Year in review, 2024

Another good year

Thank you

A year ago there were 7,440 subscribers. Today there are 16,068. So, like last year, reader numbers have (more than) doubled. Many thanks to all of your for reading! And to

Substack

for making it possible to find those readers.

If you have any feedback, good or bad, email me on commonreader@substack.com or leave a comment. What I want to know is—are prices too high, and what do you want to see more or less of?

People tell me I write a lot, but I could write more if I didn’t think it would scare half of you away…

Anyway, here’s a brief summary of some of the important things about 2024 for me and The Common Reader.

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Second Act

Second Act was released and reviewed very nicely in the Wall Street Journal and the Times Literary Supplement. If you want to make 2025 your year of late blooming, you can find it at Amazon USA | UK | Canada | Australia or at Bookshop.org.

Tyler Cowen called it “one of the best books about talent.”

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The Common Reader

The most popular pieces on The Common Reader this year, alas, was No, Taylor Swift is not Mary Shelley. One or two other rants did well too.

After that, I am pleased to tell you that my essay on literary criticism and my essay on the modern discourse novel were very popular. As were How to Have Good Taste and the piece about the book I am working on.

The pieces I very much enjoyed writing were: Mating by Norman Rush, The untold life of Helen Taylor, neurodiversity in Intermezzo, literature in Silicon Valley, as well as pieces about Philip Larkin, James Joyce, Flaubert, and Iris Murdoch. These were my most interesting pieces that were, on the whole, less popular.

The one I liked most that you liked least was “The unlikely similarity of J.S. Mill and Samuel Johnson.” Also my Helen Vendler essay.

I also wrote a manifesto for The Common Reader.

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Writing elsewhere

Beyond Substack, I wrote about Coriolanus for Liberties, Tolkien for Prospect, and various topics for The Critic. I also wrote about Frank Lloyd Wright for the Financial Times.

The last two essays in my four part series for Entrepreneur First were published: The push and pull of productive partnerships and Nurture your imagination to cultivate anti-mimesis. I thought that last one was one of my most interesting pieces.

For

Eclectic Letters

I wrote about some videos I like: Mozart, The Lords' Tale, a 70s pub documentary, The Aristocracy, a clip from Branagh's Henry V, and John Betjeman.

I gave a talk to the Fellows at Civic Future about the value of reading literature and the role of literature in the development of the idea of individualism. And I talked at the Oxford University Alumni conference about late bloomers. I won’t link to my podcast appearances again, but there were many.

Nan Ransohoff created a website that provides “Introductions to new subjects by great people.” I was honoured to contribute the English literature syllabus. (There are also syllabi about Cities by Devon Zuegel, Improving clinical trial design by

Saloni Dattani

, and Housing supply by Sam Bowman, Ben Southwood, and John Myers.)

And I helped to write the Progress Studies Wikipedia page.

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Here’s to another good year in 2025, when we will be reading lots of Shakespeare and Jane Austen!

Poor Artist's Cupboard, c. 1815, Charles Bird King, https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.119019.html