It is advice I have taken literally in recent months. (And metaphorically - Substack seems like a nicely-tended garden compared to the swampy wastelands and post-industrial hellholes waiting elsewhere online.)
“Those who did read reported better mental health, improved sleep and concentration, and better understanding of other people’s feelings. Readers have better life satisfaction”. I very much want this to be true and this is a lovely article but the analyst in me can’t help but point out that proving causation here will likely be very difficult and it may be that those who read more, have better lives not because of the act of reading, but because they are typically wealthier, with more spare time etc
Alas would have to agree with this assessment. Reading as an indicator of positive mental health versus a protective factor for positive mental health may be a way of disentangling what’s going on. But having time to read, being able to read etc would all (I would think) be indicators of privilege as much as anything? But for those with capacity to read I can see how it would offer an effective antidote to pessimism and doom scrolling.
Even a child can read to disengage from their current situation. Whether rich or poor, they can "escape" their world and walk with confidence in another.
A friend of mine, who had experienced great deprivation while growing up, credits classical literature as the thing that saved her life! She explained that had she had only her own situation reflected back to her, it would have been her end. There were many characters who showed her the way out of the labyrinth. She also argued that reading remains a cheaper form of entertainment and being so suggests that perhaps there might be more readers among a certain group than one might suspect, and in spite of technology. Not sure about that one. I've met my share of wealthier, "highly-educated" people who are not readers — mostly business types. Sadly, money makes the world go around and that gives them a larger share than they deserve in the making of our reality. Cheers!
It can’t be class because we are talking about half of people in the UK and one quarter in the USA. Do we think those people aren’t watching television?
There’s obviously a causation issue but a) I claimed no causation and b) it’s an open question, hence my argument that this is speculative but worth considering. That the causation is unproved doesn’t mean it is proved not to exist.
What possible basis would we have for thinking that HALF of people in Britain would get no benefit from reading a book, for example?
One of the long identified ways to improve happiness or life-satisfaction is through giving your time to others - volunteers report greater life satisfaction, regardless of their economic position. I’m going to link that to your Austen cure in that both literature and volunteering break the self-absorption loop. Literature is the community we can join in our solitary moments.
Literally the best thing I have read today, it really talks about our current situation in the whole world, and this problem affects specifically children and adults who consume a lot of social media. I used to be like that and watch Gurus who talk about self help and how to improve your life, and guess what nothing of what they say really do anything, unless you start changing yourself by implementing good habits into your life such as reading.
For me, reading quiets the chattiness in the my brain. Being inundated with so much stimulus all the time makes my inner monologue go nuts. Reading calms everything. I've noticed, too, that since Covid, I've had a hard time focusing on a task for long period of time. Reading is like strength-training my mental muscles to focus on a task for a longer period of time.
How Austen describes that cure in Persuasion [I guess “poetry” is the equivalent of TikTok here?]: “she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly…she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.”
Sounds like she's recommending self-help books 😉 Come to think of it, although I wrote that as a frivolous comment, I think it is no coincidence that the genres of the novel and the self-help book arose at more-or-less the same time.
The idea behind the hypothesis—Linguistic Relativity—suggests that one's available vocabulary determines the ways one's mind makes sense of the world. Put simply, our reality is defined—literally and figuratively—by the words we have at our disposal. After all, to a hammer everything is a nail.
In this way, a rich lexicon constructs a vivid world.
The easiest way to make your reality more colorful and vibrant is to learn new words.
I absolutely agree with this. However, I don't know if Netflix is catching a stray bullet here. Great television can absolutely do the things that you're claiming of great books. To get lost in a beautifully written series is absolutely a balm to the soul, if also a more modern and less imaginative alternative. The Sopranos, Mad Men and Mr. Robot have all inspired me to write better while still giving me time and respite from public discourse. Also, a political book can get you just as fired up as FOX News. I'd be interested to see what you think about this. Are the two fundamentally different when considering the aims that you claim books achieve, or are they closer than you're giving them credit for?
Television obviously has some aesthetic power (the movies much more so) but it simply isn’t comparable at all. The work of the imagination is stilled by the screen. Movies can become works of visual art, but television is imitative, over long, and has never yet matches Austen or Dickens. Mad Men cannot be compared to Emma or Hamlet. I primarily argue here for imaginative literature though perhaps I could have made that clearer.
Hamlet was a play; TV drama is a play watched at a distance. I agree that reading lets us flex our imagination more, but all the other factors are independent of the medium. Having watched Shakespeare on stage, watched in my living room, and read the plays, I have to say my preference is in that order.
We listen to Shakespeare as much as we watch him. He has to invoke it all with words. Original performances had almost no scenery etc. Original TV work simply isn't comparable. There is no First Folio of HBO.
A fair point - the technical limitations make both the writer and the audience work harder, plus with a live performance, the actors are also in a kind of communion with you, which is why I prefer stage to screen - but I still prefer both to reading something that was designed to be listened to.
