This guy truly can't comprehend that anyone would read for pleasure except smut? Really? And he actually thinks that no one today is having any sort of unique or interesting experiences that...
Unfortunately, reading books for entertainment is ridiculous. You do not live in a log cabin on the prairie. You have Netflix, you have video games, you have TikTok, you have Twitter (you really spend too much time on Twitter anon). No one reads books for entertainment anymore, because paper is an inferior entertainment platform. The only people who still read books for entertainment are women who prefer their porn to have DIY visuals.
This guy truly can't comprehend that anyone would read for pleasure except smut? Really?
And he actually thinks that no one today is having any sort of unique or interesting experiences that people might want to learn about? The only way to get a new perspective is to read books hundreds of years old?
I don't know if this article was supposed to be rage bait, but it's certainly irritating.
Twitter financially incentivizes ragebait, which is one of the reasons it has become such an abhorrent place in the last few years. I avoid it as much as possible. I'm disappointed to see it...
Twitter financially incentivizes ragebait, which is one of the reasons it has become such an abhorrent place in the last few years. I avoid it as much as possible. I'm disappointed to see it linked here on Tildes.
I didn't read it, but thank you for that pull quote, and here's my version of that: Unfortunately, reading Twitter posts for entertainment is ridiculous. You do not live in a website on the...
I didn't read it, but thank you for that pull quote, and here's my version of that:
Unfortunately, reading Twitter posts for entertainment is ridiculous. You do not live in a website on the internet. You have theatre, you have sports, you have art, you have the real world. No one reads Twitter posts for entertainment anymore, because a platform for ragebait for short attention spans is inferior entertainment platform. The only people who still read tweets for entertainment are those who prefer their news to have DIY opinions they can get angry about.
“The stats back me up on this,” then proceeds to give no stats… I quit reading it around there (ironically I suppose). The tone also felt a little aggressive? I think there’s probably a good...
“The stats back me up on this,” then proceeds to give no stats… I quit reading it around there (ironically I suppose). The tone also felt a little aggressive? I think there’s probably a good discussion to be had over whether people in general are or are not reading and whether what we are reading is good or not but this tone made me want to disengage from that discussion.
They lost me after essentially positing that Netflix was concretely more entertaining than reading. Don't get me wrong, I watch a lot of Netflix (and other streaming services) but there is...
They lost me after essentially positing that Netflix was concretely more entertaining than reading. Don't get me wrong, I watch a lot of Netflix (and other streaming services) but there is something absolutely irreplaceable about picking up a paper book and letting it take you away.
I used to read fervently when I was a teenager, but more or less stopped in my early 20s when I had enough money to get whatever video game I wanted. That consumed me for the better part of a couple of decades before I started reading a few books last year. I had forgotten how much I really enjoy reading, even though now I've essentially picked up another hobby that's forced to contend for my time, but there are times and places where a novel is a perfect companion over a video or a forum like this, and certainly over a pseudointellectual Twitter post.
Since I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read, these are the books published AFTER 2020 Published - Title 2020 - Entangled Life 2020 - The Hollow Places 2021 - Elder Race 2021 - The...
Since I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read, these are the books published AFTER 2020
Published - Title
2020 - Entangled Life
2020 - The Hollow Places
2021 - Elder Race
2021 - The Heartbeat of Trees
2021 - The Dawn of Everything
2021 - Shards of Earth
2021 - The Dawn of Everything
2022 - Corpsemouth and other Autobiographies
2022 - Thistlefoot
2022 - What Moves the Dead
2022 - Remarkably Smart Creatures
2022 - City of Last Chances
2023 - A House with Good Bones
2023 - Put Away the Childish Things
2023 - Monstrillo
2024 - Light Eaters
2024 - Saturation Point
2024 - Night Magic
2024 - Alien Clay
2024 - Martyr!
2024 - Play Nice
2025 - The Hungry Gods
I’ll add the authors in a bit, but not a single book worth reading, and everything is erotica written for women /s.
I’m kinda upset at this ‘article’, not just because it’s bad but because I spent more time on this response than they did writing it.
To quote the dude "Thats just like your opinion man." I suppose this is more than the meme of guys just wanna talk about rome or whatever that thing was. There are parts in there that I kinda...
To quote the dude "Thats just like your opinion man."
I suppose this is more than the meme of guys just wanna talk about rome or whatever that thing was. There are parts in there that I kinda agree with but parts that I don't. I find positions like this to be very weird because what if I enjoy reading WH40K? I kinda agree that we are all hyper connected and our experiences are becoming more homogeneous but I guess you could say that about many points in history. This also is written in that 'hyper capitalist way of continues improvement is the only way to live' kinda way. Seriously is someone about to jump out at me and yell "you've been punk'd!" A old reference for anyone who knows.
