A Reading Culture by Lesley Hargreaves

 

It's been sunny here for a few weeks now, and we are blessed enough to live a few hundred yards from the seafront. Every morning, rain, shine or sub-zero, my lovely husband swims in the sea. He's strange but nice. If it's nice weather, I have been known to accompany him, usually with a paperback to read. This stops me from watching him and worrying about him dying a horrible death if a wave takes him. (Please see evidence of this foolhardy behaviour above. He was concerned that some of you may be overcome with lust. I said that I thought you would all probably be ok.) One morning last week, I was reading while sitting on a non-pebble bit of the beach with the sun beating down. Suddenly, I was ambushed by a memory. Years ago, a few of us had gone on holiday with Oak Hall. (If you are of a certain age and don't know what Oak Hall is - I'm not sure that you are even a Christian.) Anyway, Oak Hall used to pack coaches with young Christians and take them all around the world. People went for fellowship, friendship, and obviously, pulling. I remember us all having an afternoon off and all retiring to the beach - twenty young people trying to keep the sand out of their crevices, lounging around. The thing I remember was that we were all on the beach reading Christian paperbacks - all of us. I suppose it could have been peer pressure, but it didn't seem like it. There were lots of familiar titles by authors like Chuck Swindoll, Floyd McClung and Gordon MacDonald. There was a culture of reading. I can still remember Ordering Your Private World changing the way I did devotions, or The Father Heart of God being very precious as my relationship with my father was "interesting". Does that culture still exist?

I remember our church used to run a small bookshop at the back of the church. I used to get recommendations from our pastors and throw a few in myself. It was felt to be important. We had a Christian publisher visit us once and address a group of young professionals. He was nice, if a bit harsh. He said - "By all means, get books from libraries and second-hand bookshops, but if you are earning, you should be buying new Christian books as well. Once a month. Invest in yourself and support the industry." This will be music to the ears of readers of this blog, I expect. 

However, I wonder if there is a similar pool to dive into and read? I used to get many recommendations from Christian magazines that had pages of recently released books. Nowadays, there are only maybe three or four releases a month. The landscape is different now, and self-publishing is opening up new avenues, and Christian fiction is more sympathetically received, as well as fiction written with a Christian ethos. But as you know, there are fewer bookshops to talk to and get recommendations, etc. People have to go looking for books - they don't get shoved under your nose the way they used to at church. (Forgive me if your church is on this already.) 

I just wonder if, as a writer, part of my responsibility is promoting - not just a book that I have written, but a supportive, bookish culture. I recently watched a woman with thousands and thousands of followers on Instagram. Literally all she does is put up a title saying something like "My Five Star Reads This Month", and she just flashes the cover of the books, one after another, and grimaces a bit. Thousands of views. People seem to want to know what to read. I could easily come up with ten books - some of them written by people on this blog - that are well worth reading. You could probably do the same. 

I'm not a cool person. (No really - I'm not) No one is going to want to emulate me. But I just wonder  - my socials, my reviews, my Kindle or that paperback I am hauling around in my work bag that is mysteriously wrinkly with sea water. Am I creating a groovy reading culture for people to learn about God and laugh, and enjoy a flippin' good story? Is that what a real writer needs to do? Just wondering.

Lesley blogs at https://wrinklymartha.blogspot.com/ just about life and things really.