Modern reading habits are great, actually

The novelist Mark Billingham told the Cheltenham Literature Festival audience that he gives up on about half the books he starts: “Life’s too short… There are so many great books out there.” In response, Rupert Hawksley, Senior Commissioning Editor at Indy Voices, wrote: “We owe it to writers to give them a full hearing before passing judgement.” “To give an author just 20 pages of your time is insulting,” he continued.

To give a little context to these kinds of spats, the Roman philosopher Seneca, in his Letters to Lucilius, recommended that his friend stick to a couple of masterworks and read them every day. Too much breadth in reading habits would produce a mushy, unfocused brain, he argued. 

By contrast, the Renaissance philosopher Montaigne recommended a more esoteric reading style: “I leaf through now one book, now another.” “If I encounter difficulties in reading, I do not gnaw my nails over them; I leave them there. I do nothing without gaiety.”

On a personal level, I’m with Montaigne. I sometimes really get into a novelist or a series of books, in which case I read them rather frantically cover to cover, in little snippets of time, on the bus, on the tube, or during lunch. Mostly, I dart between books a chapter at a time. Sometimes, not returning to them if I can’t be bothered. 

I loved Norman Lewis’ reportage in Naples ’44 of the Allied occupation of Naples during the Second World War. Then, I picked up his book The Honoured Society about the Sicilian Mafia, read about 70 pages, found it a struggle, and let it go. But now I know a little bit about the early 20th-century history of the Mafia, and perhaps I’ll come back to something a bit jazzier on the subject.

In the comprehensive world history of the library, The Library: A Fragile History, written by two academics based at St Andrews, Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen, you will find some nice insights into the background to these claims and counterclaims about the value of literature that have persisted for centuries.

Before the advent of printing, which replaced the manuscripts that had dominated literary culture for the previous thousand years, individual collectors and manuscript owners delighted in “moonlighted” printing. 

They would produce their own “bespoke texts” and spent significant time compiling random tit-bits of knowledge – much like Montaigne’s essays, which are full of random references and interesting contrasts produced by quoting other writers out of context. This sensibility was largely lost when printing allowed texts to be systematically reproduced in their entirety.

The notion that reading is only worthwhile if you read a book – literally – from cover to cover is therefore an artefact of the age of mechanical reproduction. Habits were once very different, and now they are in flux once more. In the internet age, we are used to going about our daily lives in a fog of chattering voices. Quickly jotting down thoughts. Darting from one opinion piece to another. Scrolling Twitter.

The most significant and genuine crisis in modern literary culture is not the development of lazy reading styles but the general decay of our public libraries. Funding squeezes and closures have led to the library playing an increasingly minor role in civic life. 

Of course, there are exceptions – Chester’s Storyhouse, which opened in 2017 as a multi-arts venue – has books spread throughout its facilities, where hubbub co-exists happily alongside more reflective activities.

Every public library should have a good stock of classics alongside the latest literature from all fields – but there should also be an effort to transform libraries in light of increasingly esoteric modern cultural habits. 

In the same way, Pettegree and der Weduwen note that, throughout history, libraries have frequently served as meeting places, venues of assignation and gossip. In Rome, public libraries were used for poetic declamation; Renaissance libraries were part museum, part social hub, part book collection, where university students flocked to have vigorous debates about the burning issues of the day. 

Libraries are not just temples to the god of silence or repositories for musty, ageing books. They can be brightened up and shine again if our bustling, noisy commons is brought into them.

Modern reading habits are nothing to sneer at – they could be the saviour of our broken literary culture.