The negativity here about Literary fiction is interesting. A lot of people implying that readers don't enjoy it or that it's elitist or a status symbol etc...

I think it's important to accept that there is a group of people - perhaps small - that love reading literary fiction. It's not reasonable to assume bad faith, just because you can't see the merit in something. There maybe people that use it as a means of identifying with a group and not out of genuine passion or interest - but that is true of every group. You always have people who attach themselves in this way: programming and tech world are a classic case.

Anyway just because something seems esoteric does not mean the person iis not enjoying it. We all have radically different needs, experiences and interests. And it's OK. Anyone who thinks that because they read literary fiction they are superior in some way is foolish certainly. On the other hand they may quite reasonably say that they consider one form of fiction to be aesthetically superior: that is the nature of aesthetics - we all get our say.

Arts Council England: "we are saying that there is something so unique and important and necessary and fundamental about literary fiction in particular, that we need to focus on it and support it."

Yeah, right. Because navel-gazing is the only thing in literature worth supporting. We'd have fewer problems in the world if more people read (and appreciated) science fiction.

ACE, I make a gesture of contempt in your direction.

Point is if we lose humanities and its highest expressions, we lose the historical and progressive enlightment how it came for societies more and more complex, in that reverting to simpler, mechanical, narrower, fundamentally brutal models. Less Facebook, then, more sophisticated novels, even the opportunity to choose them when we need them would be good enough.

I have understood some drop in fiction book sales to be caused by the wind-up of the Harry Potter series in 2007. A 2011 article from The Guardian (Datablog section, author uncredited) linked to this spreadsheet of Harry Potter book sales numbers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C6QriM1aMBd5Ab6Tn7hn...

Is Rowling's Potter part of Literary Fiction? The report states "We therefore leave the definition of what literary fiction is, open. [...] What it definitely is not, for our purposes, is poetry or plays. We are looking at fiction." Which causes me to believe it does fall within their definition.

"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." -Kafka

John Le Carre, Salman Rushdie, John Banville, Anthony Horowitz. All had superlative novels out this year.

Also just started Francis Spufford's Golden Hill. Absolutely sublime way to spend a snow bound winter night.

The crisis is obviously in readership. Not writing. And the chaotic divergence of attention.

It may be true that the text no longer acts as Bildungsroman. The primary method to impart moral and spiritual character to young influence-able minds.

But then the Mountain must come to Muhammad. And the great works rendered as digital classics.

http://joycestick.com/

My wife enjoys literary fiction and I enjoy reading scifi (most recently Chinese scifi). We spend quite a bit of money on new eBooks, books, and audible books.

Everyone gets to decide what they enjoy and how they spend their time. I generally enjoy good writing and good movies over spending time with miscellaneous web browsing and network TV. I have friends and family who love watching TV or hanging out on Facebook and that is fine because everyone gets to decide how they spend their time.

It is important to me that producers of great content get paid so even though I enjoy spending time in my local library, I prefer to purchase entertainment material.

I find it quite strange that literary fiction in particular is sinking when other kinds of fiction seems to be increasingly in a boom. Romance ebooks are taking off, for example. I wonder if it isn’t possible that these literary authors couldn’t move their work to electronic mediums like, well, Medium.

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I don't know what "literary fiction" is, exactly. I suspect that, for the most part, it's been a status symbol. Back in the day, one needed copies of the latest stuff on tables and shelves. But on Facebook, one can fake it, based on Goodreads etc. No dead trees needed.