My View From the cheap seats

I love reading. Real reading. Books. The kind made of paper, glue, and that faint dusty smell that makes you feel smarter just by holding them. The kind you can drop in the bathtub without getting an electric shock. The kind with pages you can dog-ear even though someone will judge you for it.

Apparently, this puts me in an endangered species category.

I recently saw a statistic claiming that fewer than half of Americans read even one book a year. Not even a slim one. Not even something with large print and pictures of cats. Nothing.

A nation that once produced Twain, Melville, and the entire Dr. Seuss catalog is now saying, “Nah, I’ll just scroll TikTok for seven hours and see if that fills the void.”

I’m not saying the country is getting dumber. I’m just saying that if brains were dynamite, a lot of folks couldn’t blow their hats off.

Part of the problem is that reading a book requires something we’ve largely forgotten how to do: sit still. The modern attention span lasts about nine seconds, which is the same as a goldfish. Actually, I think the goldfish might be doing better. They’re at least staring at something without checking their phone.

People tell me they “don’t have time” to read. Meanwhile, they somehow have time to watch three seasons of a crime documentary in one night. They can spend 45 minutes reading through comments on Facebook, but hand them a 250-page book and suddenly they’re too busy.

I have friends who brag that they “only read headlines.” That’s like saying you know how to cook because you looked at a picture of a meatloaf.

And don’t even get me started on e-books. I’m glad they exist for people who love convenience, but they’re not for me. I want a book I can thump, drop, stack, shove in a bag, or use to prop up an uneven table leg in a pinch.

You can’t underline sentences with a pen on a Kindle. Well, you can, but you’ll void the warranty.

Now here’s the real tragedy of not reading: You miss out on some of the greatest traveling companions in human history. I’m talking about the characters who will whisk you away to places your feet can’t carry you. With books, you can hunt treasure with Jim Hawkins, solve crimes with Sherlock Holmes, drink coffee in a Paris café with Hemingway’s wanderers, or stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Atticus Finch while he reminds you what decency looks like.

I’ve climbed mountains, sailed oceans, fought dragons, ridden trains across Europe, and survived apocalyptic disasters — all without leaving my recliner.

Reading also teaches things the internet can’t. Books require imagination. They demand focus. They build vocabulary, empathy, and the ability not to act like a complete fool in public. Which is why I believe the decline in book reading explains every dumb trend in the last decade.

I’m not insisting everyone go out and read Dickens tonight. Start small. Read a comic book. Read a magazine. Read the back of a cereal box. (Some of them are surprisingly educational. I once learned more about fiber than I ever wanted to know.)

Because the truth is simple: the less we read, the dumber we get. And the dumber we get, the more likely we are to end up as the kind of people who think cheese is a source of political advice.

So pick up a book. Any book.

It might be the cheapest adventure you ever take. And the smartest one, too.