He wrote it to be read also, which is why he published some of them as books. He also knew people were making anthologies, copying into common place books etc. It's not really the whole truth this "written to be watched" line we hear from some Shakespearians. Listening is a lot closer to reading than watching.
Interesting. And of course the rise of drama comes at the end of the golden age of reading as recitation (e.g. lectio divina), with the masque as as a transition, perhaps. With that in mind, what should we make of the current vogue for audiobooks, I wonder?
Great post and a reminder of why we should all be reading. Books are not only a source of information but also a way to escape the stresses of my life. They are a sacred indulgence—time alone to be anyplace and anyone I choose.
Reading has opened my mind, exposing me to everything the world has to offer.
I used to read a book a week and make it my mantra. However, like your poignant post described, I've fallen off the bandwagon lately.
I loved your essay! It’s a literary pep talk with a dash of nostalgia and a sprinkle of wisdom. You’ve managed to diagnose the malaise of modernity and prescribe a cure that’s both timeless and charming: reading good books.
In an age where everyone’s trying to outdo each other in the race to the bottom of despair, your advice to retreat into the world of books is refreshing. Trade our blue light for the soft glow of a bedside lamp and the rustle of pages. Replace our political rants with literary debates over who’s the best Brontë sister!
At the root of all this is the fact that our civilization by all measures - and especially by the most important one of all, the one that is baseline to all, energy - we are in our decline and fall as a global civilization, now. Our culture is on the cusp of vast change, but it's on account of much larger forces than human attitudes, thoughts,, feelings, dreams, efforts, any of the things we might control ourselves. Forces of resource availability and physics and especially entropy. None of this can we do a thing about other than to try and adapt our lives and our expectations in compliance with what promises to be a steady contraction of all we know for a very long time to come. If we read the right things, we will understand what is happening to us now and at least it will cease to be some overwhelming mystery why things seem to be going down the tubes. We can accept that they are and decide what we need to do to adapt to this reality. People who don't read will be in a fog of confusion over this until they die. Blaming politicians, the majority of them.
Reading brings delight and enchantment, which we cannot do without, and for which there are no known 'life hacks'.
We must cultivate our gardens; and then relax in them with a decent book (once the weeding is done).
This also brought me to Voltaire / Candide 🙏
It is advice I have taken literally in recent months. (And metaphorically - Substack seems like a nicely-tended garden compared to the swampy wastelands and post-industrial hellholes waiting elsewhere online.)
ditto and ditto!
“Those who did read reported better mental health, improved sleep and concentration, and better understanding of other people’s feelings. Readers have better life satisfaction”. I very much want this to be true and this is a lovely article but the analyst in me can’t help but point out that proving causation here will likely be very difficult and it may be that those who read more, have better lives not because of the act of reading, but because they are typically wealthier, with more spare time etc
Alas would have to agree with this assessment. Reading as an indicator of positive mental health versus a protective factor for positive mental health may be a way of disentangling what’s going on. But having time to read, being able to read etc would all (I would think) be indicators of privilege as much as anything? But for those with capacity to read I can see how it would offer an effective antidote to pessimism and doom scrolling.
Even a child can read to disengage from their current situation. Whether rich or poor, they can "escape" their world and walk with confidence in another.
A friend of mine, who had experienced great deprivation while growing up, credits classical literature as the thing that saved her life! She explained that had she had only her own situation reflected back to her, it would have been her end. There were many characters who showed her the way out of the labyrinth. She also argued that reading remains a cheaper form of entertainment and being so suggests that perhaps there might be more readers among a certain group than one might suspect, and in spite of technology. Not sure about that one. I've met my share of wealthier, "highly-educated" people who are not readers — mostly business types. Sadly, money makes the world go around and that gives them a larger share than they deserve in the making of our reality. Cheers!
It can’t be class because we are talking about half of people in the UK and one quarter in the USA. Do we think those people aren’t watching television?
There’s obviously a causation issue but a) I claimed no causation and b) it’s an open question, hence my argument that this is speculative but worth considering. That the causation is unproved doesn’t mean it is proved not to exist.
What possible basis would we have for thinking that HALF of people in Britain would get no benefit from reading a book, for example?
One of the long identified ways to improve happiness or life-satisfaction is through giving your time to others - volunteers report greater life satisfaction, regardless of their economic position. I’m going to link that to your Austen cure in that both literature and volunteering break the self-absorption loop. Literature is the community we can join in our solitary moments.
Reading can recharge the batteries that make small acts of kindness possible.
Books are where I go to reboot. They are an oasis for the spirit.
Literally the best thing I have read today, it really talks about our current situation in the whole world, and this problem affects specifically children and adults who consume a lot of social media. I used to be like that and watch Gurus who talk about self help and how to improve your life, and guess what nothing of what they say really do anything, unless you start changing yourself by implementing good habits into your life such as reading.
For me, reading quiets the chattiness in the my brain. Being inundated with so much stimulus all the time makes my inner monologue go nuts. Reading calms everything. I've noticed, too, that since Covid, I've had a hard time focusing on a task for long period of time. Reading is like strength-training my mental muscles to focus on a task for a longer period of time.