Alternative title: "New xitter posts are not worth reading" But I did read it, and now I'm here with my life and perspectives unimproved and unchanged. The post is clear ragebait, it's...
Alternative title: "New xitter posts are not worth reading"
But I did read it, and now I'm here with my life and perspectives unimproved and unchanged. The post is clear ragebait, it's confrontational out of the gate, it just assumes rage. Maybe that's just how everyone talks on Xitter now, I don't go there often. It also establishes "this debate" out of thin air, though the nature of the debate is unclear. I assume they're using debate as a way to denote the rage they expect to illicit. Then at the end it just fizzles, having failed to pay off any of its claims.
I didn't read the replies because I don't want to log in but I can guess what they look like. With 300k views, the post accomplished its goal: Engagement with very little investement in time or mental energy on the author's part. The post is more interesting if you read it as a thinly veiled cry of frustration at the mental state of being overly online that the author is drowning in.
However, I enjoyed this bit:
The average ancient historian led troops, tutored a prince, governed a province, advised a king, made a fortune, fell from favor, was exiled, and buried 7 of their 10 children. The average modern historian passed a few tests then wrote a book on their laptop next to their cat.
It's kinda true! I disagree with most of the rest but that part changed the shape of my mouth.
Yeah that part is true because only a certain kind of person in the past had the education, time and resources to write a book. Now anyone can. That's one of the reasons why modern books present a...
Yeah that part is true because only a certain kind of person in the past had the education, time and resources to write a book. Now anyone can. That's one of the reasons why modern books present a much wider range of perspectives, contrary to what the article tries to assert.
It also kinda misses the job of a historian. Historians are secondary sources - and ultimately aim to record the truth of the past. Ancient historians were complete dogshit at that, because they...
The average ancient historian led troops, tutored a prince, governed a province, advised a king, made a fortune, fell from favor, was exiled, and buried 7 of their 10 children. The average modern historian passed a few tests then wrote a book on their laptop next to their cat.
It's kinda true! I disagree with most of the rest but that part changed the shape of my mouth.
It also kinda misses the job of a historian. Historians are secondary sources - and ultimately aim to record the truth of the past. Ancient historians were complete dogshit at that, because they would constantly make shit up, whether that be simply because they wanted to, because there was no concept of academic rigor, or out of political or personal reasons, to embellish their own side and downplay the enemy.
This forces the modern historian with their cat to spend hours upon hours trying to cross reference the claims made by ancient historians to see what is actually real and what isn't.
A historian always produces secondary sources. They are not primary sources. You want primary sources who live interesting lives. You don't necessarily need historians who live interesting lives.
Absolutely. History as a field today is drastically superior to what it was in the distant past — exactly like virtually every other field of human endeavor: architecture, biology, music,...
Absolutely. History as a field today is drastically superior to what it was in the distant past — exactly like virtually every other field of human endeavor: architecture, biology, music, chemistry, physics, political science, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, there were some pretty impressive multi-talented Renaissance men back in the day, and that era is largely over. But it's over because, today, you make a name for yourself by specializing and actually being exceptionally good at what you do. To be a famous historian in the past, you needed fortune and the right connections, and then you could publish whatever nonsense came to you so long as you worded it convincingly enough.
Historically, listening to a famous general's opinions on history is the modern equivalent to listening to a celebrity's opinions. Sure, their unusual life experiences might give them some insights that might not occur to the average person, but wouldn't you rather hear the insights of someone who is specialized in studying history and subject to peer review?
You could, and arguably should, stick a big [citation needed] on the end of half of the sentences in this article. I mean come on: This is a kind of ignorance that could only be produced by...
You could, and arguably should, stick a big [citation needed] on the end of half of the sentences in this article. I mean come on:
everyone alive today has the same perspective, and none of us have experienced a wide breadth of anything
This is a kind of ignorance that could only be produced by someone badly addicted to social media.
This is one of the dumbest and most elitist things I've read in a while. That is so patently wrong. This writer is totally focused on the macro aspect of "experience", and totally overlooking the...
This is one of the dumbest and most elitist things I've read in a while.
But what kind of information are you trying to learn from a fiction book? The book is literally labelled FALSE on the cover. I can hear the outraged answer from the literati already. It will be something like “I read to understand the human condition by engaging deeply with a wide breadth of human experience and perspectives.” Good. I agree. And since this is the same basic answer as to why you should read history, philosophy, etc as well (books that are deceptively labelled NOT FALSE on the cover), I think it’s fair to lump all these subjects together.
