In Britain, 2008 is the National Year of Reading and it was launched by no less than British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday. In the headline of her article, Denise Winterman of BBC News asks: “Do we still need to read books to be clever? She goes on to ask: “With so many other ways to get information these days, do we still need books?”

Why we read books

We read books to be informed, entertained, inspired, to expand our horizons, to pass the time, and to lull us to sleep. We read books because they offer escape from our daily routine and because they’re there.

When I was a child, I remember reading the books published by Ginn & Company lying around the house. When I was in high school, there were no malls and fast food and I had no money. My extra money could only afford the 10-centavo jeepney fare to the Thomas Jefferson Library on Sta. Mesa St. (now Ramon Magsaysay Blvd.) in Manila. So off I went to that library on my free time. In air conditioned comfort, I would lose myself among the book shelves browsing at the thousands of book titles. I must admit that going to the Thomas Jefferson Library to read its books was my only imaginary escape from my limited resources. But it did expand my horizons and desire to achieve. I went on to finish high school and college which changed my life. I was offered a job even before graduation day and my first pay was PHP 305 a month, a far cry from the 10 centavos in my pocket. Later, I got an East-West Center scholarship which was like icing on a cake that my college education had baked. Well, the rest is history. I have moved on and the library is no longer there. In 1970 it moved to G. Araneta Blvd., Quezon City; in 1980, it moved to Buendia Avenue Extension (now Senator Gil Puyat Avenue), Makati City. Today, the library is located on the ground floor of the Annex Building of the U.S. Embassy on Roxas Boulevard.

Do Filipinos read books?

In February 2007, Virgilio Almario, national artist for literature, delivered a speech with a catchy title, “Nagbabasa Ka Ba?” (Do you read?) at the Read or Die Convention. He spoke about an ancient disease of the modern Filipino society–the problem of education and the related puzzle of why more than 90 percent of the Filipino nation do not read. He said that no one will admit that they do not read, even if the truth is their reading is narrow in scope and more often than not limited to the daily broadsheet.

According to Almario, reading is cultured, it is taught and it is carved into the hearts and minds of young children, sown into their very personalities, so that they will love the book like a precious gem or find it as delicious as their favorite treat in McDo or Jollibee.

A parallel observation was found by the 2007 National Book Development Board (NBDB) Readership Survey. Reading has declined across all socioeconomic groups, except those in the AB class. Public school students now read fewer books, newspapers, magazines, and comics than they did in the 2003 Readership Survey. For private school respondents, there was a slight increase in those reading comics. The median number of books read was three which suggests that even if half the adult population of the Philippines have read three or more non-school books in the past year, the other half have read only at most three, or no books at all.

Do college students and teachers read?

While we were on the topic, how can we improve the quality of instructional materials, Efren Saz also shared with us the results of a little survey he did in his Sociology 11 class on the books that his students read. He was surprised to find that most students cited the dictionary. I hope that survey result does not reflect the overall pattern in universities. If college students don’t read other books, how can we expect them to have better writing skills, a wide vocabulary, and a broad world view? In my undergrad days in UP Diliman, the English and Humanities teachers nurtured in us the importance of being a complete person. So whether we read The Book of Job, The Old Man and the Sea or Catcher in the Rye or appreciate the tapestries in the Sistine Chapel (from slides) a link was always made to being a complete person. In my classes, my mantra is read, read, read. But do college students really read books outside their required text, the dictionary or the Bible?

In the same breath, do teachers read? If you do, when was the last time you read a book outside your discipline and finished it? So what books have you recently read? How do you choose the books that you read?

To start this informal survey, I texted my son what book he is currently reading. He texted back: Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami which he “just saw in the bookstore and judged by its cover.” I have just read Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Paulo Coelho’s The Devil and Miss Prym and Michael Crichton’s Next. Since I live far away from Fully Booked, A Different Bookstore and Powerbooks, I often rely on my son’s hand-me-downs. I’m sure my next read will be the Murakami book. Interesting how children can influence the reading fare of parents. In fact, it was my son who introduced me to the Coelho books and a lot more.

Why do I get to read more books? Because they’re in my son’s book shelves and I no longer watch that much TV. Like other leisure activities, book reading is often displaced by TV viewing. So if you’re not an avid fan of telenovelas and fantaseryes, chances are you will be drawn to book reading. If you’re a book reader, chances are you write well.

So, why do you read? Send in your comments.