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Why are books so outrageously expensive in Brazil?
That's from a reader request. I'm no expert on Brazil, but here are a few possibilities:
1. Most Brazilians do not read. I don't mean they can't read, I mean they don't read for leisure so much. I was stuck at the Sao Paulo airport for seven hours and did not see a single person reading a book, not once.
Taking that as given, low demand means high prices. That's why Stephen King paperbacks are cheap and Edward Elgar (the name of an academic publisher) tomes go for $100 and up.
2. Brazilian retailing is not in every way efficient. Efficient retailing in the traditional sense is, by the way, bad for the quality of your food because it means it is easy to serve large numbers. And Brazil has some of the world's best food, and so inefficient retailing for its books.
3. No other supply source is right nearby and the Portuguese language does not produce an extremely thick market. Note that the Portuguese of Portugal is very different from the Portuguese of Brazil.
4. The Brazilian currency may be overvalued at the moment, at least in purchasing power parity terms, due to Brazil's commodity exports.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 22, 2008 at 05:03 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
"low demand means high prices"
hmmmm, not the standard micro argument. Though I get the example I cannot see the reason. Or might it be that Elgar is sold in low volumes because the price is so high?
Posted by: Chris at May 22, 2008 7:17:27 AM
do Brazilians not read because the people around them are so good looking and therefore it is much more pleasant to watch other people than to read?
Posted by: chug at May 22, 2008 7:44:16 AM
Maybe Brazilians don't read because books are so expensive?
Posted by: brian at May 22, 2008 7:47:13 AM
Here are some additional reasons:
Transport costs are high. Either you fly books in from the publishers (which is expensive) or you ship them via boat (which slows down the delivery time due to port congestion.) If delivery times slow down, stores don't order high volumes of books because they can't predict that far down the timeline and can't get volume discounts.
Lack of discount stores. B&N, Amazon, etc aren't prevalent in Brasil.
Tyler's first point is also correct. Brazilians in the lower income/wealth deciles have other things to spend their money on than books. Also, as they are usually less educated, their reading consumption doesn't extend to books.
Taxes have something to do with it. Imported goods have a higher duty which is evidenced in the cost of electronics in Brazil, but I always thought there was a higher tax on books, magazines, etc.
I lived in Brazil in 2007 for 8 months and noticed the high costs on books.
Posted by: Scott at May 22, 2008 8:17:27 AM
>> "Note that the Portuguese of Portugal is very different from the Portuguese of Brazil."
Interesting, I wasn't aware of that.
Posted by: Chris Meisenzahl at May 22, 2008 8:20:39 AM
As a Brazilian I want to share my two cents: in terms of minimum wage the median book price is equivalent to a couple of full days of work, so most people here have a though time between buying books and food/paying the rent. This would explain why poor people don't read, but rich and educated people don't read much too: this is more related to the history and culture of Brazil, we traditionally value knowledge less than social skills and networking, it's much more important who you know than what you know, so reading isn't as competitive as socializing when it comes to improving your income.
Posted by: Daniel Yokomizo at May 22, 2008 9:00:42 AM
I was the reader who asked the question. Thank you for covering it. :)
1. I know that Brazilians do not read much; it is basically an oral culture. Nevertheless, my own country has roughly 20 times fewer inhabitants than Brazil, and our economic level is quite similar to that of the luckier part of Brazil. So I thought that if you disregard the poor and people who never read, the Brazilian book market should add up to something that is not "smaller" than what I know from my country, where books are some 50% cheaper.
2. Yes, services in general are a bit underdeveloped, in particular in the online sector.
3. I don't think that the language versions are different enough to prevent Brazilians from reading Portuguese books and vice versa. That said, I know next to nothing about the Portuguese book market.
4. As far as I know, books have "always" been expensive here. It is not a recent phenomenon.
Posted by: J. at May 22, 2008 9:17:44 AM
I live in Brasil, and since I love to read (and better my Portuguese by doing do), I suffer with high book prices. To echo Daniel, Brasilans would rather have a conversation than read a book. Also, I have noticed that even my wealthier friends complain about the high price of books. Over the last 4 years, book prices have not risen considerably, though the real has not been as strong.
Posted by: Jennifer at May 22, 2008 9:20:47 AM
Never having been to Brazil, but having spent time in Peru where there is a similarly high cost to books, I need to ask if you are not missing a sizable black market book economy.
In the upscale neighborhoods of Lima there are a number of mainstream booksellers that cater to tourists and those who don't mind paying the premium, and a district in a decaying section of the center city that sells to everyone else. The quality is fairly high (meaning that the photocopies are legible and bound tightly), the bootleg version of a text appears there long before it appears in the legitimate bookstores, and the cost is minimal.
Posted by: Jason Jindrich at May 22, 2008 9:23:17 AM
"Low demand means high prices," says Tyler. That no doubt explains why China's increased demand for oil has driven the price of oil so low.
Re Elgar, I talked to him about this in London in 2003 and told him it was obvious that he was using a skim-price strategy so that libraries would pay him a lot. He agreed and said it was obvious.
