James Patterson burns books to promote reading

James Patterson is burning books in an attempt to persuade Barack Obama of the parlous state of reading in America.

The bestselling thriller writer, who is already in the process of giving £250,000 to independent booksellers in the UK and $1m to US bookshops, has released a dramatic video in which books are hurled by a crowd onto a mounting bonfire of literature. “There’s a book burning going on in America,” says the author in a voiceover. “You’re invited. Especially the kids. You see they’re shutting down your local bookstores. Shutting down libraries. Publishers are dying. American literature will be next on the flames.”

“Enough,” he cries, as Moby Dick burns. “I’m James Patterson. We can stop the book burning.”

Patterson is asking Americans to sign a petition calling on Obama to, once a month, “appear in public carrying a book”, “visit a library or store and get a book”, and to “go on record saying he’s concerned about the state of reading in our nation”.

“If 100,000 people sign the petition within 30 days, the president’s administration must respond to it,” says the author on his website , where he also asks readers to write to their US senators about the importance of reading.

Patterson tells readers that “20 years ago there were nearly 10,000 dedicated bookstores. Today there are less than 3,000” in America, that “the average American teenager watches more than three hours of video entertainment a day … and reads books for less than eight minutes a week”, and that “67% of US fourth graders scored ‘below proficient’” in a recent National Assessment of Education Progress.

“This has been going on for me for a while. I think what I’m trying to do, not to be too punny, is to light a fire. There’s a lot of apathy about books out there. I want people to look at this thing and go, ‘Ouch, that’s hot. OK, I’m awake! I get it. We do need bookstores. We do need libraries. We do need our kids to read more’,” Patterson told The Daily Beast , which described the author as having gone “full Fahrenheit 451” with his burning books video.

“More than anything else I’d love getting them to stand up in Congress and say they’re concerned about reading in this country,” Patterson added. “I’d love every Congress member in the country to say that and then it breaks as a news story. I’d love it if the president and first lady would make a point of carrying a book around one day a month, that would be great.”