Read any good books lately?
Let’s hope so but…probably not
It’s tough to be a person who writes while operating in a society that is reading less. While there are more things to read, people are reading less. A 2025 study from the University of Florida and University College London found that the number of Americans who read for pleasure on a daily basis dropped by 40% in the past 20 years (from 28% in 2003 to 16% in 2023). The U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress found that around the year 2005 the percentage of teenagers who read “almost every day” dove below the percentage of teens who read “hardly ever” (the study’s terms). And that gap continues to widen. There are some people whose entire reading activity is limited to the texts and posts on their cellphone.
Famed investor Warren Buffett credits his reading habit with his success. He sat and read. It increased his knowledge and enhanced his investment decision making. Warren’s (paraphrased) quote is that you should go to sleep a bit smarter than you were when you woke up—and the easiest way to do that is to read.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
–Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss)
An acquaintance recently asked for a definition of Creative Nonfiction. I explained what it is and the shared the fact that there is the Center for Creative Nonfiction in Pittsburgh. I even told them about the classic Gay Talese article from a 1966 issue of Esquire magazine., “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”. I gave them a four-page article written in the style. When I saw them a week later, I asked if they read the piece.
The reply was that they had finished the first page. I didn’t have an answer to that but I had questions. What happened after that first page? Was the story too boring? Was The Bachelor about to give away a rose? Did they get a text message reading “Wya?” or “Wyd”? Why not return to the other three pages?
Mark Twain once said that those who don’t read have no advantage over those who can’t read. I agree with Mark Twain, just as I agree with Dr. Seuss and Warren Buffett.
One of my favorite sleeper movies is A Little White Lie (2023). Kate Hudson plays a literary professor at Acheron University. The annual literary festival is about to be eliminated. Kate’s character, Simone Cleary, sends letters to any person she can find with the name “Shriver”. C.R. Shriver wrote a great novel, Goat Time, 20 years previous and then disappeared (think of an even more reclusive J.D. Salinger). Simone knows if she can find the real Shriver and bring him to Acheron, that the festival can be saved.
One of the letters finds its way into the mailbox of a maintenance man working to unclog toilets at a dumpy Brooklyn apartment. He is a Shriver but is he THE Shriver? (The highly watchable Michael Shannon plays the role).
Maintenance man Shriver accepts the invitation and shows up at the college. He is feted by most of the faculty (including the always cool Don Johnson). One of the professors wants him to speak to her creative writing class. They are walking down a hall to the class. Right before she opens the door, she tells Shriver that her students all want to be great writers—but they hate to read.
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I sometimes wonder if a person born this year will grow up reading Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Ralph Ellison, Ayn Rand or (a personal favorite) James M. Cain. Will they go to a library, check out a book, turn off their phone and television and read the book? Or will they do a Wikipedia search in response to a class assignment? Will they do that thing where they finish a day’s reading, put the bookmark in and then took at the top of the book to see how far along they are? (I do that. Do you?)
At the closing, here is a suggestion: go read a novel (James M. Cain’s are highly enjoyable) and then watch A Little White Lie.
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