot be used as a criterion to measure the reading habits of people.
The impact reading makes depends on what is being published. Many books lack quality. A genre to flood the market is religion. It is a variety of populist religion that is produced to cater to the public’s sentiments of religiosity. Few, if any, are the products of solid research. Many do more damage than good to society. In 2011, 486 (20 per cent) of the 2,482 titles published were on religion.
The moot question is why do we shirk reading? Ghazi lays the blame on our education system and the brutalisation of our society by intolerance and religious extremism. He also feels that the absence of any national discourse on important issues acts as a disincentive to explore society through literature.
Taking the chicken or egg first argument, one can say that the level of discourse and intellectual activities in a society are determined by education and reading habits. As Sister Mary Emily, my college principal, used to say, the discourse of intellectual and well-read people centres round ideas and philosophies. Those with a low level of education or with no education at all talk about people and their gossip — a sad reflection on our television talk shows!
I would place some blame on the parents — especially the educated ones — for not creating an interest in reading in their children. They have a big role to play in the relationship children have with books. This process should start from early childhood. Thereafter it can safely be said, once a reader, always a reader. Bedtime storytelling is the best way of bonding children with parents and grandparents as well as books.
Though not everyone goes on to read serious literature, I would not quarrel with Ghazi that the beginning can be made with digests, fairytales, etc as long as young readers learn to take pleasure in reading. Later, many of them will graduate to higher taste.
What we do need is a very conscious and concerted effort to launch a book-reading campaign. The NBF should be at the forefront of this effort. Having taken this initiative and having made an apt choice of a bibliophile to promote books, it should now focus on schoolchildren. They should be provided incentives to become candidates for the junior bibliophile of the year award.
I totally agree with the writer thinking about the importance of reading habit after all Readers Are Leaders.
Reading brings awareness and 'awareness' is the first step to climb up the ladder. The NBF in collaboration with some institutes like PU, QU, Peshawar University, Karachi University should launch a well-planned campaign in order to infuse the lust of reading into the youth.
You can't say youngsters don't like reading, I bet.
excellent and superb debate.
oh really reading habit is good but but at that when u get a good book i mean informative books like the provide u true knowledge a true history……A book which provide u good way in your life then automatically your study habit will be increased.
Being a part of a publishing company which also runs a bookshop, I have seen great many things. Every year, my company holds an annual book-fair and it gets filled. By the end of the first evening, the book fair is filled with people who want to buy books. But, I agree that reading should be made a habit while a child is young.
Furthermore, a due credit should be given to the publishers. There are exuberant amount of taxes on book-making raw materials. Paper, for instance, has seen a surge in tax-rates. At bleak margins, there are publishing companies braving out and trying to put for a fight.
Really a very nice article. In the contemporary society the habit of reading is vanishing day by day due to advent in technology and due to presence of mobile phones and presence of internet. Both the tools are used in negative manner. They are used both in working hours and for time pass which creates students and ordinary people to flee away from reading books. Now i think it is good initiative to do such works to promote the reading habits among the people.
Nice article. I dont know if this goes for everyone or only the few i know. But inspite of being highly educated noone started to read any serious literature before they were around 30.
I dont know how that statistic could be collected but i think the statistics would be better of people who are older. Atleast i hope so.
Reading habits are greatly in decline. The irony is that the old and traditioanl book sale shop, The Classics, at the mall Lahore, has been converted into a backry. A dalimma to lament over it.
Mr. Ghazi is a literary asset of Pakistan. Habit actually springs from incentive that follows or it evolves in that particular habit-friendly environment. Unfortunately, both incentive-driven reading habit and knowledge-friendly environment do not exist in our fateful society. Reading reading and reading but for what? Literary circles are extinct, literary discussions are discouraged rather abhorred. Opportunities for knowledgeable people [unless politically, financially or socially privileged] are inaccessible rather invisible except he or she being abroad. Besides, another bizarre and macabre reality is non-stop load-shedding. In leisurely hours reading is a good relaxing exercise, light goes off. If a book is read constructively, routine tensions and depressions, caused by unfair experiences, erode away what is read. Books are expensive: buying book is subordinated to buying a buck of grocery. Unless, reading friendly environment, incentives and knowledge-based merit is promoted, book festivals will make less impact and this habit will die away completely.
