Gimme a break, you can't afford a BOOK for Christmas?

This article says book sales are going the way of car sales. Huffington Post Article

Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse not to vacuum or dust since I've been blogging and linking and creating and inserting html all day but this struck me as strange. I'll cut down on whether I buy the $2 tv dinner or the $1.50 can of soup for my lunch, I'll not make any trips to town that aren't absolutely necessary but I have to buy a book once in awhile if it's just a used book. Even with library privledges that just doesn't cut it sometimes. You see I read a book, my husband takes it in the truck and reads it, one of my daughters reads it, my other daughter reads it, sometimes it goes to my step-son or step-daughter, maybe a friend gets it, maybe I consider it to precious and it stops @ me and my husband but my books get READ and I don't think we are a weird family or have that much more time than most. All the kids work full time, I work part time, my husband has a more than full time truck and we find time to read. I don't own anything extravagant other than my purse and my car and the car was a "present" from my husband (a present with payments) The last new furniture I purchased was 11 years ago and it still looks new because no one is allowed to sit on it but that is all beside the point. My mother was an English teacher and you would think that's where I got my love of reading but she never encouraged it, she actually discouraged it but that's another story, she had Portnoys Complaint and that was enough for me even though she thought I couldn't reach that shelf.
I know books as presents are looked down upon by children and kindle has brought a whole new world to books but geeze, it's still a book!! Books provide insight and thoughts that the boob tube just can't give you and as much as I love computers and the internet it's hard to beat a good read for mind stretching. I admit I just skimmed the article but it says Barnes and Nobles stores are almost empty??
It seems the larger publishers have kept to the old and the tried and true which isn't working but it seems to me people think a book is an extravagance? We've purchased SUV's that were too high and gas guzzlers, bought Mc Mansions, $100 jeans are sometimes the norm and we can't afford a book?
I'm better off than I was 9 or 10 months ago by far and @ that time I cut out book buying entirely for almost a year previously but books are just as much a cornerstone of our economy as the automakers are. Maybe they don't employ as many but the intellectual cost of publishers going out of business will be huge. Our entire thought process as a nation could be changed. So if you haven't gotten all your Christmas gifts or need something to keep yourself occupied go to your local book store. For $20 or $30 you can pick up hours and hours of entertainment and share it with others, and if it's good enough you can have the same enjoyment from it when you reread it!!