The Revolution Will Be Read
I don’t remember learning how to read.
I remember being impatient in kindergarten while other kids sounded out their letters. I remember being very bored in most of my reading classes in elementary school. I remember reading through the language arts book on the first day of class and sneaking my own preferred novels to read under my desk while the rest read the assigned chapters.
I’m pretty sure my mother taught me. There’s no doubt about it, I grew up in a reading household. Books were everywhere, cookbooks burying a too-small shelf near the kitchen—science fiction anthologies, Heinlein, and Asimov downstairs where my father slept—old books inherited from my grandparents in the living room, and books of every kind—and I mean every kind—helter-skelter in mother’s room. Those were just my parent’s books—I had a large collection myself, as did all three of my brothers. We were constantly buying shelves to house them all and we never had enough shelf-space. For all of the tension and pain in my childhood, books were something that united the family.
My mother believed in reading aloud to your kids, and she did so, every single night, for as long as we asked her to. Some of the tenderest memories I have of her are from that time, quietly listening to her enthusiasm with every word. She was a wonderful storyteller and provided every story we read with accents and voices to match each character. When I woke up in the morning, she was at the breakfast table, eating cereal and reading a battered paperback. Sometimes it was something new, oftentimes it was a reread—Dorothy L. Sayers, the Earth’s Children series, Heinlein, Andre Norton. She was always willing to lend me the books she loved…with one notable exception.
When I was twelve years old, I noticed the stack of Johanna Lindsay romance novels she kept in a built-in bookcase attached to her bed. I requested to borrow one and she firmly denied me. Offended, I waited until she went to work the next day and promptly swiped them all, thus sparking my love of problematic bodice-rippers and a belief that all kids should read something “too adult” for them at least once. (It builds character!)
This continued on into adulthood, of course. I never went anywhere without a book. I picked up a habit of settling in at a nice pub and reading, which often invited a lot of unasked for commentary. (“What are you reading? Isn’t it distracting to read at a bar?” “It wasn’t distracting until just now…”) I started a private ritual of reading three books at once—one fiction, one nonfiction, and one for fun. I crafted lists of book recommendations from people I admired, like Rachel Held Evans and Trevor Noah, and happily went through them. Being an inherently nosy person, I started Books on the M Train, where I cataloged what I noticed people reading on my commute to work and tweeted about it.
I wonder if my nose has been stuck in a book for so long, I didn’t realize that people have stopped reading.
Reading is very normal to me. Yes, I love books—it’s why I became an author and a C.S. Lewis scholar. Yes, they’re a deep passion of mine. But for me, a house full of books and parents who were readers were grossly regular. As Scout Finch said, “One does not love breathing.” Breathing is an ordinary function, as is reading. It is necessary, but not something I think about all the time.
I don’t even believe there are people who hate reading. If people say they hate reading, I assume they haven’t found the right book or the right medium. Do you hate reading or do you prefer listening to stories on audiobooks? Do you hate books or do you just hate reading James Joyce? (I empathize.) Humans are wired for stories. I do think our population is getting their stories more from streaming services and TikTok nowadays, but I don’t for a moment believe that people don’t like books anymore.
And yet, literacy rates are plummeting. Online radicalization is climbing. I strongly believe the horrifying fact that 28% of Americans are not reading above a sixth grade level (in 2017 it was 19%) has a lot to do with why Trump got a second term.
Even more alarming is how ignorant American culture is becoming.
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I saw a video on TikTok where a college student defended her practice of inputting a chapter of a book her teacher had assigned into ChatGPT. ChatGPT had spat out a bite size list of highlights and this was how she had finished her assignment. Her professor was furious and kicked her out.
I was surprised to see how many Gen Z commenters thought the professor was in the wrong. And very, very dismayed.
I won’t spend this post decrying the evils of ChatGPT—that has been well-documented and reported by people much smarter than me. I won’t talk about how horrifically terrible it is for the environment, how it plagiarizes and steals from writers and artists and researchers. You should know this already and if not, you should look into it.
I will talk about my greater concern here and base it on a recent conversation I had via TikTok comments.
Whereas I was raised in the generation that warned you not to look at YouTube comments, Gen Z seems to believe that TikTok comments are healthy feedback machines and engage with them frequently. An author/editor posted a TikTok video discussing how lazy ChatGPT and an affronted commenter took umbrage with this. He used ChatGPT for research. I told him that ChatGPT was not good research.
TikTok Commenter: When I ask ChatGPT to offer inspiration on Sengoku-era architecture, isn’t that still learning? I’m finding it there rather than hunting books at a library that probably doesn’t have them.
Me: Jfc GO TO A LIBRARY OF COURSE THEY HAVE BOOKS ON SENGOKU ERA ARCHITECTURE. THAT IS LITERALLY THE PURPOSE OF A LIBRARY.
This paragon of brilliance insisted that asking ChatGPT gave him the same information as a library, only faster. At this point, I gave up, brought out my good whiskey, and toasted to the end of civilization as we know it.
Later on, I thought about what he said and contemplated the idea of “same information, but faster”. ChatGPT doesn’t give you the same information as a library at any rate, but I was focused on “but faster”, because I think that is what is frustrating about generative AI.
In order to do good research on something, it takes time. In order to create good art, it takes time. In order to write a good book or paper, it takes time.
If you want to write a good book with a Sengoku-era setting and get the details right, you should be reading books about the Sengoku-era of Japan. You should talk to researchers who specialize in Japanese history, you should pick the brains of Japanese friends who grew up in towns like Kyoto and Nara about what their towns look like. This is what good research is.
It’s supposed to take time.
