In which we have our heads in a book

Easily 50 years ago, Isaac Asimov gave a little talk to the Doubleday staff about how no one was reading books anymore. His point was that, in fact, no one had ever been reading books anymore, and that no one probably ever would. In other words, reading was an elite activity. Recent statistics bear him out. In 2025, no one is still ever reading books anymore, not just printed books but e-books or even audiobooks. The percentage of readers is low, albeit consistently low over time. So one shouldn't bemoan reading as a lost art; it's an art that has never really been found. The reading of books is something very few people do, and that very few people have ever done, at least in the USA. (For all I know the Balinese are knocking back three novels a week each, not to mention the busy library users in Cooch Behar, but I like to stick to what I have some knowledge about. Sometimes.)

If you are reading this, you are probably among this literary elite. Since most of the time you're probably reading for entertainment, you might not be all that proud of yourself. Yeah, I know, every couple of years you try yet again to read Proust in the original Greek, but mostly you're chewing on the latest Grisham or working your way through the complete Agatha Christie or other such pleasurable pursuits. There's nothing wrong with that. One of the things that people who don't read lose is the sheer fun of luxuriating in storytelling. It's like deliberately not listening to music. If you don't read whatever it is you want to read you cut off and waste a whole part of your brain that probably isn't good for anything else. And the same holds true for music, that you don't have to ponder Schopenhauer when you're happy listening to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard*. They both fill up that music part of the brain, although in different capacities, just like books fill up the book part.

Obviously, therefore, I would maintain that reading—any reading—is good for the brain, i.e., for your intelligence. You're pushing words around the mental corridors, if nothing else. You may be learning something, however inadvertently, a fact or two about history or science that you otherwise would not have known. You may increase your own empathy by seeing something—anything—through someone else's eyes, be it the French aristocracy or dragons or star-crossed lovers. Whatever. Go for it! And encourage it in others. If you find a book or an author you really like, pass it on. Recommend them to a friend. Give them a copy. Everyone will be happier and wiser for it. 

If you keep reading this blog, I'll be making plenty of recommendations. A couple of days ago it was Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. You probably haven't finished it yet, much less the two sequels, so I'll leave you with that one for a while. 

*They're real. I googled weird band names.