But if this answer is correct, it leads us to a troubling conclusion: New books are not worth reading. Why? Because everyone alive today has the same perspective, and none of us have experienced a wide breadth of anything.
...
Thankfully it’s still possible to find people with unique experiences and perspectives. But you can’t find them by traveling around the world. The world is too hyperconnected now, and everyone is converging to the same opinions. You have to find them by traveling back in time.
That is so patently wrong. This writer is totally focused on the macro aspect of "experience", and totally overlooking the INDIVIDUAL. The "perspective" and "experience" I search for in fiction isn't about living life in some other country or culture or time, it's about the life of the person.
Xenophon's works won't tell you anything about life in an immigrant family in modern-day America. Polybius sure as hell can't tell you what it's like for a woman trying to break through gender barriers in various fields. Bernal Díaz del Castillo definitely can't tell you what daily life was like for a little Aztec girl in one of the cities he conquered.
I read fiction to learn EMPATHY. Because, even with the world being so connected, we only know our OWN life experiences. We have no clue what life is like for everyone else. Even now, many people can't wrap their heads around the concept of cutting off toxic family members because how could a parent possibly be THAT bad? People still scorn those who are unable to climb out of poverty. There are still morons who scorn those with visible burn scars or in a wheelchair, treating them as undesirable, unsightly spots on society, and ignoring the fact that they can just as easily end up in that position.
On the reddit post sharing it, someone talked about how they'd once sent it to a friend who immediately expressed doubt that it happened at all. This story isn't even all that out there. It's like something out of a sitcom, sure, but sometimes crazy stuff just happens all at once. But apparently it's too insane for at least one person to wrap their head around, because those circumstances just didn't line up with their own life.
I repeat: People only know their own life experiences. Living in the same time period with the internet doesn't mean we're hyper-connected and have the same opinions—hell, just look at politics! Humanity sure as hell doesn't have a singular universal opinion on that! We have no way to peek into other people's brains and see their memories and why they think a certain way.
Fiction is the best tool for that, because the writer knows exactly what's going through the character's mind. They don't need to interpret and guess at someone's motivations like when writing biographies or historic accounts, it serves as a direct look into someone's mind. Even unreliable narrators are useful because you can see how someone's perspective might not actually line up with reality.
Also, since the writer talked about history: I did not major in history, my biggest experience was a "Women in History" class in college many years ago. And just THAT was enough to tell how much hogwash that whole rant is. The writer describes all these historic figures who did major things and wrote up accounts of their actions... Based on my class, those people wouldn't necessarily be called historians, their accounts were what we called a "primary source". Their accounts are also heavily biased by factors such as political leanings and power dynamics. A good chunk of that class I took was about how all accounts are biased to some degree, and that part of the job of historians is to try to untangle those biases to find the truth.
The phrase "history is written by the victors" is a truth because the victors have much more control over what information and records survive, and they'll often go for the one that makes them look best. Like I said, a conquistador likely wouldn't have bothered recording the daily life of a little girl in the Aztec empire. If they did, they'd likely focus on the savage and uncivilized aspects. We can find these kinds of biases even outside of cases with a clear victor and loser. Take the Winchester Mystery House. It's famously claimed that Sarah Winchester began the never-ending construction to confuse the ghosts of those killed by Winchester guns so they couldn't curse her, but that mostly arose from contemporary tabloid-esque articles during and after her lifetime. The Wikipedia article has a whole section debunking various common claims about her—hell, I've actually gone there myself, and I still only recently learned most of those claims are false! I could swear the tour guide even mentioned how one room (I think the blue room mentioned in the "nightly séances" segment) was built "without corners" (i.e. no protruding corners) due to something to do with ghosts. Actually, the official site calls that the séance room, so yeah.
That was a bit of a tangent, but my point is that all those people the writer mentioned? Their accounts will be biased in some way. That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. William Wells Brown's experience in slavery definitely needed to be heard and spread at the time, especially to people who only ever saw the white slave owners' perspectives. His former masters' accounts would be VERY different, and would likely paint him as some uncivilized brute, and how they were justified in owning him because of Bible verses or something. (By the way, his father was the white cousin of his original master. That really adds even more layers to how fucked up it was.)
But I used a key phrase in the above paragraph: his account needed to be heard at the time. Contemporary people would have gained no greater insights into the horrors of slavery in America if they only read older books from the past. Even accounts of, say, slavery in ancient Rome, would be radically different from the slavery experienced by Africans in America at the time. They would likely read those and shake their heads at how brutal ancient slavery was, while still finding ways to justify how then-contemporary slavery was much more moral and right.
