With literacy rates declining across OECD countries, building healthy habits around books is truly essential. Allowing reading at dinner started as one of those on-the-spot parental solutions. Letting them have a copy of Bunny Vs Monkey or The Beano while they ate seemed like a more ethical solution for keeping them in their chairs for the duration of the meal than, say, duct tape.
According to a National Endowment for the Arts study published a few years back, only 48.5% of adults are typically reading "one book or more for pleasure" in a 12-month span. The numbers get even grimmer when isolating for fiction: just 37.6% of the survey's participants reported reading a novel or short story from July 2021 to July 2022.
At least one fundamental human trait persists in the smartphone era: People seem to love a challenge. The internet teems with viral competitions, gamified health apps, and "life-maxxing" exercises of many kinds. Even those who resist the lure of screens-by, for instance, reading books-are frequently doing so with a kind of competitive zeal. A University of Pennsylvania professor has built a strict, rules-based classroom cult around reading.
"Read 500 pages... every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest." When Warren Buffett dropped this wisdom bomb, most people probably thought he was exaggerating. Five hundred pages? Every single day? Who has time for that? But here's the thing about Buffett that most people miss. The Oracle of Omaha isn't just talking about reading as some nice-to-have habit. For him, reading IS the work. It's the foundation of everything he's built, from turning Berkshire Hathaway into a $900 billion empire.
For the 10 th year in a row, my New Year's resolution is to read more books. Ideally, as I tend to tell myself during these protean early weeks of January, 2026 will be remembered for languorous evenings on the couch, tearing through the inventory of novels that crowd the modest capacity of my living-room shelves, perhaps with a tumbler of scotch resting on a coaster.
I'm a stand-up comedian. Not a book critic. I don't want to be a book critic. And writing about books is really fucking hard. I don't want to recap the plots or write shit like "languorous prose." I can't even remember character names, much less general themes, and I have zero interest in "what the author is trying to say."
Here's a thought many of us have these days: if only we weren't on our damn phones all the time, we would surely unlock a better self-one that went on hikes and talked more with our children and felt less rank jealousy about other people's successes. It's a nice idea; once a day, at least, I wonder what my life would be like if I smashed my phone into bits and never contacted AppleCare.
Imagine you're shopping for your next read. You scan the bookstore shelves, registering the promising titles and colorful covers as you go. Among them are several older classics you promised yourself you'd read one day, and you feel a familiar pang of guilt over having not picked them up yet. Is today the day? No, you decide, and opt for a newer book that is currently trending on social media.
I'm pretty sure that two generations ago, they would have been more like I was: always with their nose in some volume, looking up only to cross the street or to guide a fork on their plates. But today, even in our book-crammed home, where their father is often in a cozy reading chair, their eyes are more likely to be glued to a screen.
📚 Every book leaves a mark. A line that sticks, a question that won't let go, a small shift in how you see the world. But unless you capture them, those traces fade as quickly as the last page turns. That's where a book journal template steps in-it's not about adding homework to your reading, it's about preserving the spark. Think of it as your personal vault for insights, favorite quotes, and those half-formed thoughts you know are worth keeping.
The oldest one is recommending the book he's just finished to me. You should read this, he says, handing me a well-thumbed paperback, which I turn over in my hands. Blue, I say. The cover's blue, yeah, he says. It's a translation, and not much happens, but it's good. OK, I say. I'm already reading a book, but I will take this on holiday with me. Now I need a new book, he says. Any ideas? This has never happened before.
For much of my life, whenever I've spotted a neglected novel in my periphery, I've looked away. I'm not an "extreme empath," but I can't help feel guilty - like the book's sitting there wondering when the hell I'm going to get my act together. Despite my editorial profession, I'm actually a really slow reader, capable of only finishing 12 books a year.
I was saddened to learn that gen Z parents don't read to their children because they don't have time, dislike having to read the same book over and over, don't enjoy reading books themselves or find it boring.
