Goodbye to the Age of the Book

Goodbye to the Age of the Book

Reading—in particular, reading long books—is losing importance in Western culture, especially in the United States. It is being replaced by two main alternatives. On one hand, people read plenty on their smartphones, but usually it is snippets, such as texts, X and Facebook posts, newspaper articles, and other shorter items. On the other hand, audio and video outputs are rising in importance relative to full books.When I visit the public library…