Posted by: David R. Henderson at May 22, 2008 9:24:35 AM
The written standard of Portuguese in Brazil tends to be closer to the Portuguese of Portugal, and thus rather different than the way people actually talk. Perhaps that makes written text seem a bit constrained and unnatural and old-fashioned, not the sort of thing you'd turn to for entertainment. If all of our novels and non-fiction in English were written in a florid 19th century style (say, like Moby Dick), the average person might read less.
Quebec might have the same problem, both in terms of significant spoken language differences and importing books in French at Parisian prices.
How does the currency factor in though? If anything, the newly high value of the real would make imported books from Portugal considerably cheaper than before. However, this high value is a very recent development, so it would have little effect on a lifetime's reading habits.
I suspect that ultimately the Internet and future generations of devices like the Amazon Kindle will have a big impact in making reading more affordable in many parts of the world and helping to foster a reading culture, but it might take another decade or so.
Vaguely related: Mark Andreessen had an interesting blog entry on the sheer difficulty of getting newspapers started as a medium in early America, which might give some insights into how difficult it can be to create a reading culture from scratch.
Posted by: at May 22, 2008 9:30:38 AM
Isn't there a copyright problem with pirate books too? I vaguely recall that, at least in Spanish-speaking countries, there was something like that at one point -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez saying he was going to quit writing because people kept pirating his books and selling them or something. Does Brazil have a similar problem?
Posted by: Taeyoung at May 22, 2008 10:14:22 AM
Some books sold by EE at 75$ are sold by Liberty Fund at 12$. So low demand doesnt seem to fit as explanation.They same kind of book sell by University´s Press are cheaper than EE.I paid around 20 $ for What Price Fame? or Creative Destruction that is the same kind of book yo find at EE. EG Buchannan Property as a guarantor of freedom( 15$ ee and 12 $ Liberty Fund with 10 more papers)
Posted by: karl at May 22, 2008 10:19:45 AM
Hey Tyler! Loved your analysis!
The main reason, that in part explains your first point, is in Brazilian educational system, that doesn't encourage children to read for leisure. Reading, during the young ages in Brazil, is something that kids are forced to do to get good grades on tests, which in the opinion of someone that was exposed to that, creates a kind of trauma.
Reinforcing what the last commenter said, I also would point the Portuguese idiom as one of the responsible for that lack of reading habit down here. Even though English is not my mother language, currently most of books I've been reading are in English. Someone into semiotics and linguistics might explain better, but I believe the way the text is constructed in English makes it more enjoyable than in Portuguese!
Best
Flavio - Sao Paulo
Posted by: Flavio at May 22, 2008 10:23:24 AM
Number 1. is right: it is an underdeveloped market which means low volumes and high prices.
Number 2. I think book retailing is inefficient and the costs of unsold inventory is usually borne by publishers, not stores. So book stores are usually filled with books that are cheap to carry, don't sell well, but are expensive.
Number 3. Little supply is not an issue. It is a 200 million inhabitant country, and Portugal is only 10 million. But alas, books from Portugal read awkward.
Number 4. An overvalue currency actually creates a downward price pressure. I found out that there is at least one shop in Sao Paulo that sells American pocket books for just cover price, maybe a quarter of what the Portuguese translation costs. But maybe it also reduces the size of the market for local books.
About the piracy issue of a earlier commenter: I don't think it is a problem. I wouldn't even have thought of that.
Taxes are not a problem at all. Books carry no taxes at all.
I think it is number 1 and number 2 in a feedback loop.
Posted by: Andre Uratsuka Manoel at May 22, 2008 11:05:28 AM
Ok Tyler,
What about New Zealand? The book prices I notice there last week were astronomical. There were plenty of bookstores and people reading, but mass market paperbacks cost what a hardback does here. There dollar is relatively strong so what is going on?
It seems that 1, 2 and 3 are ruled out.
Posted by: RobbL at May 22, 2008 11:43:25 AM
Jason: there is no black market. Even used books are kinda expensive.
Currency is an issue in book prices because lots of raw materials (paper, translated books) are imported. Note that the real has been gaining strength in relation to the dollar, though.
As a Brazilian an avid book buyer, I'd give the greatest weight to Tyler's first item.
Posted by: Cisco at May 22, 2008 12:36:38 PM
I did a research that tackled a bit this issue, available at my website in Portuguese. There is not a single reason, but some findings were:
1) Most publishing companies are run in a very amateurish way. They don't even know how to break down the price of a book. Most of all, they do a rule of thumb: final price is 2x the price of paper used in the book. And book paper IS expensive in here.
2) Brazilian books are also more expensive because there is not a culture of cheap books (this is actually changing). So, what should be the "cheap book" in Brazil is actually a paperback with "hardcover" characteristics.
3) Brazilian books have VERY low runs. Nowadays, a first print is usually 2.000 copies.
4) It is actually very easy to find cheap books in pawn shops - the thing is: nobody buys used books in Brazil. People could easily make a small library at home for peanuts - except it wouldn't look good in the shelves.
5) As I also mention in my dissertation, market size has dropped 50% in ten years.
