I suspect that a significant number of Americans, such as the current president (who doesn't deserve a capital), never read a book at high school either.

One further tidbit: the bestseller with Washington foreign policy strategists is 'Great Oil-fields of the World: an Acquisitions Guide'. This is available from 'all good booksellers' - or you can order it direct from Halliburton Free Press.

And given what fills the US bestseller lists these days, that 42% who continue reading after high school ain't exactly picky, either.

Always American bashing.

it 's so boring, so pious and self-rightious. One of the reasons why I no longer attend literary events; second-rate poets standing around patting themselves on the back for their position on the Iraq war. Poets from Mirimar, Wellington. Urrg (r otherwise talking about writing about writing about themselves).. What a smug little tea-party.

Oh, dear. Someone's got a chipped teacup.

I think it’s fair to say that Americans and Kiwis are equally poorly read. NZ considers itself a far more literary place than it actually is: there isn’t a decent bookshop by international standards in the whole country. NZ misguidedly thinks it is pretty flash on many issues, when in fact (apart, perhaps, from indigenous rights) it is quite pedestrian.

It might also be worth pointing out how the rest of the world regards NZ as pretty inconsequential. Watching the news here you’d think the whole world was lined up to consult New Zealand’s talent, when in fact it barely blips the radar. As an example of how something ostensibly “iconographic” actually transmits overseas I can tell you that as an Englishman it wasn’t until my mid twenties that I even knew ANZAC had anything to do with NZ, rather uniquely Australian: personal ignorance, perhaps, but telling nonetheless. Also interesting to note is that those images which do transmit overseas – Middle Earth, Narnia, Clean & Green – are largely fantasies. So let’s not get too superior with the Americans, who while responsible for some quite epic cultural voids do manage the occasional piece of wonderment. All things considered – scale, population, etc – I’d say we’re all in the same boat.

Joe is to the point, and echoes some observations by the late Bruce Jesson, however the critical difference is that America (commercially and militarily) exports its 'epic cultural voids'.

The Jewish critic Walter Benjamin and the sometime-Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger both extrapolated on Friedrich Nietzsche's insight: 'A terrible danger: that American-political frenzy and the irrepressible knowledge industry will merge.' This is the reverse side of the coin which Chris tossed by posting the item on reading patterns and the publishing industry in America.

In New Zealand it matters not a jot to the rest of the world that the then Prime Minister Keith Holyoake identified his favourite book as 'Origin of the Species' by Charles Dickens. But when the American president adheres to Creationism the world suffers for his ignorance.

I sat in on a publishers' (overseas & ANZ) and booksellers' meeting, less than a decade ago, where they agreed that
*selling over 2000 books of ANZ poetry, per title, was utterly exceptional;
*selling over 6000 books, per title, of a work of ANZ fiction, was extraordinary;
*good non-fiction/non-sports or cooking titles (again ANZ ones) would go to 20,000-
from memory, this was the shelf-life of the title tho' it could've been a year's sale figures before the titles got remaindered-

doesnt say a helluva lot about our book*buyers* does it?
(Readers are a different kettle of fish entirely-)

Oh whoops Joe...can't let you get away with that - here's a plug for Ponders in Eastbourne, Unity in Wellington, Scorpio in Christchurch and Slightly Foxed in Oamaru - you must visit them all and I think in Devonport there are some good book shops... (yes?)

I'm not sure to what extent the moral worth of a country's citizens and leaders can be determined by how 'well read' they are, but 'Smiths' and 'Unity' are indeed great bookshops. There are some pretty good bookshops in Washington DC - and Condi Rice enjoys Tolstoy in Russian.

David - how on earth can you call America a 'cultural void'?! Absurd. I also find your statement about America 'exporting its cultural void ' somewhat patronising towards the vast majority of people who CHOOSE to import it. Or ... perhaps you subscribe to a view I've often encountered at cocktail parties: if only they could be compelled to read Elizabeth Knox! Perhaps you could enlighten them, David - you read like a nun. I don't mean to rail against you, (well ok I do) but please point me to the relevant passage in Nietzsche. I know my Nietzche pretty well and that paticular 'insight' is new to me, as well as being a little vauge. Reminds me of a certain passage in the Gay science. Approximately: someone who wants to appear profound will make the waters dirty in order to appear deep". Are you are Wellington poet? Nevertheless, I agree with your last sentence. "When the American president..." Truly dreadful. But I would counter that with a useful thought experiment. "When Kim Jong...." It's a question of relative power- they're all bastards. Joe, you are wonderfully rational - I dearly hope you are a poet too.
I don't mean to knock anyone. But I do feel that there are a lot of people in the arts world who are complacent, smug, conventional not particularly thoughtful. E.g your comment about Heidegger: whenever he is referenced his Nazi connection is too, and fair enough. But what of Foucault and his support of the Iranian revolution, despite his knowing full-well that it would result in many homosexuals heads being chopped off (while also being a campaigner for gay rights). What I'm getting at is that I have come to suspect that many of the opinions expressed by establishment arts people are shallow, thoughtless - mere expressions of their own political self-rightiousness. In a word, bullshit. Where's A K Grant when you need him? Absolutely RIPE

we're all in the same game bread and butter,
it's just a couple of subdivisions who naturally hate each other

In reply to Islander's figures on book sales in NZ. Herewith some (depressing) figures off the website Chris directed us to.

'Book Sales in the U.S.

