I've been thinking a lot about this. Remember, and I'm aging myself, when everyone got into the environment and locally produced food, etc, in the early 2000s as, IMO, a reaction to the digitization of life? It was as if the more we spent online, the more we started to see and appreciate the real physical world and all it could do for us. As AI has encroached upon activities that we have always seen as human - creating art, critical thinking, etc - we may be cleaving more to the things that make us feel human, wise, and connected to our humanity. I see reading, particularly classics, as an example of this. Books - well, reading in general, but particularly good books - make us feel and think. They connect us to what it means to be human. I could be off, but I find the coincidence of the advent of AI and the re-energized interest in reading classic literature to be, perhaps, more than coincidental....
this feels spot-on! one recent U.S. stat that made excited — the 2025 Independent Bookstore Day reported record engagement, including a 77.41% increase in online sales from last year. dropping the link in case it's of interest!
More people reading is good for the world, and for bookstores ❤️ I volunteer in a used bookstore associated with our local library and I love being around books and talking to people about books. Will have to look up Storygraph!
Kim K did not graduated from law school. She passed the California First Year Law Student's Exam, known as the 'baby bar'. She had an apprenticeship as well. She still needs to pass the actual Bar Exam. Her 'graduation' was a ceremony she set up in her backyard. I will give her the respect for passing the 'baby bar', but not for trying to pass it off as an actual graduation from an accredited law school.
I see collecting books as a separate hobby altogether, and just an extension of consumerism, but because they're books, it's okay to just keep buying and buying, even when you don't have the money or the space. Being viewed as a reader is more important to a lot of people than actually reading. There's been a huge rise in hobbies in general, people trying to pick up hobbies, trying to build wardrobes around hobbies, and books are just another hobby that some people are trying on. Hopefully it's a trend that sticks around, but I wonder if it will go the same way as most trends these days and fade away in the next year or so, replaced by some new thing
But this is not really good long term. What's the next fad?? When about 30% of English majors at universities can't read Dickens proficiently, just being cool for reading is not going to cut it. And given that AI is going to transform education and even literacy we need to prioritize reading creative writers, philosophers and scientists in long form even if paper books are not always used...
I completely agree. It's a hard thing to address, though, because how do you confront people about "reading"? If you accuse them of not actually reading, you look like an asshole. If you tell them they aren't reading "good enough" literature, you look like an asshole. If you point out that hoarding books is just another form of hyper consumerism, you look like an asshole. We've been told for so long that books = good, with no room for nuance. I don't think every book you read has to be something super deep, I myself like to read 'fluff" every now and then, to give my brain a break. But the way people go absolutely bananas for shitty books right now makes it very difficult to add any nuance to the conversation around it. Authors are pumping out books at an absolutely insane pace right now because people have gotten so used to having the things they want delivered to them the next day, and they can't wait for a writer to put out books at the previous pace of maybe 1 every couple of years.
It's a subject that I feel quite passionately about, but I never get to say anything because it makes people too upset.
"When your algorithms are so good at predicting what you'll like and showing you more of the same, picking up an obscure book becomes an act of resistance."
There's a lot in that sentence. If all the algorithms can predict is what you already signaled to them that you like, then maybe they're not that good, right? There clearly is a lot of hype around AI, and it obviously isn't intelligence, it's statistics.
Great read, Beth! I just finished reading Celine Nguyen's "no one told me about proust" (I wish I could add tags to people and links to articles here!). She talks about the opposite idea. Reading not to signal status, but for love. However, I really liked your comment about how performance can spill over and become "love". It gives hope. You should check out Celine's post.
So interesting. I feel like it’s linked both to a trend towards over-intellectualizing everything as a tool for obtaining social status (which I’ve written about below), and the collapse of high-brow and low-brow categories in culture - getting us to a place where now, in pop culture everyone can be an intellectual. With varying degrees of depth and success :)
This reminds me of a post I am STILL thinking about from last year. The books being promoted by celebrities, by and large, are the most easily digestible ones and for some celebrities (Reese Witherspoon) it's about promoting the most cinema-friendly books. I do think that it's wonderful for reading to be fashionable again. But I appreciate this piece exploring what a certain kind of reading and promotion has done to the larger culture's taste in reading: https://pointofdeparture.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-celebrity-book-clubs
So much of what you’ve written here is what i’ve been trying to put into words for months. Even if people are reading because it’s sexy now, or because Dua Lipa told them to, that’s ultimately a win and honestly not much different than people picking up a book because of a traditional media review they may have seen years ago
I've been thinking a lot about this. Remember, and I'm aging myself, when everyone got into the environment and locally produced food, etc, in the early 2000s as, IMO, a reaction to the digitization of life? It was as if the more we spent online, the more we started to see and appreciate the real physical world and all it could do for us. As AI has encroached upon activities that we have always seen as human - creating art, critical thinking, etc - we may be cleaving more to the things that make us feel human, wise, and connected to our humanity. I see reading, particularly classics, as an example of this. Books - well, reading in general, but particularly good books - make us feel and think. They connect us to what it means to be human. I could be off, but I find the coincidence of the advent of AI and the re-energized interest in reading classic literature to be, perhaps, more than coincidental....