Learning is supposed to take time. It’s supposed to be a joy and a process, not something you skip over because you’re too impatient or lazy to go to a research librarian and ask for sources on Sengoku-era architecture.
Not only that, but learning is supposed to be a joy.
Have we forgotten this? Have children forgotten this?
I wasn’t a particularly good student growing up. This might surprise you, but I didn’t really hit my academic stride until college. Elementary school, middle school, and high school? I was a pretty average student (unless you talk to my English teachers, of course!) and school, as a general rule, bored me. There were other factors at work here, of course. In the third grade, I was making straight A’s, in the fourth grade, I started failing my classes. Between third and fourth grade was when a family friend committed CSA against me. It’s probable that my waning interest in school and my grades was probably due to this, though I couldn’t verbalize that at the time.
But I loved learning. There’s no getting around that. I devoured every American Girl book I could get my hands on. This led me to the Dear America books, the Royal Diaries books, and a larger embrace of historical fiction. And of course, I read countless fantasy novels. You may be surprised to learn that I didn’t care for the Narnia books as a child (I was well into my teens before I took to them), but I loved the Harry Potter books, Gail Carson Levine, and many, many more.
I have to wonder, though. If I grew up in the 2010s or 2020s…if my teachers handed me an iPad or a Chromebook…would I still have the same love of reading?
After reading Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” and Johann Hari’s “Stolen Focus”, I tend to doubt it. Both Haidt and Hari explain how nefarious these devices are, how tech companies are profiting on our distracted state. The longer we mindlessly scroll on an app, the more money they make. It’s especially dangerous for children, whose minds are still developing. Their brains become hard-wired for the fast-paced nature of social media, short videos, and glossy screens until they mentally cannot focus on the slow, methodical nature of reading and learning. It takes an effort to do so.
I’m not immune to this. I remember going through piles of books at a time in my childhood and adolescence, and this actually waning when I got a laptop for college. I loved the freedom my laptop gave me, I loved the connections my smart phone introduced to me, and I’d never suggest giving them up completely. But they have hampered my focus, too. The urge to check my phone is a palpable feeling and frankly, I hate being tied to it.
But if it’s so hard for me, who makes a point to read at least 100 books every year, I can’t imagine how difficult it is for generations who had iPads thrust into their hands at a much younger age.
I don’t know the solution for this. But I know what isn’t helping.
Education boards replacing full novels with excerpts is not helping.
Smart phones and chrome books in class are not helping.
Parents who do not read aloud to their kids—are not helping.
As Haidt and Hari both emphasize, this is not solely the fault of the individual or the parents. We are living in an economy that requires two stable incomes to make ends meet. The cost of living as skyrocketed. Parents are exhausted and these sort of tech companies take advantage of their consumers. Why read when you can scroll TikTok for hours on end? Why read to your kids when you can shove an iPad in their tiny paws and let them watch Paw Patrol quietly for hours on end? When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, utterly exhausted by the rigors of your job and the strains of parenting, reading a book can seem like another dreadful chore on a never-ending to-do list.
So might I suggest a reframe of reading?
****
One of the most annoying things I discovered about caring for my mental health was that taking deep breaths, going on a walk, and disengaging were actually effective strategies. What do you mean several deep breaths completely reset your nervous system? How dare this stupid mental health walk work! I think a lot of us are at a point where our mental health is something we factor in, even if it is not our primary focus.
I’d like to propose you add in reading a book as a mental health strategy.
What is the first thing you do when you get home from work? If you’re anything like me, you might spend more than a little time flopping in front of a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu and binge-watching Stranger Things. I have an entire Excel spreadsheet tracking the shows I watch. I love a good rot time; even better because most of the shows your binge-watching are utterly brainless. They do not make you think too hard, nor are you supposed to. (I fear this is why the Stranger Things finale angered me so—I thought too much about the story. If you watch things uncritically, you’ll probably enjoy it.)
Rot is an important part of our ecosystem; rotting on your bed/couch watching Love Island is perfectly valid. But rot cannot solely be your rest.
Make a cup of tea. Even better, pour a glass of wine. Or a frosty Guinness. Put on some music. Curl up with a book you’ve been meaning to reread or finish. And most importantly—let your phone charge in the other room.
If you’re having trouble focusing on a book? Reread a book you loved in your childhood. I reread Anne of Green Gables recently and have been rereading the Little House books. They’re fast reads and familiar; once you get going, your brain will remember how comforting it was to you as a child.
Keep a book in your bag or purse. If you don’t have to drive during your commute, read from that book instead of scrolling your phone. If you usually eat by yourself at lunch, bring your book along. As Lewis says, “Reading and eating are two pleasures that combine admirably.”
If you’re still struggling—join a book club. Accountability can be helpful; if you know your companions are on chapter 6 while you’re still on chapter 2, you’ll get a nice dose of social pressure to catch up.
Read to your kids. I’m not a parent, but I was once a child and please, please, please read to your kids. Even if you only have time for a few pages. It will transform their life and improve their sleep.
The decline in literacy rates is a systemic problem. It cannot be solved simply by individual effort, even if you perfectly adhere to my suggestions. Our climate change crisis also cannot be individually solved by families who recycle and use “green” products. We’re going to have to start looking into community and even federal measures. I hear a lot of moaning about Australia’s new social media ban for minors (under 16-year-olds, to be precise), but I think it is a very wise move that the US should implement. Not that there will be much traction on that point, at least under this administration…
But most importantly—reading a book can be the most revolutionary practice we give ourselves, both individually and communally.
Resist algorithms and social media endless scroll.
Fight back by reading a book.