So important are boomers to Publisher’s Weekly that it now features a page on its Web site called “books for grownups: book news, reviews, bestsellers targeted specifically for book lovers in the baby boom.”

Here are some of the subject matter headers into which all this “boomer lit” falls:

-Starting over
-The mid-life crisis
-The voice of experience
-A sense of optimism

These bromides come from a gaggle of interviews on another popular booklover site, writersdigest.com, with writers and publishing pros who were sharing their thoughts about this “growing” group of readers. In other words, book “by-ers” were talking about the interests of book “buyers” over age 50.

Sigh.

Seems we’ve been subjected to chick lit, mommy lit, and now it looks like boomie lit.

Unfortunately, this is a collection of tiresomely familiar themes. Starting over is all about over 50 guys/gals who move from dead-end marriages/careers/locales to fresh adventures, and along the way overcome struggles, and find better sex/love/joy/money/purpose in life.

The mid-life crisis? Well, most of us have experienced that already – if not at home, then certainly at the office from colleagues of certain ages. Voices of experience between book covers can be funny on occasion, and once in a rare while, even reach the heights (think: Tuesdays With Morrie). As for that sense of optimism, well, it works most days for me, but I’m not sure the world cares a fig.

But back to this bookseller trend – so popular is the boomer lit craze that younger authors are finding financial success, if not literary success, writing about boomer characters. After all, many of them are children of boomers.

Sigh again.

If you find all this vaguely dispiriting, perhaps you can share my pride in coming across this bit of digital news: Over 50s are becoming big users of the Web – maybe even more than their younger, more tech-savvy counterparts, according to new data from AARP and the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California. Forty-two percent of consumers over 50 check the Web for news daily or several times a day, compared to just 18% of users under 20. In social media, 70% of older consumers said their online community was "very" or "extremely" important to them.

Apparently, the estimated 78 million of us boomers are a growing part of today’s online world, having rapidly adapted to getting and exchanging information via the Web and email.

Now if only we could convince the booksellers that our interests and tastes in printed matter are as varied as the online world.

Donna Rohrer