In 1750, when the novel was still relatively novel, the English essayist and lexicographer Samuel Johnson declared that the primary audience for the literary form comprised “the young, the ignorant, and the idle.” Today, those are probably the last people you’d expect to find reading a work of fiction instead of doomscrolling. Not that novels are exactly all the rage among adults either: A mere 41.8 percent of American adults reported having read fiction in 2018, marking the lowest reading rate in the 21st century and a 3.5 percent drop since 2013.
With The Novel, Who Needs It?, the prolific essayist and critic Joseph Epstein describes why long works of fiction are worth reading, and what we lose as novels lose readers. It’s an accessible, charming, and persuasive apologia.
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