6) Pocket books are just being re-introduced in Brazil. And they are very cheap by all accounts (ranging from 4 dollars to 15 dollars).
Posted by: Ricardo Amaral at May 22, 2008 12:57:13 PM
On an added note: readership in Brazil is very extreme. Those who read books for pleasure (14% of the population), read a lot (over a book per month in average). The problem is the rest of the population who doesn't read at all.
Posted by: Ricardo Amaral at May 22, 2008 1:00:20 PM
I don't really think you can say that Portuguese from Brazil is very different from Portuguese from Portugal or any other officially spoken version, for that matter. Anyone from Portugal able to read would have very few, if any, problems with Portuguese from Brazil. In fact, since the Portuguese market for academic books, especially in Economics, is very, very thin, most of the translations available are written in Portuguese from Brazil - and they sell incomparably more than an English version of the same text.
As someone mentioned, any communication issues would arise in spoken language,with Portuguese from Brazil having a harder time to understand Portuguese from Portugal than vice-versa, but even that is utterly irrelevant for all practical purposes.
That said, it is true that there aren't, at least that I know of, common editions in either version of the language, except in the case of original authors (Paulo Coelho, Jorge Amado, or José Saramago and Pessoa). The only cases I know of, and there are quite a few, are of academic readings.
Posted by: Pedro at May 22, 2008 1:04:51 PM
Pedro is correct. Let's put it this way: for Brazilians it is harder to follow Portugal-written books, especially non-academic books (I know that because I am a fan of Nina Berberova and most of her books have never seen the light in Brazil, but Portugal).
So, there is hardly economies of scale in tackling Portugal/Brazil as a single market, especially in non-academic circles.
Posted by: Ricardo Amaral at May 22, 2008 1:20:40 PM
I don´t think that the problem is price. C´mon, even poor people has expensive cell phones... Sure, I´m buying books from Amazon because they are cheaper and you have a total absence of libraries, but I think it´s more a cultural than a economic factor.
And even the Middle and Higher classes have low reading. What impresses me on Brazil is that the lack of education among the Middle Classes. Others poor countries at least have a more educated Middle Class, I guess.
Posted by: André Kenji at May 22, 2008 1:44:11 PM
Ouch, I meant "Brazilians" and not "Portuguese from Brazil". Sorry, guys.
Posted by: Pedro at May 22, 2008 2:17:07 PM
European Portuguese is harder to read for Brazilians, but as hard as it is to listen to it. The difference is much much greater than between British and American English. It explains the lack of Portuguese cinema, music and TV in Brazil much better than it explains the lack of European Portuguese books. Also, keep in mind that book rights are often sold on condition that they will be sold in one country and not in the other, or at least they used to be.
But the thing about publishing companies being amateurish is very true.
There is also very little price discrimination. There is no such thing as "first it comes out in hardcover, than in paperback". Even extremely popular books (say, Harry Potter) have only one edition available. This has been changing a little, but it's still very very tame.
Posted by: Cisco at May 22, 2008 2:59:14 PM
It is so true that Brazilians do not read.
For example, many do the 2-hour (each way) commute in a plush bus every day from Teresópolis to Rio de Janeiro to work. Not only do they not read a book, but they do not read a magazine like Veja. A few will read a newspaper. If you see a person reading in public, it will invariably turn out that he is a gringo. And the idea that Brazilians spend the time conversing instead of reading is a canard, as almost none of those bus commuters converse with their seatmates either. As a gringo, I find it fun to strike up conversations with Brazilians in lines like those at the bank, where they seem to spend half their lives.
I think the Brazilians are a lot like Turks, for example, who figure their education is over, rather than just beginning, once they have left school! To read a book in public is to them a clear indication of lack of education.
But Brazilians also can't fix anything and can't borrow a tool without returning it late or broken, or both. The only exception is when they don't return it at all, which is more common.
The result is that I know Brazilian geography and history, not to mention wildlife, better than my Brazilian neighbors, many of which have never ventured more than 100 km from where they were born.
One of my native Brazilian friends explains that these behaviors are attributable to the culture of slavery, which lasted in Brazil until 1888. The idea is: why not break the master's tools and attribute it to accident? And why read if you will be punished for it? This is the attitude that led to the capoeira, one of those many c-words, like cachaça and churrasco that the Brazilians are very good at.
Posted by: jimbino at May 22, 2008 6:54:02 PM
I agree that number 1 is the main cause.
Brazilian books usually come in nice editions. You won't find paperback versions of popular books, only soft covers made with thick paper and elaborated covers. Perhaps, similarly to food, it could be that the result of Brazil's inefficient book retailing is the better physical quality of the books.
Posted by: Diogo Costa at May 22, 2008 7:56:19 PM
Fascinating.
Here's this gigantic country with little influence outside its borders other than soccer, some music, and two or three movies.
I suspect the future will increasingly be like a combination of Brazil and the Ottoman Empire, with not much in the way of cultural innovation.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 22, 2008 8:05:46 PM
The factors of low demand and high prices are interconnected: one feeds the other.
