I'm not in the whole anti-Internet camp, indeed my viewpoint is far closer to Randall Munroe's[1]. But it is a little sad how few of my peers read books. I just

I'm not in the whole anti-Internet camp, indeed my viewpoint is far closer to Randall Munroe's[1]. But it is a little sad how few of my peers read books. I just finished three volumes of the Robert Caro series on Lyndon Johnson along with The Power Broker. Now, granted, these are big tomes. They also cover a topic that most people would not find interesting. Yet I still find it very depressing how almost all of my peers balk at the idea of reading them. Part of the reason they balk is, yes, the length and topic, but also because reading has become such a chore, such an unusual event, that the idea of reading a 800 page book is akin to running a marathon. If you struggle to read a 200 page book, an 800 page book appears impossible. And yet, inside these books, there is absolutely multitudes. There's more insight and political knowledge and facts than thousands of blog posts and news articles, aided by thorough, comprehensive decades-long research. There's also pure pleasure. The writing quality is so far and above the pedestrian prose that you see on the internet. It's like eating your first bite of top notch sushi after years of cold supermarket stuff. I can't tell you how emotional I got reading about the Civil Rights movement, about the trial of Emmett Till, about Coke Stevenson[2], about the Rural Electrification movement. There's no blog or article that compares. [1]: https://xkcd.com/1414/ https://xkcd.com/1414/ [2]: Even if that portrayal is considered to be suspect. Although if you ask me, I think the rebuttal of "but Stevenson was a virulent racist" ignores the fact that everybody, LBJ included, was a virulent racist at the time and to tar Stevenson with that brush is to apply modern sensibilities to a different era.