One in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.

Over the summer I spent some time with the family ----all four generations enjoying each other. After dinner some of us were just sitting and talking. The subject was recently read books. How enjoyable and surprising: for a while it seemed all of us had been so busy with work, school, or child-raising, that reading time has been at a premium. But we talked about best-sellers and obscure books, old books and books we can’t wait to read. Now we’re not exactly the intelligentsia, just average folks with an average love for books. At least so I thought until the above headline screamed at me. I was depressed that day, and bothered ever since.
Whenever I go to visit people's homes or apartments, I always enjoy it when they have bookcases in the living room (I used to have mine in my kitchen) so I can browse. No one ever acts like I'm snooping, and it usually starts a good conversation or two. Recently, my grand-niece, age 7, has discovered the magic of libraries. I just assumed everyone had kept up a love of books. I can’t even walk into a bookstore without my wallet leaping out of my back pocket to its death.I like to buy books and keep them around me. I give a bunch away, but I don't use libraries.Owning books, especially certain books, is an important thing for me. I thought everyone had some secret room in their house that looked like this:


And who, I thought, wouldn’t gladly add a room to the house so it could look like this:


Or maybe purchase one of these:



Lately, I’ve been reading laymen’s guides to new discoveries about the human brain. (I know, it’s kind of like reading about Porsches: it's the closest I’ll come to having one.)
But here's a tip:



Because this:


and this:



need feeding. Unless you want to be like this: