Friday, January 20, 2012

The Rise of Fiction

Novels are more popular than ever.
Choosing novels over non-fiction is a long-term trend; fiction has climbed from 67% of the titles in USA TODAY's weekly top 150 in 2007 to 78% last year. And the reason the retiree sitting in the beach chair next to yours and the businesswoman relaxing in the airport lounge are reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? We're craving that "Calgon, take me away" moment.

"People are interested in escape," says Carol Fitzgerald of the Book Report Network, websites for book discussions. "In a number of pages, the story will open, evolve and close, and a lot of what's going on in the world today is not like that. You've got this encapsulated escape that you can enjoy."
Non-fiction's downward slide — there were only five titles among 2011's top 20 best-selling books — can be blamed in part on the Internet, Fitzgerald says. "If you want to examine an issue, you can easily Google the topic and come at it 10 different ways in five minutes. That's the way it is with social media." (Read entire article.)
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