The Book Was Better

How often have we heard the above phrase regarding the film adaptation of a novel or short story? How many times have we been the ones saying it?
As Twilight: New Moon opens to record attendance this weekend, I expect that this phrase will be uttered quite often:
"The book was better."
This is not meant to take anything away from the director, the screenwriter, the actors, the editors, or anyone involved with the film. This is simply the nature of the written word. The images that can currently be created from them on the screen pale in comparison to the images that the human imagination can conjure. This will likely always be the case.
This makes some of the following statistics from the Jensen Group, Inc. all the more troubling:

~ 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.

~ 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.

~ 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.

~ 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

~ 57 percent of new books are not read to completion.

 
Now, I share these statistics mostly because they find them interesting. Interesting and saddening.
It also inspired me to go grab one of those books off of my to-read shelf, dust it off, and crack open the cover.