I also should have said “people who don’t read novels or fiction not just read.

Let’s start again:

Yes storytelling comes in many forms. The novel as a form of storytelling is not in my opinion anywhere close to extinction, I dislike it when people say, ” I don’t do A, therefore A is irrelevant.

I just tried watching the movie “House of the Spirits” based on the novel by Isabelle Allende, and to me it was not an acceptable adaptation. When I see a movie butcher a novel, I don’t think in terms of one medium being better, or replacing the other, I think of the inherent strengths of each.

So I don’t think suggesting that novels are a historical artifact is correct either.

@mike2: *i* want more new novels, that’s enough for me. you don’t need new novels, which is great for you. as for the world, who knows? what would it mean to know the answer to your question, anyway?

Okay actually I do:

Even if quasi-narrative 3d adventures are the next generation of story-telling. Until you can find me a game that is as emotionally compelling, imaginative and inspiring as let’s say..

White Teeth, Midnights Children, The Color Purple, 100 years of Solitude, The War with Mr Wiizzle, The Secret Garden, The Confusion, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Anastasia the Spy, Nana, Anna Karenina etc… Okay I’ll stop now.

I get annoyed with people who say they don’t read in the same breath that they say reading is not relevant – I don’t do a lot of things, (fly fishing and golf spring to mind) that doesn’t make them irrelevant.

Can’t we just say: “no more required we’ll make do with the ones we already have?”

I haven’t read a novel in years.

Maybe I’m to blame.

how dare you do anything with old penguin pocket classics but attend to them tenderly at that late stage in their life, when they are hoping to uplift and enlighten just one or two more readers before they go to the great big recycling bin in the sky!? you shall be the first one we turn on and banish when we create our little elitist group! ;-)

it was crazy when they first started opening, i thought: “surely there are not enough book buyers to pay for all this retail floorspace…” but in the mean time they forced all the independent book sellers out of the market, and then it turns out, no there are not enough book buyers to pay for all that floorspace.

but the fault lies with us book buyers and book lovers. if we’re so excited about book stores that sell books, then, as you suggest, we ought to build such stores and frequent them.