How Austen describes that cure in Persuasion [I guess “poetry” is the equivalent of TikTok here?]: “she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly…she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.”
Lovely!
Sounds like she's recommending self-help books 😉 Come to think of it, although I wrote that as a frivolous comment, I think it is no coincidence that the genres of the novel and the self-help book arose at more-or-less the same time.
This has got to be more than just a correlation between to two—you might be on to something…
god knows how you would prove it, but yeah it seems pretty clear to me that less books and more cable news is.... bad for a person
Amen! As I wrote in The Need to Read (https://www.whitenoise.email/p/read):
"[E]nter the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
The idea behind the hypothesis—Linguistic Relativity—suggests that one's available vocabulary determines the ways one's mind makes sense of the world. Put simply, our reality is defined—literally and figuratively—by the words we have at our disposal. After all, to a hammer everything is a nail.
In this way, a rich lexicon constructs a vivid world.
The easiest way to make your reality more colorful and vibrant is to learn new words.
To learn new words, read more books."
I absolutely agree with this. However, I don't know if Netflix is catching a stray bullet here. Great television can absolutely do the things that you're claiming of great books. To get lost in a beautifully written series is absolutely a balm to the soul, if also a more modern and less imaginative alternative. The Sopranos, Mad Men and Mr. Robot have all inspired me to write better while still giving me time and respite from public discourse. Also, a political book can get you just as fired up as FOX News. I'd be interested to see what you think about this. Are the two fundamentally different when considering the aims that you claim books achieve, or are they closer than you're giving them credit for?
Television obviously has some aesthetic power (the movies much more so) but it simply isn’t comparable at all. The work of the imagination is stilled by the screen. Movies can become works of visual art, but television is imitative, over long, and has never yet matches Austen or Dickens. Mad Men cannot be compared to Emma or Hamlet. I primarily argue here for imaginative literature though perhaps I could have made that clearer.
Hamlet was a play; TV drama is a play watched at a distance. I agree that reading lets us flex our imagination more, but all the other factors are independent of the medium. Having watched Shakespeare on stage, watched in my living room, and read the plays, I have to say my preference is in that order.
We listen to Shakespeare as much as we watch him. He has to invoke it all with words. Original performances had almost no scenery etc. Original TV work simply isn't comparable. There is no First Folio of HBO.
A fair point - the technical limitations make both the writer and the audience work harder, plus with a live performance, the actors are also in a kind of communion with you, which is why I prefer stage to screen - but I still prefer both to reading something that was designed to be listened to.
He wrote it to be read also, which is why he published some of them as books. He also knew people were making anthologies, copying into common place books etc. It's not really the whole truth this "written to be watched" line we hear from some Shakespearians. Listening is a lot closer to reading than watching.
Interesting. And of course the rise of drama comes at the end of the golden age of reading as recitation (e.g. lectio divina), with the masque as as a transition, perhaps. With that in mind, what should we make of the current vogue for audiobooks, I wonder?
Thanks Henry. I agree with the inability to compare the form, but I still think the effects - which you focus on in the essay - are comparable.
I just can’t see that it’s a serious proposition that the reading of Tolstoy can be compared to HBO. It’s a passing phase.
Amen! Some of the best books I’ve ever read here: https://www.tomwhitenoise.com/bookshelf
The digital world is the source of our malaise. Reading immerses us in what is real and absorbs our minds in ways that make them grow.
Incredible. Thank you.
Great post and a reminder of why we should all be reading. Books are not only a source of information but also a way to escape the stresses of my life. They are a sacred indulgence—time alone to be anyplace and anyone I choose.
Reading has opened my mind, exposing me to everything the world has to offer.
I used to read a book a week and make it my mantra. However, like your poignant post described, I've fallen off the bandwagon lately.
Hey Henry,
I loved your essay! It’s a literary pep talk with a dash of nostalgia and a sprinkle of wisdom. You’ve managed to diagnose the malaise of modernity and prescribe a cure that’s both timeless and charming: reading good books.
In an age where everyone’s trying to outdo each other in the race to the bottom of despair, your advice to retreat into the world of books is refreshing. Trade our blue light for the soft glow of a bedside lamp and the rustle of pages. Replace our political rants with literary debates over who’s the best Brontë sister!
To many more books,
Mo
Thanks :)
At the root of all this is the fact that our civilization by all measures - and especially by the most important one of all, the one that is baseline to all, energy - we are in our decline and fall as a global civilization, now. Our culture is on the cusp of vast change, but it's on account of much larger forces than human attitudes, thoughts,, feelings, dreams, efforts, any of the things we might control ourselves. Forces of resource availability and physics and especially entropy. None of this can we do a thing about other than to try and adapt our lives and our expectations in compliance with what promises to be a steady contraction of all we know for a very long time to come. If we read the right things, we will understand what is happening to us now and at least it will cease to be some overwhelming mystery why things seem to be going down the tubes. We can accept that they are and decide what we need to do to adapt to this reality. People who don't read will be in a fog of confusion over this until they die. Blaming politicians, the majority of them.