What I found out a couple of years ago, and began using to my favor, is that paperbacks in English are mostly always cheaper (and more complete) than their Brazilian versions. For example: Freakonomics, in the British paperpack with extra content, costs LESS THAN HALF the price of the Brazilian edition. Mind you: if you went to a good bookstore carrying in yourself enough money only to buy the Brazilian version of Freakonomics, you could buy:
- The paperback version with extras;
- An American novel in paperback, say, by Brad Meltzer;
- A coffee and a coxinha, please, while you browse the books.
This creates another kind of unequality in Brazil - a cultural kind. The ability to read in English is even less well distributed than wealth. So, those who can actually read in English and create a habit out of that will have much, much more access to information than those who, even having some money, can't or won't read in English.
Those who can read in English but won't could as well watch bad TV during all day, because I don't care about how they prefer to waste their time. What I do care about is how expensive Brazilian books are even in comparison to IMPORTED books. That concentrates cultural wealth in an even worse way as Brazil concentrates financial wealth.
If you look at Brazilian editions, they are beautifully crafted. Strong paper and so on. Few people read, but the market bets that those who do prefer to read beautiful. That makes expensive books.
Posted by: Marcelo Soares at May 22, 2008 8:31:15 PM
I don't think the culture of slavery has much to do with our reading habits. In fact, I speculate on my dissertation that some issues usually arise (I am a Bourdieu reader, and thus I do have a more sociological approach to Economics, by the way):
1) Reading is seen as a "bad" thing, as a habit done by pretentious people. Here, the culture of "accommodation" reigns high: let's grab some beers and be more like the other guys (well, our own president says that reading is like "doing exercises on a threadmill - it is boring, too hard, but you may get used to in the end"). This is what I call "pressure from below".
2) At the same time, editors and educators treat the book as some source of magic, an object who is above all others. So, every time the subject shows up on the media, it is followed by classical music, very stiff people wearing heavy glasses and discourses that embed books with a "holier than thou" packaging.
To sum it up, books are not well-seen by the vast majority of the population (it is not a cool thing to be/have around) and those who are responsible for developing and market books are more worried about the valuation of the category rather than its popularization. That's why my dissertation was called "I'm not in it for the money!", a very common sentence book editors in Brazil say in interviews.
Posted by: Ricardo Amaral at May 22, 2008 8:42:12 PM
Interestingly, now that I think of it. My experience in daily comute by subway in Sao Paulo is that there is some reading going on, but you will find it is mostly either the Bible by protestants or Kardecist books.
I will try to pay more attention to that. Next time I will take my head from my own book and watch.
Posted by: Andre Uratsuka Manoel at May 22, 2008 8:42:59 PM
Here are some amazing statistics from the big PISA international achievement test of 15 year olds in 2000:
In Brazil, only 4% of the youths read at one of the two highest levels on a six point scale, versus 33% in the USA and 50% in top-rated Finland.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/53/33691596.pdf
Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 22, 2008 9:34:42 PM
As for reading in commutes, I take a 45-minute bus to college every day and almost every single person in the bus is going to school as well (campus is kinda far from where most people live). Very few people, even people I know to be Literature students, are reading. I think the main causes (aside from the whole "nobody reads thing") is that (a) buses are always very crowded and (b) the road is bad. That makes for a noisy, bumpy environment not very conducive to reading. (And since audiobooks are almost unheard of, even bookish college kids just listen to music.)
Posted by: Cisco at May 22, 2008 9:51:52 PM
On the other hand, it is possible to find American textbooks(college level)for cheaper prices in Brazil than in the US... but maybe that just means that texts books are seriously overpriced in the US.
Posted by: Marcelo at May 22, 2008 11:04:54 PM
To Steve:
You are comparing reading levels between two highly developed countries and a third world one. If you take a look at Mexico's numbers, you will find that they are very close to Brazil's, albeit a little bit higher in the top levels (7% vs 4%). And if other Latin American countries were included in the sample, such as Peru, Venezuela and Colombia, I would expect similar numbers as well. Chile and Argentina would probably grade higher, although not by much, in my opinion.
Posted by: Dan at May 22, 2008 11:59:36 PM
Right, Mexico's 2000 reading levels were almost as bad as Brazil's.
Good thing we're importing so much of the population of Mexico, like John McCain wants. He should run on the slogan:
Invite the World
Invade the World
In Hock to the World
Go McCain!
Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 23, 2008 3:47:55 AM
Could readers please comment on reading habits in other Latin American countries?
Posted by: J. at May 23, 2008 6:33:50 AM
Well, the poor do not read because books are too expensive for them, and, even, though complete illiteracy is relatively rare, poor reading skills are common. No mistery here.
There is a lower-middle class crowd that reads a lot. These are people who see education as their only way to social mobility. But these people do not have the money to buy many books, and often rely on photocopies of academic books. I have friends who graduated in Law or Economics and finished College with barely one shelf of books, and several boxes of photocopies. I am not sure how numerous is this crowd, though.
As for why the elite does not read, I have a pet theory that goes like this:
1 - In Brazil there was not a declining aristocracy who had to assert itself against the rising merchant class using their cultural credentials.
