From a post in a Facebook group for people who like reading:

Authors…I do not care! I read what interests me and that’s it.

My response was:

Without an author there is no book
Without a book there is no reader

As a writer I probably have a vested interest in the subject, well, there is no ‘probably’, I do. Reading the many posts in the particular group mentioned has helped me realise that all the idiosyncrasies of the human being appear in any one group that shares a common interest. It does not matter what the subject or object of that interest may be, cinema, food, sport, music, or art, the fact is that they all involve and are created by other human beings.

I have many interests across many subjects but there is not one where I divorce the idea from the person who created it. Perhaps that is why I am not a collector. Like other children I collected things, stamps, comics, football trading cards, but I stopped in my teens. My wife would point out that I have a collection of books, which is true, but they are all works that I have read and enjoyed and either bought or had given to me. The collection is also rather small and one of my main reasons for having it is because it gives family and friends ideas for what to buy me when my birthday and Christmas come around. I am not obsessive about it. I could also say that I know a little about each and every author in my library and also some background history to the individual books.

Of course, we are not all the same. Studying English Literature at college taught me how to appreciate a book more completely and I am very grateful for that. There are some people however, for whom the book is the sole object. The story it contains and the reading of it is all that matters. It is a form of consumerism, the written words are devoured, not necessarily digested, then onto the next course. I have noticed that some members of the Facebook group are obsessed with how many books they have read in a given period. The quality of what they read or their ability to comprehend the ideas and themes of the books rarely get a mention; the number as a total figure is what is important.

As an author I find these behaviours disappointing, but then I am reminded of the adage that you cannot please all of the people all of the time. There are those who consume food with no regard to aesthetics, watch movies without wanting to question anything that they see, listen to music simply fill an aural void. Culture reflects the people we are and that includes both ends of the spectrum. When I create something, I do not need a long scholarly essay on its virtues and failings, just a simple star product rating will do, or a short review, or even just a message in any format that is convenient. It seems to me, however, that the majority of people who read are like the person who made the original post, they only think to please themselves, and I make that judgement base on over 500 of the comments that were appended to it.