The Future of Reading

Underwhelming. That’s how I felt reading a book by one of my favorite columnists.

Why? His best ideas were already fleshed out in his columns. In comparison, the book felt fluffy. As if the ideas-per-page were purposely diluted to make the length book-worthy.

We’re told it’s our reducing attention spans that is hurting our book reading habits. True. But books as a format must share the blame too.

As far as nonfiction writers are concerned, their entire work can easily be condensed into 3-5 big ideas. This holds even if the writer has written thousands of pages spanning diverse genres. The soil-type that nourished their oeuvre can be pinned down with accuracy.

The books of yore belonged to an era when time was aplenty and attention abundant.

Today, time is our most important asset. And attention is the currency at a time when distractions are dime a dozen.

Put simply: books are ill-equipped to serve the time-starved audience of today.

As David Samuels, literary editor of Tablet, observes, the same writing appears dramatically different when you shift your gaze from a printed copy to a digital screen.

He talks about an article that went through many edits and read well in the magazine. He wonders: “Why did a text that read so well in galleys read so shambolically online?”

To those seeped in book nostalgia, he contextualizes the change in reading habits: “Like every other human activity, reading is a culturally bound activity, whose meaning is determined by its relation to the larger cultural system in which it occurs.”

Like how form follows the function, the function follows the form too. Should you doubt this, I urge you to read the same book in a printed form and via Kindle. To me, the Kindle version of books always seemed too verbose and convoluted. Strange, as the physical copies didn’t invoke the same sentiment.

Today, a book must justify why the time spent on it is better-utilized than alternatives such as social media, blogs, and podcasts. Blogs are long dead. Eaten by social media platforms that double up as micro and personal blogging platforms.

The days when people visited destination websites are long gone. After being banned from Twitter (and other social media platforms), Donald Trump started a new blog to share his views. Yet, all it took was 29 days to shut down the blog. Trump’s failed attempts to ‘reach’ people in spite of his financial stature is telling.

Previously, I used to wonder why people prefer bloated podcasts to trimmed writing. That’s when I realized podcasts are tailored to a different audience. Most people listen to podcasts while doing something else at the same time (like walking, shopping, commuting etc.). Podcasters are blessed, for they have a captive audience.

Writers, in contrast, enjoy no such luxury. Their work requires attention in a world conspicuous by its absence. Books, because they bank on readers’ undivided attention, are struggling.

Consider how most nonfiction books’ essence can be encapsulated in a few articles. In fact, that’s precisely how a few books started: with a viral article.

James Clear, the author of “The Atomic Habits”, has summarized his favorite books in just 3 sentences. In fact, I would like to summarize “The Atomic Habits” in 3 big ideas:

• Systems > Goals
• Environment > Will power
• Power of compounding. Tiny changes have disproportionate outcomes.

I’m sure the book contains many more good ideas. But few that cannot be reduced to the big 3 ideas above. In any case, the book’s most important ideas can quickly be summarized in an hour-long podcast. Or, in a handful of blogs.

When I first read “REWORK”, I was surprised that a book like this could see the light of the day. I stumbled upon the book accidentally, and it took me just a few hours to complete it.

David Heinemeier Hansson , the co-author of the book, reminiscences the writing journey:

“Much to the shock and initial resistance of the publisher, we literally cut the manuscript in half in the last round of editing.”

“The publisher didn’t feel they could charge full price for a book that didn’t look as fat as other business books. But we refused to pad the material itself, so we did what every clever kid faced with an imposed page count has done a million times before us: We increased the font size, we shrunk the margins, and we bumped the line spacing. Oh, and we added a picture for every essay. That made the book look like every other 300-page business book.”

But in those few pages, the authors succeeded in persuading us to think differently about everyday topics.

I think therein lies the future of nonfiction writing. “No jargon, no filler, no bullshit,” as Hansson asserts.

Online essays, more than books, are more efficient information vehicles today. It makes more sense to adapt to the changing reading habits than to drool over the past.

And writers, ask yourself: do you really need a book to articulate your ideas? Except for rare instances, you are better served writing essays online. Until you hit upon the one big idea that qualifies to be expanded into a book.