I was in a small group of women recently where all (but me) said they were not readers. This is not something a writer likes to hear. A writer likes to think that the world is heavily populated with readers, that in any group there are likely to be more readers than non-readers, that there are zillions of people who lust to pick up a book and disappear into it.

But my casual observation should already have dashed these notions. And sadly, I am coming to face the facts. I do not know the statistics, but it seems that, despite the proliferation of book groups, despite the ease of purchasing books on Amazon and reading books on Kindle, the number of readers in the world appears to be shrinking, or at least the number of people who consider reading a profound pleasure.

It breaks my heart, but I understand. The message from our culture does not seem to be pro-reading. Schools convey the notion that reading is good for us in the same way broccoli is. We should do it to better ourselves and enhance our critical thinking skills. By the time people get to a college-level English class, the joy has been sucked from literature and the act of reading is all about parsing the fine details. The pleasure reading brings, the pleasure of connecting with another human consciousness and laughing or crying about the human condition, is frequently left in the dust.

Then there is the nature of the activity itself. Reading is quiescent, and it requires attention and patience, both scarce commodities in a culture on the go. We seem (and I include myself here) to like to think of ourselves as busy—after all, if we’re busy we must be important—and we want others to think of us as busy too, and sitting anywhere immersed in a book does not appear busy in the same way that even, say, typing a text does, or scrolling through Facebook.

Then there is the health concern. The human body needs to move. We’re killing ourselves by being too sedentary. And reading is certainly sedentary.

Yet another uncomfortable thing I’ve noticed about my own reading habits. Often, with non-fiction books (Lean In, Present Shock, and Top Dog are recent examples) I am content to read about the book instead of reading the book itself. This is partly because I am always more drawn to reading fiction. But I’m disturbed by the thought that I’ve held conversations with people about the ideas in certain books when I’ve never actually read the books. And I am quite certain that some of my ideas about those ideas are wrong. Read the book, Cai; then hold forth!

As a writer I am thinking a lot these days about the scant time people allocate to reading, even people who like to read.  It makes me feel more pressure than ever to deliver something that evokes not only meaning, but also a kind of physiological pleasure.

There is little to conclude here. I watch, I mourn, I understand. And I try to resist the cultural memes and keep on quietly writing and reading.