Devoted to Romance

Reuters had an article yesterday with the wonderful, hopeful headline “Books a must-have even in sluggish economy—During tough economic times when U.S. consumers are trying to cut back the indulgence they can't seem to live without is books.” Yes! U.S. consumers—they’re just like me! According to the article, three-quarters of Americans would give up restaurants, movies, shopping, even holidays, before sacrificing novels. Awesome, I’m thinking, but maybe they should get a library card before, you know, cutting out Christmas.

I should have suspected something was fishy. 

Turns out the survey was conducted by Harlequin, which means that they were already talking to a group of devoted readers, and more importantly, devoted readers of one of the cheapest genres available. Obviously it would take a lot for them to have to sacrifice buying books when you can buy your favorites for a quarter on Amazon. 

Still—it’s great that fanatic readers still exist, and I actually have gained a lot of respect for the genre ever since once of the most respected literary scholars at my alma mater “came out” as Eloisa James, a bestselling romance writer.  Even though this one survey might not really be representative of the public as a whole, it’s nice to have something cheery, if a little misleading, in between the doomsday headlines. 

(Reuters)