India did a very wise thing. I noticed many decades ago. They purchased rights to publish thousands of children books, and printed them in India, sold them cheap to create reading habit. In Pakistan, those days, the only books common man read, were cheap translations of some kind of Urdu digests, printed in India and smuggled in from Afghanistan. Now, even those digests are not available. I visited hundreds of Pakistani friends while I was in Pakistan, and many of them had no book in their house. Reading habit can only be created in children.
the use of television, internet, social media and mobile phone has badly effected the habit of book reading…. and ppl believe on instant limited knowledge rather than tedious immaculate contents…!the role of teachers, parents and intellectual is increased to motivate the society towards book reading to breed sophisticated, well mannered human kind..!
Book reading in Pakistan is on decline due to a number of other reasons also:
i. There is no effort in promoting books written by authors from outside Pakistan. Therefore many Pakistanis dont know about them. We are having lower tendency to read foreign authors who might have a different opinion.
ii. Most importantly the books in general are very expensive for an averege Pakistani to buy them especially books written by foreign authors. Maybe government could make book publishing/printing tax free in Pakistan to encourage more people to buy books.
iii. The quality of the printed books is bad.
iv. There are not many public libraries in pakistan that are within reach of common masses. Normally its one public library per city. It makes it very difficult in a country like Pakistan where the cities are hugely populated and scattered across a vast area.
v. Lastly there is no quality online website in Pakistan like Amozon which provides details regarding books published/printed in Pakistan. Therefore many people dont know about availability of a particular book.
Reading is at risk- reasons are many. Technology has outpaced many other medium of communications. Declining of book reading may be linked to growth in electronic media. But we should not forget that writing literature ( reading) is a reflection of a society and it also constitute central dimension of a truly educated society.
I really congratulate Ghazi on his achievement what he has done. He has conveyed the message to our youth to turn towards this very important thing to do in life thats the only way one can get awareness in every walk of life .
Mrs. Zubaida Mustafa's lifelong struggle and passion for the spread of literacy shows in each and every article she writes. I can only submit a very humble suggestion. Why don't we have audio books which people can listen to in their own language.
Also it takes a Mrs. Mustafa to discover the works of Mr. Irshad Sherwani. Very well done Mr. Sherwani. We now need an army of people who would read and translate the books in the audio version. The nation's media resources should be harnessed to make people aware of what books have to offer them (even if they cannot read). This will open up their mind and horizons.
Reading inspires. So many times I have found answers to my confusions while reading. Some authors such as Paulo Choleo write such amazingly inspiring books. Anyone fimiliar with any kind of local blog or site that recommends amazing books?
Hope you all love to read this…
Agreed, but the fact of the matter remains, a typical Pakistani has enough problems to last three lifetimes. Issues of the utmost importance such as climate change lose their significance… Book reading would hardly be on one's priority list
I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book. ~Groucho Marx
Understanding the importance of reading, I first encouraged my sons (Grade 8 and 5) to read general books alongwith the syllabus books. However, unfortunately, it did not bring very encouraging results. I promised them to give them money in addition to the pocket money for every book they read as per the length of the book. Book having less than 100 pages has a lesser prize than the one having more than 100, 200 and above. I am happy my sons have developed reading habit and I achieved my aim. I am sure, if I continue this for five years, I need not to worry about my duty as a father. I suggest all parents, please try , may it work.
love to study good books but load shedding makes it hard for us to live, i remember a few year ago my mother my sisters my brothers use to study some good books some novels of great authors, newspapers and articles also some magazines but when the lite problems begins it makes hard for them to continue their interest…i wish that old days will come back.
NLP website is indeed a pleasant surprise. I visited NLP some 20 years ago. At that time I did not come back with a postive impression. The stacks were closed. The staff was not happy to see visitors, the "Why are you here?" look was everywhere. To top it off, the sign on the elevators, "For Officers and Handicaps Only" made sure I did not go back. I think it was a mistake.
All those who are trying to promote book reading deserve praise and our support. What is out there is not very encouraging. As part of my job, I interview university graduates regularly. I have made it a habit to ask the candidates about their reading habits. The answers that I get with a rough estimate of frequency are: 1. Nothing/Newspapers (More than 75%); 2. Religious books (10-15%); 3. Urdu fiction/Magazines (5-10%); 4. English Fiction (Less than 5%, mostly girls); 5. Classics/Serious Books (Less than 2%).