You hear horror stories of retail or restaurants, but we don’t get that because, as I say, our readership has already pre-sorted people that are coming in the bookstore.
We are always being fed so much – whether it’s Facebook or whatever, things are being put in our face – but here, readers take the time to select – What will I learn about now? What will I read about now? I’m sure it alters your brain patterns, and I think it does make for a nicer person. The idea that people can passively, in a way, and in a solitary way, take on information. I think that literacy is so important to society.
I’m just wondering about your thoughts, first of all, just in this general area about why books and reading are important to a community.Īlison Reid: Well, I think I agree with you. That’s why it’s my favorite time of year.Īlison, you’ve had a career in books and running an independent bookstore. So, when I go to the book festival and see all of these ardent readers – and the energy you get from having them all together – it’s really inspiring. The rise of the non-reading class is something that I feel concerned about in our community and in our country. I’ve recently seen a study that said something like only a quarter of Americans had read a book in the last year – the numbers are sort of all over the place on that and you’ll see some higher numbers too – but that was very disturbing to me. To me, readers are some of the most important people in our community because I regard readers and writers, broadly, as thoughtful people who are interested in learning and in understanding, and sort of the people – just to get way out on a limb – that you would want to have in charge of things, the people who want to become informed, the people who want to invest time in seeing the world beyond their narrow experiences and through the eyes of others, people who are sort of wired to have the patience and the aptitude for the act of reading. This is one of my very favorite times of the year – the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books – and the reason is that it’s a big gathering of the community of readers. Joining us today to discuss why this festival is so important to our community and the book industry is Alison Reid, one of the owners of DIESEL, A Bookstore managing editor Lora Cicalo and we begin with editor and publisher Jeff Light. This weekend we held our sixth annual San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books at the University of San Diego. This week we’re giving you insight into one of the biggest events we put on each year. Luis Cruz: Welcome to “San Diego News Fix: The Backstory.” Every week we give you a behind-the-scenes look at our industry and what’s happening in our newsroom.