I fear books are going the way of vinyl records – a rarefied pursuit for hobbyists
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/06/fear-books-vinyl-records-rarified-pursuit-hobbyists
The impact of reading for pleasure on progress in vocabulary, spelling and even maths at age 16 is four times more powerful than the impact of parental education or socioeconomic status …
What and how to read
https://www.ft.com/content/685a4f4d-2826-494e-a8ab-e561801fb7b3
Given our finite lives, and the centuries-deep canon of literature, what logic is there in reading something current? More than 120mn unique titles have been published since the dawn of the printing press. What are the odds that one written in 2024 deserves our limited time? …
Well, instead of a list, here is a rule: avoid the contemporary. If a novel has worth, it will still have it in a decade or two. If not, the filtering effect of time — which is imperfect in its judgment, but still the best thing we have — will remove the book from consideration by then.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/06/fear-books-vinyl-records-rarified-pursuit-hobbyists
The impact of reading for pleasure on progress in vocabulary, spelling and even maths at age 16 is four times more powerful than the impact of parental education or socioeconomic status …
What and how to read
https://www.ft.com/content/685a4f4d-2826-494e-a8ab-e561801fb7b3
Given our finite lives, and the centuries-deep canon of literature, what logic is there in reading something current? More than 120mn unique titles have been published since the dawn of the printing press. What are the odds that one written in 2024 deserves our limited time? …
Well, instead of a list, here is a rule: avoid the contemporary. If a novel has worth, it will still have it in a decade or two. If not, the filtering effect of time — which is imperfect in its judgment, but still the best thing we have — will remove the book from consideration by then.