[chelviweeme]

That is a question I asked when I first came to Thailand over ten years ago. There wasn't much of a selection of books in bookstores and students at school only read cartoon books. In fact, wherever I went I saw both children and young adults reading these Japanese imports - many of them with graphic violence and nudity. But, there wasn't much of a selection of good novels. I wanted to encourage my students to read (Thai) books but there just wasn't much to read. To give you an example how bad things were, just about all of the computer books were imported English versions. Hardly anything in Thai. Now it is very much the opposite. Both reference books and novels from the West are now being translated. Thai authors are also writing many more books now. The book fairs in Bangkok get bigger and bigger every year. I went to the last one at the weekend and it was packed. It was so good to see so many Thai people with a love of reading now.

For the youngsters, you can of course thank Harry Potter. I think it was a translation of that first book that first got my students intereted in reading novels. At about the same time a number of other classics were translated. Everything has snowballed since then. Back in 1995 an average of 13.1 books were published per day. Now this has risen to 31.9 books per day! So, what is the nation reading these days? Are they all reading novels? No, the sad fact is that only a small percentage of the nation read any books on the bestseller lists. What is happening in Bangkok is not happening in the provinces. Not yet anyway. A recent survey showed that 72.9% read newspapers, followed by 45.4% novels and comics, 36.9% magazines, 10.2% textbooks, and 5.7% religious books.