Even with Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” selling 2 million copies in its first week, book sales are down about 4 percent from this time last year. Bestselling authors like Pat Conroy and Mitch Albom are not rescuing the beleaguered trade. Perhaps people are holding of until the holidays (to either buy or give), according to an article in the New York Times. Or perhaps the future of hardbacks will be paperbacks or digital books downloaded to Kindles or iPhones or other mobile devices.
The cost of a hardback book is pretty steep when the economy is still tanking and people are opting for food over words (and people like me are giving novels away on Twitter). Google is trying to launch a digital library against a wall of lawyers and lobbyists. Into this fray of contentious verbiage comes a new book from Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.
“Connected” uses research from the Framingham Heart Study (from 1948 to now) to show how humans are connected to each other. Obesity is contagious, for instance. If yours friends or their friends gain weight, you are likely to gain too. The authors show similar relationships with suicide, politics, sex practices and back pain. They even say that getting a $10,000 raise won’t make you as happy as having a happy friend. I’ll be your happy friend for ten grand.
My question is: if my happy friends read more, will I get smarter without having to shell out $18 plus shipping on Amazon for a hardback?
