Book culture isn't dead, it's just evolving

Read this before you scoff at audiobooks. We may have just turned a page.

- Linette Lai

According to my mother, the first and only time I threw a public tantrum was over a book. I was three years old and didn't want to leave the children's book section in the two-storey Toys"R"Us opposite Parkway Parade. I could barely read, but had a meltdown anyway.

Books continued to hold my attention as I grew up. I got told off for reading at the dinner table and under my desk at school. I made myself carsick trying to read on the bus.

It was at university that reading felt like work for the first time. Snowed under by academic texts every week, I read fewer books of my choice. These days, I find it difficult to read for any length of time. Often, it's just easier to drop the book, grab my phone and scroll through Instagram reels.

For many people, it seems the destination is no longer worth the journey. In October, American magazine The Atlantic published an article about how students at elite US colleges are struggling to read books from cover to cover. The reason: Having never been required to digest books in their entirety, these students now lack the staying power to do so.

The same malaise appears to be spreading in Singapore. Book borrowing at public libraries is down, and both indie and mainstream bookstores have either downsized or called it quits. Often, modern living and its digital distractions are held accountable for this.

All of us seem to be in agreement about the demise of book culture. But what if this is just half the story and we are wrong? Audiobooks have made it easier to read on the go. The rise of Booktube, Booktok and Bookstagram allows people to discuss books with those they've never met. Some serialised web novels have hundreds of chapters and amassed thousands of fans.

Book culture isn't dead. It's just changing to suit what modern readers want.

READING IN AN AGE OF DISTRACTION