2 - Nor was there an educated working class who would force the elite to distinguish itself.
If this is right, as the poor become educated (this is very, very recent), the elite will have to test their literacy more often. This should take some years, because I suspect a determining factor will be to have well-read parents.
Posted by: NPTO at May 23, 2008 8:36:41 AM
As a brazilian ( who likes to read) I say that brazilians don´t read due to a cultural problem. People in general consider reading boring and the last option of leisure. People who read a lot can be regarded as a excentric. In addition books are expensive, and the libraries are not good.
Reading is an habit that you must learn to like it... and parents prefer to let their children watching cable TV instead of incentivating this habit. In general, even who has a lot of money do not read.
I see that in Argentina people read much more than us and cost of books is at least half of the price of Brazil, sometimes 3,4 times less. People are proud of reading, it is part of Argentinian culture, like: to be an argentinian you must like to read.
Posted by: Carlos B at May 23, 2008 10:21:09 AM
I am Brazilian, living in Brazil. Of your four points, I believe #1 is the closest to the truth. I like to use my wife as an example. She is extremely intelligent and has a Ph.D, but hasn't read a whole book in 12 years. Articles and papers, yes. Books, no. It's just not in her upbringing.
This leads to the question of *why* brazilians don't read much, and I agree with the idea about the portuguese language from previous comments. Written english is very similar to colloquial spoken english, and thus reading english-language books feels familiar and comfortable. Written portuguese is quite different from the spoken language, and so feels strange and unpleasant. I read two books a month but most are in english. I only read one portuguese-language book every year, on average, and always find that the cognitive load it imposes on me is much higher.
Posted by: at May 23, 2008 10:47:55 AM
Comment about Finns (mentioned by Sailer) seems to have disappeared. Why?
Posted by: at May 23, 2008 1:29:29 PM
Oops, sorry. Point about Finns was made by Sailer.
Posted by: at May 23, 2008 1:34:12 PM
Writing about the prices and not about why we, Brazilians, don't use to read:
1. Prices: you're right, brand new books aren't cheap in Brazil. And people here do prefer pay for a soccer match than for a book.
2. Brazilian retailing: we have some good bookstores such as Fnac, Saraiva, Siciliano and so on. Maybe logistics is the problem -- and not only for books.
3. Portuguese PT vs. Portuguese BR: most Brazilians really can't understand Portuguese as it's written/spoken in Portugal. More: most Brazilians don't understand a simple text written in Brazilian Portuguese standard (cf: http://pisa2003.acer.edu.au/index.php -- in English -- or http://www.inep.gov.br/imprensa/noticias/outras/news03_25.htm -- in Portuguese). What a shame!
4. Brazilian currency: I don't see it as a major cause.
Another possibility: are publishers as efficient as they should be?
Best regards,
George de Moraes
Curitiba - Brazil
Posted by: George de Moraes at May 23, 2008 2:45:14 PM
Bookstores like Fnac and Saraiva make their profits selling everthing, from DVDs to computers, but not selling books.
Posted by: André Kenji at May 23, 2008 6:07:57 PM
Mexico and Brazil have average IQ levels of 87. Of course few of them read books.
But lets keep puzzling over socio-economic explanations. Ignore that elephant.
Posted by: Randall Parker at May 23, 2008 6:33:22 PM
Besides any/every monetary problem of our nation, this is as simple as that; Brazilians do NOT have the habit of reading. It is also not stimulated at schools, from prep-schools to university level. So, the cliche "low demand, high prices" can somehow, be used.
However, a family which earns R$400 (around 220 dolars) monthly, would rather buy food, supplies, etc, than buy a book. A book costing R$40 (10% of house income) will be, naturally, expensive. And that represents the situation of 80% of our population.
So, in my point of view, it is not about books being overpriced. It is about how bad the situation in Brazil is.
Posted by: Juliana Moura Bueno (from Sao Paulo, Brazil) at May 24, 2008 6:32:55 PM
Cost is not the issue. As someone pointed here, we see poor people with expensive gadgets and Maracanã stadium is always full when popular teams play there. You can go to a mid-class house and won't see a bookshelf but will see a fancy US$2000 LCD TV. Books are expensive in Brazil as almost everything else: electronics, cars, clothes, shoes, etc.
Brazilians don't read because reading demands concentration and we, in general, have the concentration of a puppy beagle.
Posted by: Claudio at May 25, 2008 8:14:33 PM
Where to start? Geez. I'll try by commenting on the most relevant points. Cost is def. a major player although Brazil not being much of a reader's paradise trumps the cost point, as has been pointed out by a few people here.
"You can go to a mid-class house and won't see a bookshelf but will see a fancy US$2000 LCD TV."
Books therefore aren't part of everyday life and normal purchases. Make the choice, food vs. books and its easy. Refine the choice, material 'necessities' vs. books and its even easier. Brazilians are resourceful people so if they need a certain book, they'll find a cheaper way to obtain it (camêlo which is a street vendor or 'sebo' which is a 2nd-hand bookstore and also Portuguese for pork grease)
Slave culture as well as a social culture may very well play a part in the debate too, as was also pointed out. I do see Brazil being the kind of country Jimbino referred to in that post-schooling, education isn't seen as any type of priority.
