Most of my real life friends are not huge readers. Those who did not read books at all before meeting me have been gently prodded by Yours Truly into reading at least one book a month (I make no apologies for dropping unsubtle hints and shoving books at them until they caved in; I consider it a sacred duty.)
I think the main problem is that I live in a rural area where there are no bookstores and only a couple of tiny libraries. Limited access to books = few readers. I keep a stock of extra copies of my favorite books so I can lend them out, but there are only so many unsuspecting visitors I can corner at any given time. This naturally drives me crazy.
I know I'm a pain in the ass about getting people to read, but my motives are not self-serving. I love books, and all I've ever wanted to do is share that love. From my perspective people who refuse to read are depriving themselves of one of the finest pleasures in life. I don't expect everyone to knock out five or ten books a week, or spend half their income at the bookstore, but surely there's time in any schedule to read one book a month.
Anyway, since I gave up LB&LI last year I've been giving some thought to starting a new weekly feature here at PBW this summer. I thought it would be fun to touch base once a week and talk about what we're reading, what books we're handing out to friends, upcoming titles we're impatient for, who has a new book being released and so forth -- your basic reader/writer/book fest. As an incentive I could do a weekly giveaway of some sort (a BookWish, signed copies of my stuff, the occasional big honking bag of new titles, etc.), but the main purpose is to shamelessly take advantage of my blog's popularity to get more people reading and talking about the books they love.
What do you guys think? Good idea, bad idea, other? Let me know in comments.
