Unfortunately, it seems like common readers are becoming less common. According to a recent poll, 17% of American adults did not read a single book over the past year, and all age groups read fewer books in 2021 than in 2016: https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx
(This makes me think of a conversation I had a few years ago when a fellow student saw me reading a book and told me that he almost exclusively reads Wikipedia articles.)
By the way, thanks so much for recommending Samuel Johnson's house. I visited last month and quite enjoyed it.
Well, I wonder if Wikipedia and its complements are the new common reading... Many compendiums of knowledge were an essential part of what the common reader used to read, especially in the improvement age.
I'm so glad you visited the house. It's such a lovely place and the only building in the square to have survived the Bltiz.
That's a good point. Dr. Johnson's own Dictionary is the kind of thing we now find on the internet 250 years later.
I had no idea about that history and was happy to learn it. I also visited two other writerly places in Ireland and England: Joycean Dublin (which I recently covered on my own Substack) and C.S. Lewis' home and gravesite in Oxford.
Unfortunately, it seems like common readers are becoming less common. According to a recent poll, 17% of American adults did not read a single book over the past year, and all age groups read fewer books in 2021 than in 2016: https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx
(This makes me think of a conversation I had a few years ago when a fellow student saw me reading a book and told me that he almost exclusively reads Wikipedia articles.)
By the way, thanks so much for recommending Samuel Johnson's house. I visited last month and quite enjoyed it.
Well, I wonder if Wikipedia and its complements are the new common reading... Many compendiums of knowledge were an essential part of what the common reader used to read, especially in the improvement age.
I'm so glad you visited the house. It's such a lovely place and the only building in the square to have survived the Bltiz.
That's a good point. Dr. Johnson's own Dictionary is the kind of thing we now find on the internet 250 years later.
I had no idea about that history and was happy to learn it. I also visited two other writerly places in Ireland and England: Joycean Dublin (which I recently covered on my own Substack) and C.S. Lewis' home and gravesite in Oxford.
Yes I use his dictionary exclusively online now! I didn't know Lewis's home could be visited. Was it worthwhile?
I am glad you are enjoying Forms of Contention!
Very much, not least because of all the modern poetry included. The careful tracing of influence should be done by more scholars.