In Tucson there are two large barnes and noble stores. There are two enormous used books stores called Bookmans where one can get a wonderful selection of used books, and sell books that they no longer need. A quick search showed 9 other book stores of one kind or the other.
I did a search at the Barnes and Noble website for "astronomy". It returned 2129 books that one can order.
A Gallup poll two years ago showed people reading fewer books in the older demographic but that statistic does not tell the tale. The decrease in book reading comes largely from the demographic which in 2002 reported reading a lot of books. College graduates are reading a few less. But the average American still reads an average of 12 books a year. One a month is more than I thought they did. And, surprising all of us geezers, the 18-34 demographic decrease in reading was only .8%. This is statistically mostly no reduction but in practice this demographic still reads about 20 per year. 18-26, this article said, is interesting because they are increasingly reading driven by recommendations they see on TicTok and #booktok.
So, lest we boast, it is we geezers, 55+ who are leading the reduction in book reading. We are driving down the statistic pretty significantly.
I personally "read" something like 40+ books per year, many streamed while driving or exercising.
An observation. Consider the amount of time you spend on this site and others. That is reading for sure. How many "books" worth of content do you consume in a year? Are we less informed or more informed that we were "back in the day" of library books, one newspaper and three television channels?
"Back in the Day" we had to buy a book filled with a lot of stuff and sort through it sometimes for the answer to one question. Now I can type a query into my computer and have the answer instantly. I could read a long and tedious book, filled with math, about how to make astro photos (for example) and still not know "how to do it". IF I had to learn advanced astrophotography from books it would take years. I can watch a couple of YouTube videos and in a couple of hours (or less) be taking my first photo. Then with another hour be on my way to post processing. Then I can come here and, reading the forums, progress in the hobby very quickly. And, if I have a question, I can access true experts (here and elsewhere) virtually instantly.
I work with a lot of younger people in my volunteer work. They are certainly not less informed than we are. They are much more informed than ever I was 40 years ago though I would not have admitted it. And frankly many of my generation do not grasp the fact that I have the knowledge of the world in by pocket. What I do with that varies but young people learn about that aspect in school. Some of we geezers do not. (I have standing to use that term as I am one.)
There is still something cool about reading a book. Indeed there are a couple on my nightstand and a hundreds in bookcases as I speak. But this is not really something to brag about. It is in some ways anachronistic but, reading for pleasure relaxes me. Frankly though, the notion of cracking a book to learn to do something seems to me, these days, a monumental waste of time.
Now I will run and hide.
