Read a long book

James Patterson, the author, is planning to publish books for people who don’t read. These new BookShots novels will be shorter, cheaper, more plot-driven and more widely available.

My first reaction when I read about Patterson’s plans in the March 22, 2016, issue of The Dallas Morning News was to vow to find a very long book and read it.

However, then, I remembered my mother, the junior high reading teacher, who always believed that the most important thing she could do was to get her students to read—no matter what they read. She had a large collection of Classic Illustrated comic books, and she shared them with her students and her three children.

(I just checked, and you can buy a copy of The Three Musketeers, Classic Illustrated No. 1, which sold for 15 cents when it was first published in 1952, online for $44.20.

I still plan to read a long book, but I hope lots of people will read Patterson’s short books. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, 27 percent of American adults said they had not read a book in the past year.
–Joy