A while ago, on an episode of Science Friday, Charlie Bamforth, author of Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: Reaching for the Soul of Beer and Brewing, said, “Some people say to me, ‘I don’t like beer.’ That’s nonsense. You just haven’t found the right beer for you yet.” This is the way I feel when someone—a student, usually, since I mostly only know academics and writers—tells me they don’t like reading. There are so many different types of books out there, so many different styles and topics and genres and techniques—I just don’t buy that there could be anyone alive who is mentally capable of reading but for whom there is simply no type of writing that would appeal.

But I think that the reason why so very many people don’t believe they like reading is a result of the sort of books that the average person has been exposed to. Consider this: the typical person, who comes from a non-reading family (by non-reading, I don’t mean illiterate, but a family where the parents don’t read for pleasure, and so neither do the kids) for the most part only has easy access to two types of books: canonical classics, which they’re forced to read (or are supposed to read anyway, though many of them just skim or SparksNotes them) in school, and whatever books are being published (and highly publicized) by the major New York publishing houses.

Let’s take the two types one at a time. First, we have the canonical classics. Good books, surely, but often dated. The language is rarely the sort of language we use today, and the writing style matches the style that was popular at the time. These narrators and characters don’t think or speak the way the contemporary reader does, and the plots and settings of these books often leave little to relate to from a modern perspective. Our society is a different society altogether. There are often underlying themes that are still relevant today, but the immediate themes and concerns of the books are usually so far off from what a modern reader—especially a modern young adult, the main group of people being forced to read these books—can relate to that the book, no matter how good it is, might seem tedious to someone who hasn’t yet built up an appreciation for reading.

Then we have what I’ll classify as popular literature, the stuff being put out and heavily marketed by the major publishers. This includes the bevvy of trendy memoirs that come out every year, the vast array of genre fiction that’s out there, and the stuff that bookstores usually classify as “general fiction” because the term “literary” probably seems too stuffy but there are no wizards or robots or ghosts or muscly men baring their chests on the front cover, so “general” seems the only word that really fits. There are examples of good, well written books in all of these popular categories, but the problem is, the good ones—the ones that are actually carefully crafted with attention to detail and language use, with unpredictable plots and multi-dimensional characters—are far, far fewer than the ones that seem to have been sloppily thrown together by some schmuck who doesn’t really know how to write.

You’ve probably read enough of those types of books in your time—I know I have. Those books that are so predictable and cliché, that use way too much exposition (exposition is so boring to read, don’t you think?) and don’t draw vivid enough images when describing scenes. The characters are one-dimensional; the story is bland; the writing is limp and lifeless on the page.

I got lucky at a young age. I got lucky because my parents read for pleasure, so I saw that reading for pleasure is a normal thing to do. Then, in middle school, I stumbled across The Catcher in the Rye, and I never looked back. But what about the people who don’t get lucky enough to find their Salinger, or whoever will really speak to them, amongst the mass of popular books that they have easy access to? Since there are far, far more crappy books on the bookstore and library shelves, the odds are that many people only ever pick up and have a go at the bad stuff. Having only ever read bad books and unrelatable canonical books, is it any wonder that so many people get it in their heads that they just don’t like reading, and, alas, give up?

If I had met Charlie Bamforth before having listened to his Science Friday interview, I would probably have told him, “I just don’t really like beer.” But the truth is, he’s probably right. There probably is a beer out there for me. I just haven’t had enough exposure to beer to have found it, and once I decided I didn’t like beer, I stopped trying it and closed the possibility of me ever finding the “right” one for me. The same thing is happening, I believe, to many people with reading.

I could argue that partially to blame are the major publishing houses, who keep putting out crap because they know it will sell (and please keep in mind that the fact that a book sells well does not mean that people are actually reading and enjoying it, as those of us who have mountains of books we’ve bought and haven’t yet gotten around to reading can attest to). I could say, too, that partially to blame are the teachers who only assign their students to read things their students are not likely to engage with, and partially to blame are the parents who don’t understand that just reading to your kids isn’t enough; you need to set the example and let them see that you enjoy reading for your own pleasure, too. But the whole truth is that this is not really a problem that can be fixed easily. Maybe it’s too late to fix it at all. Maybe TV and video games will always be so easy that most people will never take the time to search for books that they might enjoy reading. Who knows? All I can say is that I think it’s sad, and I wish more people could experience what I do when I get fully immersed in a really good book. I feel bad for them, feel like they’re missing out on something.

Is this how beer drinkers feel about me? Hmm.