The Rise of the Super-reader

Reading has become a more stratified activity than ever.

Imagine a Healthy Food pyramid, but instead populated by readers.

At the bottom, sadly, are people who don’t read at all. I’ll leave analysis of whether this section of the community is growing or not to people with massive research grants.

In the middle is a big grey area comprising people who read occasionally, people who dip in and out of reading, and people who go for long periods without reading much but who don’t mind a read every now and then.

At the top are my people – the ones who love a good story, the ones with a reading pile, the self-confessed readers.

But it’s my belief that a new sort of reader is emerging, the ones at the pointiest part of the pointy end of our Reading Pyramid. Perhaps they’ve always been around, but now they’re growing in numbers and becoming a force to be reckoned with.

I call these people the Super-readers.

A Super-reader is distinguished from an ordinary reader by a number of things:

• Their reading pile is potentially life-threatening if it collapses on them.
• They know what a TBR list is, and they fret about it.
• They’re like chain smokers – when they finish a book they must have a new one to go on with.
• They read their favourite books more than once. Many, many times more than once.
• Consequently, they might have more than one copy of a favourite book as their first has worn out – and YOU CAN’T THROW OUT A BOOK.
• On a train/bus/tram, they’ve become good at reading covers upside down because they’re fascinated by what other people are reading. You never know, someone might be reading what they’re reading and, thus, A CONNECTION IS FORMED!
• A persistent nightmare for a Super-reader is being caught without a book to read. Therefore, they often travel with two (or more) books.

Some rarer characteristics of Super-readers:

• They dress up as characters from their favourite books.
• They write to their favourite authors, praising or questioning about minutiae.
• They write fan fiction.

Regardless of all this, the single defining characteristic of Super-readers is their love of books. This often means they love to talk about books. This, of course, has been facilitated by technology. Super-readers congregate, thanks to the internet. They talk about characters, about back stories, about potential sequels, about rumours of film versions and how they’re bound to spoil the book.

Super-readers are extraordinarily affirming for a writer (‘They like my work!’) but they are also extremely demanding – in a good way. They read closely, carefully, and won’t be happy with anything less than a writer’s best.

Super-readers keeps a writer on her or his toes, and that’s a good thing.