Year in Review

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him

Writing elsewhere
I have started writing at The Critic about the Man-Made Wonders of the modern world. The first instalment is about elevators.

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It’s been a good year for The Common Reader. At the start of the year, there were fewer than a thousand subscribers—now there are nearly four thousand. It’s a pleasure to have you all. Some of you have recommended books I enjoyed or have left engaging comments. Many dedicated readers have promoted The Common Reader on their own blogs or websites, shared it on social, or passed it on to friends and acquaintances. Many thanks to all of you! Sharing The Common Reader is the best way to help it grow and to find new readers who will enjoy my essays. (Hitting the like button also helps.)

2022 has also been a good year because I was able to quit my job to write a book about late bloomers. Many of you have asked me about this, sent me books and articles relevant to my research, and even helped me track down hard-to-access material. One of you helped me get an agent. This has all been possible because Tyler Cowen awarded me an Emergent Ventures grant. There has been a lot to be grateful for this year. The book isn’t finished but I have written a big chunk of it and am making good progress. I know a lot of you are waiting to hear more—I’ll tell you as soon as I can.

This year’s most popular essays were:

• The case for opsimaths: maybe late bloomers aren’t so late

• I quit my job to write a book about late bloomers

• Let there be more biographies of failures

• How to write like Malcolm Gladwell

• The books I enjoyed most this year

• Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

• Possible endings for The Winter’s Tale

I tried to keep topical writing to a minimum, but I had to write about my old boss Liz Truss. I covered more fiction in translation but perhaps not enough. Some essays were too long: I’ll aim to be shorter next year. Some months I published more than once a week—too much? And sometimes I got a little niche, a little too niche, perhaps. When it comes to selecting essay topics, I continued to follow Johnson’s advice, for better or worse, “A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

There have been some new ventures on The Common Reader this year. I started interviewing people. You can read or listen to interviews with Helen Lewis, Robin Hanson, Anna Gat, Noah Smith, Charles Moore, and Sarah Harkness. Last Christmas, I posted diary and letter extracts—I’ll do that again this year. And it’s been a real pleasure meeting some of you at Interintellect salons throughout the year. Of course some things never change, and I continued to write about Samuel Johnson.

Find yourself readers who read your blog the way Samuel Johnson is reading this book.

There’s a reader survey for the end of the year. It’s short! Please do fill it in. It helps me to keep improving The Common Reader. It’s your chance to tell me what you want to see more or less of and what you think I could have done better this year.

As well as writing here, I have written about politics, architecture, Russian literature, history, punctuation, royalty, and elevators for places like The Critic, CapX, UnHerd, The Oldie, Engelsberg Ideas, The Salisbury Review, and O Reader! Some of these commissions came via generous readers. If you would like me to write something for you, please do get in touch.

This year I have had many emails from you all about books you liked, asking questions about something I’ve written, or recommending something to me. Keep them coming. I always enjoy hearing from you. Next year I might experiment with the new Substack Chat feature. What do you think?

Thank you for all your help and interest this year. I look forward to more in 2023.

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