When there is a book that "everyone is talking about" (i.e Oprah or the New Yorker or whatever) it's usually a memoir of someone's difficult life, usually a member of a declared "oppressed" group. For example, Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me."

I read that book. It's not even supposed to be enjoyable, and it's not really great writing or something that I feel like I need to tell my friends about. Essentially it's stuff you feel like you "should" read rather than you "want" to read. Like vegetables instead of ice cream. The ice cream is the page turning thrillers where some guy is beating up criminals in parking garages and chasing art thieves around the world.

The book industry puts its highest profile promotion on vegetables instead of ice cream.

The average person who doesn't visit a bookstore has zero clue. If you're a reader, its all duh, but you're acting like an elitist then. Just because you know, doesn't mean outsiders know. At that, the "right books to read" attitude pisses me off. Its everywhere in some form or another in popular media where someone can accidentally see it.

The industry is constantly marketing to their diminishing demographic instead of trying to figure out how to increase it again.

Talk to non readers to find out their knowledge set of what kind of books are out there. Again, I convert folks all the time. I get zero a year readers to an average of 6 to 10 a year. Mostly because i used to hate reading until i got converted as well. I know the pain points.