Book and reading in cultural and personal field analysis

The article is devoted to mental comprehension of the phenomenon of the book in the system of culture. The article makes the culturological essence of the book more definite, as well as its role in forming of the artistic-educational points of reference. In the context of modern cultural practices a contradictory picture of artistic-educational preferences of the youth is marked: a fall of interest to reading, a genre choice of mass culture literature, and hence absence knowledge of the history and culture of their region, and the entire country. The author associates these phenomena both the «massivization» of culture and with manifestations of socio-economic factors in Russian regions.