Let's expand on these ideas a little. From what I've seen, reading isn't stressed as an important leisure activity in Brazil although when considering the class load (which I find superior to that of US students), one would think that Brazilians were ahead of Americans in a way (especially when considering the subjects included in the vestibular, or SAT of sorts). The novela culture doesn't help either as we both know that when they novela das 8 comes on, a lot of Brazil stops what they are doing to watch. The conversation in the street turns not to what great book you just read but rather to why did Bia drive off the cliff and "die" in the novela Belissima (ok, that's old news but it was the last novela I watched). From another view, walk into any LAN house (cyber cafe) and all you find are tons of teenagers yelling and playing video games. Insert the beach/sports club culture and you find more involving things to do than to just read a book. Speaking of sports, what are they good for and how is that knowledge of use, except when discussing facts with other aficionados?
Ex. I learn Portuguese and now I have a skill that opens me up to an entire world of subjects and experiences, therefore its of exceptional use and benefit to me. On the other side, I spent two hours watching a soccer game with my friends and aside from socializing, I now know the score. I repeat, how is this information useful? This however is a whole other can of worms.
As for BR Port vs. PT Port, I agree. Popular writers are easy to understand and don't put a strain on your brain, but research papers and I'm sure other more academically-minded subjects are a bit stressing. Lets not even get into 'Os Sertões' by Euclides da Cunha!
On the subject of there being a lot more information in English-language versions of books, that point is moot as a large enough readership of English-language books would have to exist in Brazil in order for this argument of more vs. less to make sense.
I used to be one of the two-hour commuters on the bus from the Zona Oeste to the Zona Sul in Rio and I spent my time between listening to Italian Pimsleur mp3's on my iPod (I already knew Portuguese) and listening to music. I'm a big believer in taking things in and smelling the flowers when I travel so you wouldn't catch me reading anything as my face was always glued to the fantastic views of Rio. There's always something new to notice if one pays enough attention.
My 'dois centavos' based on almost 10 years of studying Brazilian culture.
Posted by: Adam at May 26, 2008 2:56:37 AM
Randall Parker,
Where did you get these statistics from? I find it extremely hard to believe that IQ could explain the fact that a lot of Brazilians don't read. I also find it hard to see why someone with below-average IQ would be prevented from reading most of the current best-sellers. Indeed, I think you're most likely to find that the ability to finish reading some of these books is inversely related to one's IQ level.
Posted by: julian at May 26, 2008 11:17:34 AM
Wow! All these comments and nobody mentions going to a library. Do they exist in Brazil? Or are they more of anglo-sphere phenomenon?
Posted by: Marc at May 26, 2008 11:52:59 PM
One more comment! I think that this is a latin thing for sure. In Quebec libraries are not what they are in the rest of Canada. Very few French Quebeckers read and I do believe that this is similar to Brazil, the book industry is just not competitive or well run.
Posted by: Marc at May 27, 2008 12:03:15 AM
Marc, we have libraries here (for sure!). Not as many as we should have, I agree, but they exist. Anyway, the post is about the prices.
Posted by: George de Moraes at May 27, 2008 7:55:22 AM
Libraries in Brazil are to most cases museums for books. Few people go to, few people care about them. There is not a culture of frequenting libraries in here. The government rarely purchases new books, relying mostly on donations.
And George is right, but wrong. If government purchasing for library books was higher, books would be cheaper because at least part of the edition would be guaranteed in sales.
This is why books are relatively cheap in Germany.
Posted by: Ricardo Amaral at May 27, 2008 7:56:30 PM
Ricardo, I agree with you, but it's not up ONLY to the government buy books. Many people could do it as well, but we don't have neither the culture of donating. It's easy to get some money from your friends to make a churrasco (barbecue), but it's hard fundraising to buy books to the district's library.
Posted by: George de Moraes at May 28, 2008 8:39:00 AM
According to this, Brazilians read 4.7 books per year.
Brasileiro lê 4,7 livros por ano, diz pesquisa
Publicada em 28/05/2008 às 20h44m
Globo Online
BRASÍLIA - A pesquisa Retratos da Leitura no Brasil recomendada pelo Instituto Pró-Livro ao Ibope constatou que o brasileiro lê em média, 4,7 livros por ano. De acordo com a pesquisa, somente a leitura de livros indicados pela escola, que também inclui os didáticos, chega a 3,4 livros per capita. A leitura feita por pessoas que não estão mais na escola ficou em 1,3 livros por ano.
O número chega a ser maior em algumas regiões, como o Sul do país, onde foram constatados 5,5 livros lidos por habitantes/ano. Em seguida vem a região sudeste (4,9), o Centro-Oeste (4,5), o Nordeste (4,2) e o Norte (3,9) Os leitores lêem mais nas grandes cidades ( 5,2 livros por habitantes/ano) do que nas pequenas localidades do interior (4,3 em municípios com menos de 10 mil habitantes). A pesquisa também confirma que as mulheres lêem mais que os homens - 5,3 contra 4,1 livros por ano.