TOTALLY! Great point
this feels spot-on! one recent U.S. stat that made excited — the 2025 Independent Bookstore Day reported record engagement, including a 77.41% increase in online sales from last year. dropping the link in case it's of interest!
https://www.bookweb.org/news/independent-bookstore-day-2025-sees-record-interest-1631921
That is so great. Thank you! I wish I had known this :)
Not to mention Sarah Jessica Parker a judge for the Booker Prize!
Oooh YES!
Ooh you might be interested in this article which touches on the idea of image burnout:
https://www.viksbusycorner.com/p/the-resurgence-of-text-media
Oh that is such a good read. Thank you for connecting this with that. What a brilliant observation that is. Love.
More people reading is good for the world, and for bookstores ❤️ I volunteer in a used bookstore associated with our local library and I love being around books and talking to people about books. Will have to look up Storygraph!
Your volunteer work is very cool. Storygraph is interesting!
Vinyl records fast follower?
INTERESTING!
Thank god... This gave me hope for humanity, thank you
Ha best comment. Thank you!
READING IS SEXY 🙌 Also a back-up Kindle?! Consider me influenced.
😆 (that’s your job!) love you!
Kim K did not graduated from law school. She passed the California First Year Law Student's Exam, known as the 'baby bar'. She had an apprenticeship as well. She still needs to pass the actual Bar Exam. Her 'graduation' was a ceremony she set up in her backyard. I will give her the respect for passing the 'baby bar', but not for trying to pass it off as an actual graduation from an accredited law school.
Corrected! Thank you for this. Sorry for my mistake.
No problem! Kim wanted to make the impression that she graduated, thus the robe (in her preferred neutrals), the ceremony/stage and speech.
It might be a low bar but still.... it's a fricking bar..😆
Haa
I see collecting books as a separate hobby altogether, and just an extension of consumerism, but because they're books, it's okay to just keep buying and buying, even when you don't have the money or the space. Being viewed as a reader is more important to a lot of people than actually reading. There's been a huge rise in hobbies in general, people trying to pick up hobbies, trying to build wardrobes around hobbies, and books are just another hobby that some people are trying on. Hopefully it's a trend that sticks around, but I wonder if it will go the same way as most trends these days and fade away in the next year or so, replaced by some new thing
“being viewed as a reader is more important to a lot of people than actually reading” ❤️
But this is not really good long term. What's the next fad?? When about 30% of English majors at universities can't read Dickens proficiently, just being cool for reading is not going to cut it. And given that AI is going to transform education and even literacy we need to prioritize reading creative writers, philosophers and scientists in long form even if paper books are not always used...
I completely agree. It's a hard thing to address, though, because how do you confront people about "reading"? If you accuse them of not actually reading, you look like an asshole. If you tell them they aren't reading "good enough" literature, you look like an asshole. If you point out that hoarding books is just another form of hyper consumerism, you look like an asshole. We've been told for so long that books = good, with no room for nuance. I don't think every book you read has to be something super deep, I myself like to read 'fluff" every now and then, to give my brain a break. But the way people go absolutely bananas for shitty books right now makes it very difficult to add any nuance to the conversation around it. Authors are pumping out books at an absolutely insane pace right now because people have gotten so used to having the things they want delivered to them the next day, and they can't wait for a writer to put out books at the previous pace of maybe 1 every couple of years.
It's a subject that I feel quite passionately about, but I never get to say anything because it makes people too upset.
I agree with everything you say (also the fluff thing, me too)!
"When your algorithms are so good at predicting what you'll like and showing you more of the same, picking up an obscure book becomes an act of resistance."
There's a lot in that sentence. If all the algorithms can predict is what you already signaled to them that you like, then maybe they're not that good, right? There clearly is a lot of hype around AI, and it obviously isn't intelligence, it's statistics.
Great read, Beth! I just finished reading Celine Nguyen's "no one told me about proust" (I wish I could add tags to people and links to articles here!). She talks about the opposite idea. Reading not to signal status, but for love. However, I really liked your comment about how performance can spill over and become "love". It gives hope. You should check out Celine's post.
Thanks for the article.
So interesting. I feel like it’s linked both to a trend towards over-intellectualizing everything as a tool for obtaining social status (which I’ve written about below), and the collapse of high-brow and low-brow categories in culture - getting us to a place where now, in pop culture everyone can be an intellectual. With varying degrees of depth and success :)
https://open.substack.com/pub/whyyoushouldcare/p/everyone-is-an-intellectual-now?r=laov1&utm_medium=ios
This reminds me of a post I am STILL thinking about from last year. The books being promoted by celebrities, by and large, are the most easily digestible ones and for some celebrities (Reese Witherspoon) it's about promoting the most cinema-friendly books. I do think that it's wonderful for reading to be fashionable again. But I appreciate this piece exploring what a certain kind of reading and promotion has done to the larger culture's taste in reading: https://pointofdeparture.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-celebrity-book-clubs
So much of what you’ve written here is what i’ve been trying to put into words for months. Even if people are reading because it’s sexy now, or because Dua Lipa told them to, that’s ultimately a win and honestly not much different than people picking up a book because of a traditional media review they may have seen years ago
It’s so interesting isn’t it!
This is great but can these kids read anymore... ya gotta wonder....😁
I was born in 1980. I like books and I like to read but to quote Keith McNally if you say you are a voracious reader you are probably a bit of douche
I didn’t quote Keith McNally (though now I kind of wish I had).
I get the sentiment of the post, I literally'
Oops