A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.
--Authors Guild. http://www.authorsguild.org/

A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.
--Authors Guild. http://www.authorsguild.org/ '

Creative Kiwis I knew in London would talk about Unity Books as if it was an Aladdin's palace: when I got there it was like something attached to a European railway station. Maggie, those bookshops you mention are only good by NZ standards: people from overseas would expect better in any anonymous town.

David bought up Benjamin, who can be dragged out for most occasions; his Theses on the Philosophy of History (VIII) best fits, “The ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule.”

Perhaps it is pertinent here to post a link to an article on gender differences in reading.

http://www.reason.com/links/links060906.shtml

As a male writer I find there are some very depressing findings in this research. For example.

"We found that men do not regard books as a constant companion to their life's journey, as consolers or guides, as women do..."

and,

"Many men we approached really did not seem to associate reading fiction with life choices ..."

I don't know how this discussion quickly changed into the quality of NZ bookstores.

The reality is that a lot of the population (of both NZ and the U.S.) doesn't read books on a regular basis, and the fact that we have a small population base limits NZ's ability to sustain some of the bookstores you can see in places like New York or London, but, as mentioned in other posts (see above) we do have some good bookstores, nevertheless.

As a New Zealander who teaches Creative Writing in the U.S. I would have to say that the survey results are disturbing but my feeling is we would find similar results here at home.

Whether someone reads fantasy fiction, romance, etc (which is in itself a baseless value judgment), surely the fact that people are reading is a good thing, wherever people choose to get there books (one word: internet).

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms

Yeats...(yes I know he was a facist..but he did recant at the end.)

And could he write doggerel!

"Keats and Yeats are on your side
But you lose
'Cause weird lover Wilde is on mine."
-The Smiths, "Cemetry Gates" ;0

I am astonished by Joe's comment that there isn't a decent bookshop in the whole of NZ, and that Unity is like something attached to a European railway station...I have spent a lot of time with visiting English and Australian publishers, who are genuinely impressed with the quality of our bookshops, especially our independents. Good independent bookshops are now a rarity in Britain and America, aside from a few stalwarts like The Tattered Cover in Denver and the re-energised Foyles in London, but here we have both Unitys, Bruce McKenzie in Palmerston North, Muir's in Gisborne, the University Bookshop in Dunedin, The Booklover in Takapuna, 2 superb Dymocks franchises in Wellington and Newmarket, as well as a host of interesting boutique shops all over Auckland. I don't know what Joe considers to be a decent bookshop, but I would have thought that a comprehensive, carefully chosen range of stock, comfortable ambience, and intelligent, well-read staff might qualify these and others. Our small population will always limit the size of our bookshops, as well as the sales that publishers can achieve here, and as a little country at the ends of the earth, we're not always going to be on the international radar, but I reckon we punch pretty well above our weight in terms of being "literary" (whatever that is....). But isn't that one of the things we like about being a New Zealander? Perhaps Joe doesn't like being a New Zealander?

How dare Jo question the quality of New Zealand's second-hand bookshops!

Unpatriotic!

Not a New Zealander!

Not literary!

Banish him from the homogenous Salon at once!

Fit only to watch star-trek reruns and chew hamburgers, is Joe!

I'm trying to understand the implications of some of these posts.

Quality of second-hand bookshops

=

More 'literary' population

=

Morally superior Nation

What is this strange logic?

A weird kind of nationalism based on the feeling one's countrymen have for (politically appropriate)poetry?

Reading back through these posts I'm not actually sure if anyone has made such an arguement, Alan. The progression has been more like:

- The percentage of Americans who read for pleasure is disturbingly small.

- New Zealand bookstores suck!

- No they don't!

- Yes they do!

(etc)

I think the United States has been the most vibrant and important source of English-language literature for the last hundred years or so and I think that is disgraceful how American lit is often neglected in New Zealand and Australian universities. But it's not 'American-bashing' to express concern at the declining number of readers in the most culturally influential nation on the planet. And I don't think that expressing the occasional positive sentiment about the current state of NZ lit on a website devoted to the subject should be read as a claim to 'moral superiority'. Yes, not enough people read over here, just like in the US, and yes, we're not boxing in the same literary league most of the time. But I'd say that over the last twenty years New Zealanders have been taking more pride and interest in local literature than they have in the past and our literary scene has florished as a result. For a nation that a very large number of Americans probably couldn't locate on a map we don't do too badly.

here here, Julian

I want to smear you with marmite and mate you in watties beans.
while David stands over us reading from Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History volume VIII.

I'm in the process of reading a Capote bio at the moment and was hugely depressed to note that the advance he got for Other Voices, Other Rooms sixty odd years ago was US$1,200, which is, with the exchange rate, the equivalent of what NZ novelists get in the here and now. All I can say is thank goodness for cushy govt. jobs.

Sex acts with marmite, Alan? The reasoned, dispassionate logic of your arguments and responses on leafsalon continues to leave me breathless. I don't know why you persist in tryin' to learn us parochial NZ lit folk...

Wow, this is one bizarre discussion... entertaining though! Marmite-o-philia and all.

I think the size of NZ makes it easier for us to make sweeping statements based on less than thirty bookshops and believe in them - quite possibly with reason. But this same totalising logic breaks down into absurdity, once applied to "Americans" or "A European Railway Station" much less to the mythical kingdom called "Overseas". The devil's in the details. Julian's right I think.

It was the mating in the Watties baked beans bit that got me! (I'm a Vegemite fan-)

I kind of hoped it was actually meant to be 'marinate'...