Os jovens leitores também ganham destaques na pesquisa. O público entre 12 e 13 anos chega a ler 8,6 livros por ano. De 5 a 10 anos, lêem 6.9 e de 14 a 17 anos o volume é de 6,6 livros por ano.
A pesquisa foi realizada em 311 municípios, em todo território nacional. Foram realizadas 5.012 entrevistas domiciliares nos meses de novembro e dezembro de 2007.
Posted by: Adam at May 29, 2008 7:50:49 AM
I work in the publishing industry, as a translator. I am one of the culprits, or perhaps one of the victims, of a very strange editorial policy, already mentioned in other comments, which I think explains why Brazilians do not acquire a taste for reading. In order to read well, one needs to read a lot. In order to read a lot, it must be fairly easy and fun.
All Brazilian publishers, however, demand that translations follow the "norma culta". "Norma culta" means a formal style of writing, far removed from regular spoken Portuguese. The person who said all books read like Mody Dick has a point. A Brazilian translation of the sentence "get me some ammo" in, say, a T. Clancy or M. Crichton novel, will have to be "dê-me alguma munição" in order to get published, when people would normally say something like "me dá umas balas". Thus, "get me some ammo" becomes something as [irony] idiomatic, easy to read and familiar [/irony] as "do relinquish some rounds of ammunition for me".
It becomes really hard to get into reading this way, as the kind of would-be popular fiction that would train people to read faster and better is simply not allowed to exist. Publishers will not touch a text that is not written in the "norma culta", period, even if it is a translation of a book originally written in a speech-like style.
To make matter worse, printing paper is heavily taxed, making it expensive to print books. Importing foreign books is a good idea for private citizens, but awful for a business, as the tax-free limit is US$500; any sum above this amount implies in paying heavy taxes, whether it is for a private individual or for a wholesale reseller. For me it is not a problem, as I will not buy that much, but it would be kind of hard to keep a bookstore well supplied within such a low sum, and very expensive to import anything above it. That is why it is cheaper to import a book from the USA by priority mail than to buy the same book in a bookstore in Brazil.
Likewise, it is way cheaper to import the book from Amazon than to buy the Brazilian translation (and the Brazilian translation will be, all other things being equal, harder to read. Think Melville rewriting Tom Clancy).
There is also a cultural aspect here. Brazilians think it is important to say and to be seen doing "the right things". In terms of reading, it means that people are supposed to read The Great Masters. It is certainly one of the reasons why publishers demand that translations sound like them, by the way.
A few days ago, there has been a poll in which people were asked what were their favorite writers. #1 and #2 "most popular" writers were Machado de Assis and Monteiro Lobato, both Great Masters. Most people could not name a single title by Machado de Assis and almost everybody mistook the name of a TV series based on Monteiro Lobato's works for an actual book title. Nevertheless, people would still say they like these writers. They say so because it is what they feel is expected from them, it is "the right thing to say". People will blush and hide a Paulo Coelho book if they are caught reading it, for instance, because reading Paulo Coelho is not "the right thing" to be caught doing.
So, we have both an impossible standard (reading The Great Masters for fun), no popular reads to speak of (everything is as hard to read as Melville or Shakespeare), and a very high price on books.
It makes reading look snobbish, something that in a certain way humiliates people around. People feel like they should be doing it, they should be reading the complicate sentences written in long words, and enjoying them!, but they are just not able to do it. When someone does it in public, he is reminding people of their shortcomings, and it is not polite.
Posted by: carlos at May 29, 2008 9:34:06 AM
According to Brazilian Ministry of Education
Books read (per year):
France 7
UK 5
USA 5
Colombia 2,4
Brazil 1,8
Source: http://www.cultura.gov.br/noticias/artigos/index.php?p=937&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 -- in Portuguese
Posted by: George de Moraes at May 29, 2008 10:27:25 AM
I am sure this is a cultural issue, not an economic one.
I don't think reading is AS important to Brazilians as to Europeans. BUT, just like with anyone who like to read, the Brazilians who do like to read, LOVE to read.
In my personal experience of being in a lot of bookstores all over Brazil, and as the British owner of an independent international bookstore in Brazil, Brazilians who can afford to buy books do buy a lot of books.
Posted by: Sarah at May 29, 2008 5:47:50 PM
It is a historical thing as well. In colonial times the printing press was outlawed in Brazil. Importation of printed material was discouraged. That is why there is no real tradition of libraries. A privileged few went to Portugal for an education. Books didn't really make an appearance until the arrival of the Royal family at the beginning of the 19th century. The Brazilian elite still send their kids overseas to study.
A very interesting post by carlos on 'norma culta'. Now I understand what happened to the translation of The Milagro Bean Field War that I just read. Esos pendejos!!!
Posted by: lostnbr at Jun 1, 2008 1:26:43 PM
I have a hope story to tell (and we do need one, badly!!!) and it concerns the norma culta issue.
