i think internet is the main reason to make m'sian not like to read book.
Internet make people addict to it.
2nd is the price is not cheap and lack of choices to read.

when my pc has problem,i keep buying books to read,but after pc is repaired,books keep under my bed.

Lack of choice? I always believed that with Kino & MPH, Malaysia has a very good selection compared to most countries. In fact, it's great that we get both US & UK published versions of books here.

for english version books,maybe you can satisfied to it,but others language version is less import to here,so i feel not many choices to choose if want to read Chinese books.

I see what you did there.

wait what?

How long has passed since you last entered a bookstore?

No offence bro I'll agree to your statements 2/3 years back but seriously right now, you can get tons of choices.

Especially Popular, I've really seen them brought in tons of new chinese books from Taiwan.

I didn't even mention Kinokuniya where you can get almost all Chinese books published in Taiwan because of the price.

i don't think its a Malaysian thing, its worldwide that people nowadays read much less than say 10 years ago.
I'd agree with someone mentioning the Internet being one of the reasons. Internet, media, social-media, advertising etc. have all made us have shorter attention spans. As we get faster and more accessible things online, we live in a world where 'instant' is what is expected.
we get instant news, we open multiple tabs in browsers and jump from one to another, if a text is more than a few paragraphs, we get bored and jump to another.
Reading is a slow-placed activity that stimulates our brain and as people's attention span get less, they are less eager to read. i too admit i suffer from internet and social media addiction, but trying to limit myself and read more.

I picked up the reading habit very late, since then have been trying to pick up the pace.

My initial problem with reading was I had pretty bad vocabulary skills, and very short attention span. It's also easy to get overwhelmed by the choices available when just starting off. It get easier overtime though, once you identified the topics/writers that you like.

On another note, it's rather sad to see bookstores close downs and downsizing over the years. MPH MV, Ipoh, Borders Times Square.. all became disappointingly small. And the so called library in my hometown supermarket is a joke

Would love to join in the discussion, if you guys don,t mind :-)

I am inclined to say that we we do not have enough distributors.

The distributors are limited; Kino, Mph, Popular.
The smaller bookstores have closed shops due to their inability to fight against the better known names.

What this mean is that the books brouht to Malaysia are determined by these distributors. They certainly go for the bestsellers and well known names, which means the number of books ain't that much.

Just my two cents observation

I agree with most of the forumers said here that internet is one of the major factors. Besides that, money is another factor why I don't read books. I love reading fantasy novels but price is really turning me off.

I don't think Internet is to blame.

So long as things are read, it would mean the same : reading.

Whether it is via blog, online news, forums, etc, it is also called as reading.

Reading does not need to mean only paperback/hardcover books.

If there s thing to blame, it is : FB, Twitter, and Instagram. LOL

It really depends on WHAT you read.

NYTIMES blog - good. PerezHilton blog - bad.

Online News? Malaysiakini - good. Yahoo! OMG - bad.

Forums? Any proper forum - good. kopitiam... well, you know.

When someone says people aren't reading enough these days - they mean reading things that expand our horizon or vocabulary. Something insightful or intellectual. A stimulant. Not reading just anything. My 2sen.

This post has been edited by highbury1913: Feb 4 2013, 05:23 PM

IMO, Internet is the main factor. Last time during my secondary school, I always read different kinds of book. But when I'm in college, my reading interest from 100% become zero.

Even when I went to bookstore, I just lost interest to read anymore. Try practising back my reading habit, but after 2 days, gone and back to Internet. I'm addicted to Internet.

I do read on public transport,but I do it on my device,I have both manga and fictions in it. I used to carry books around when i was younger,but it's lighter and we can "carry" more titles in it too.

Maybe because adult Malaysians spend their time earning money and teenage + young Malaysians spend their time playing electronic games?

Then again, Big Bad Wolf sales is so cheap!

The same price they spent for their one original game is worth 10 books or so.

Is it possible we're seeing a renaissance of the reading culture in Malaysia? Recently, the Bookfest, Big Bad Wolf and MPH Distributors Sale have all been packed. I've never seen so much interest in books.

Hi! Funny you should mention that. It's quite amazing to see so many people lugging away huge quantities of books via travel bags. First time I actually seen such crowds...

IMHO, I think the main resurgence is due to more reasonable prices. If I remember correctly, prices used to be quite reasonable around RM30 per novel pre-1998 crisis. After the currency crisis and the weakness in the Ringgit, book prices spiked up substantially. Although an avid reader, most of the cheaper novels cost around RM45++. The more serious and self help section could easily cost about RM50-80 per book. That really put me off buying books. The BBW really rekindled my interest. All great books at very cheap prices.

However, in terms of the variety of books, I think Kinokuniya has the best selection but their prices are really expensive. Nowadays, I find it best to buy online via sites like BookDepository which delivers the book right to your doorstep but at reasonable prices.

One thing that really makes me sad is that we don't really have many good 2nd hand bookstores. It would be great if some of the Malaysiana and Asian books that are more geared to local interest were sold to 2nd hand bookstores. Trying to find some of these books are near impossible. Sure, these books might be available at Amazon UK/US but at exorbitant prices... Wonder what Malaysians do with all these precious 2nd hand books... chuck them into recycling centres? Sigh

***
Oh BTW - Is your "In the Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss offer still open? ... Tempted

Yes. Reply to that thread la. Give me free bump. LOL.

Hehe, ok...