One year ago I moved from Rio to a 6000 inhabitants town in the country where most people read so little they are not even able to follow subtitled movies.
I'm an Illustrator and amateur musician, writer and voracious reader. I'm also not so socially savvy or cautious to avoid reading in public... this causes a mixture of awe and resentment in the people around here. It's not possible, in their minds for one to hold as many skills or even to "teach himself" to do things trough discipline.
Here, what you get is a coach potato, at best, that avidly consumes any kind of mindless entertainment even if he doesn't get half of the jokes. They make very little money but most of it goes on beer and status symbols.
In time, I made some friends (I'm also a passionate Truco player... a popular card game) and one neighbor in particular got curious and asked me to lend her a book.
That was Markus Zusak's "I Am the Messenger", a teenager thriller that was translated in a very modern way using oral expressions in their loosest form. It worked wonders, she read it and after a while claimed she felt comfortable with books now and wanted a new one. She is currently reading George Orwell's 1984 and claims she is having a lot less trouble with subtitles, that in it self allows for much greater flights.
My cleaning lady started borrowing books and also movies.
The norma culta translation issue seems to be a great one and deserves a further look into it. I do believe that amateurism in the book business is a great part of the issue. Profit-blindness is a great issue also and a great source of problems for illustrators and writers alike.
Trough empathy, a lot can be achieved. It's not a matter of "culture" in a monolithic way.
It's a Cultural Inertia and it's never too late to start pushing.
Great discussion. Deep insight like this doesn't happen in the most educated circles I know around here... it's also great to see so many Brazilians here. (and with great english, uhu)
Posted by: felipe duarte at Jun 30, 2008 12:43:58 AM
***couch potato, sorry
Posted by: felipe duarte at Jun 30, 2008 12:45:29 AM
I didn´t read all the comments, but I would like to clarify a few ponts:
1- Are books in Brazil expensive? The other day I bought a pocket edition of Russel's skeptic essais for R$ 12,00 - around 7 or 8 US Dollars. Next to it was a paperback edition of Dostoievsky's Crime and Punishment that costed R$ 25. The problem is that these pocket and paperback editions are recent, and still have very few titles. Hardback editions usualy cost 2 or 3 times as much - but I guess that's the cost of such editions in USA and Europe too, right?
Because of that, I have been purchasing imported books in their original languages, in paperback or pocket editions, which are sold at cover prices in large bookstores. The portuguese editions are usually available only in hard-cover, but that seems to be changing.
2- Since the 1988 Constitution, books and magasines of all kinds (including porn) are free of taxes, as well as the paper they´re printed at. Can't blame the government on that.
3- In big cities, especially in the southern part of Brazil, there are many large bookstores that offer a vast supply, wich includes imported original versions - so distribution and retail inefficiency are not the problem, at least not in these places.
Therefore, I would explain it all for the lack of readers. There isn´t a market for too many large-scale pocket or paperback editions, so the brazilian reader is left only with the expensive, luxurious hard-covers if he wants anything a little out of the ordinary.
Posted by: ~L at Jul 4, 2008 5:47:50 PM
The booktrade is an industry that is so often misunderstood, even by its own practitioners. I have devoted half my lifetime to studying that of Brazil. My "O livro no Brasil, sua historia", now in its third edition (Sao Paulo University Press, 2006). has won 3 national Brazilian book prizes. It discusses all the questions raised in detail. Brazil has so large a population that despite a relatively low level of book consumption, it has in absolute terms, one of the largest book industries in the world. Its prices have always borne the same relationship to the income of the average (middle class) reader as books anywhere. The average novel, for instance, has sold at the price of the average Brazilian (live) theater seat (a rival and equivalent cultural purchase) since at least 1917. The range of subjects available compares well with any comparable country. It produces, for instance, quite a few more new titles a year of children's books than does e.g. Italy (home of the international children's book fair at Bologna). A recent UK list of 100 best sellers included one sole translation, by Isabel Allende, at no. 49, and she lives in California. An equivalent Brazilian list would have, besides Brazilian works, translations from English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Japanese, Swedish... Not only do Brazilian books sell well in Portugal, despite minor language differences, Brazilian specialized academic texts are even accepted widely in Spanish speaking countries. And the commercially well organized Brazilian school textbook market is one of the half dozen largest, worldwide, despite a sizable black market in illegal photocopying, not only by individuals but often by (private) schools. The Brazilian booktrade is indeed efficient or it would never have survived decades of political oppression, from Bernardes to Vargas to Medici to Collor, and years of inflation so high it persuaded almost every international corporation in the 1980s to sell out its Brazilian operation and not return until the Real brought economic stability. Companhia das Letras has calculatedly targeted the top end of the market (financially and intellectually) to produce a backlist any publisher anywhere would be proud of. The fashionable cry that books are too dear, when it comes from those in the upper middle class is so often just a lame excuse for choosing to go to the beach or the soccer match, or loll in front of the goggle box, rather than trouble one's brain with reading.
Posted by: LaurenceHallewell at Aug 1, 2008 9:44:44 AM