Even now, slavery STILL exists all over the world, but it's radically different from black people in plantations. Some people likely wouldn't even recognize it as slavery because it's so different from what we're taught in classes. So it's important to share those modern accounts, both real and fictional, so that people can learn what it looks like right now.
Just... GAH. This article is one of the most elitist, stuck-up things I've read in a long time. I don't think there's a single part I agree with.
Elitist is right. One of my great grandfather was breaking his back as a sharecropper. Another was working in a coal mining camp. I don't know anything about my other two great grandfathers; one...
Elitist is right.
But your great grandfather was reading Cicero in Latin.
One of my great grandfather was breaking his back as a sharecropper. Another was working in a coal mining camp. I don't know anything about my other two great grandfathers; one died young in an accident, and the other was abusive and effectively disowned by the family.
The world today is far, far better-educated today than at any point in history. Huge swathes of the human experience were historically ignored and erased because the opportunity to communicate one's experiences, or otherwise contribute meaningfully to society, was simply unavailable to the vast majority of people. Fiction was informed almost entirely by the opinions and experiences of an extremely small and extremely powerful elite.
Print sales are mostly stable, totaling around 707 million units in 2025 through mid-December, according to the most recent figures available from industry tracker Circana BookScan. That’s only three million less than the pandemic peak in 2021, and 57 million copies more than in 2019.
Readers bought about 184 million print adult fiction books this year. That’s roughly as many as they bought last year and 66 million more than in 2019, the last year before the pandemic gave book sales a jolt.
Nonfiction had a more difficult year. Among the top 10 bestselling print nonfiction titles, only one came out in 2025 – Kamala Harris’ campaign memoir, 107 Days.
In 2025, 422 newly opened stores joined the American Booksellers Association – nearly 100 more than joined the year before. Barnes & Noble added 55 stores around the country, and Books-A-Million added 18. (By comparison, Books-A-Million opened seven new stores in 2024.)
@cloud_loud I'm curious what motivated you to share the article. Did it resonate? Were you looking to have a cathartic lament with other tilderinos? It's generated a lot of heat, which I'm sure...
@cloud_loud I'm curious what motivated you to share the article. Did it resonate? Were you looking to have a cathartic lament with other tilderinos? It's generated a lot of heat, which I'm sure was the point of the original author, but I'd love to know what about it made you want to share it with us.
Ah right on, I figured. I think giving that context when posting might be helpful as sometimes folks get heated and assume bad intent. It definitely was a hot take! There have been some really...
Ah right on, I figured. I think giving that context when posting might be helpful as sometimes folks get heated and assume bad intent. It definitely was a hot take!
There have been some really great, be it rage driven, takes on here. I had never read the Tumbler Estate Sale post that @CannibalisticApple shared and that's got to be the highlight of my 2026 :).
I love seeing how touched everyone is by literature and maybe we could use a thread where we talk about it through a positive lens rather than a reactive one.
If the goal is to read serious literature I do actually believe there has been few books published in the last 50 years actually worth reading. There is a very big difference between reading...
If the goal is to read serious literature I do actually believe there has been few books published in the last 50 years actually worth reading. There is a very big difference between reading serious literature and reading for entertainment. Just like there is a very big difference between watching Schindler's List and the latest super-hero movie.
You can read nothing but the absolute cream of the crop of serious literature written throughout history and you will run out of life before you get through just the 'best of the best'. So why read anything else? What possibly do they have to offer compared to the classical greats? Free time in this life is very limited and reading takes immense amounts of time, so if I decide to keep trying to read modern books that keep disappointing me I am then missing out on reading a great masterpiece from the past.
But that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with reading for entertainment value and I'm sure there are lots of modern books that qualify as great entertainment, but not everyone reads for entertainment purposes and that's OK too. To each their own.
Also, this Twitter post is terrible, what a loser.
IMO that’s more a bias towards reverence of older works. Jane Austen works was considered drivel in its day, but today are part of English literature canon. The text itself didn’t change, just how...
IMO that’s more a bias towards reverence of older works. Jane Austen works was considered drivel in its day, but today are part of English literature canon. The text itself didn’t change, just how people perceived it.
I think there will be plenty of works that in another 50 years from now will be considered great works. Blood Meridian is already there.
I agree with you, it takes time to filter through the years to become part of The Canon, there seems to be a lot of works written in languages other than English that are awaiting translations...
I agree with you, it takes time to filter through the years to become part of The Canon, there seems to be a lot of works written in languages other than English that are awaiting translations that are most likely extremely good.
Blood Meridian is a good example, but it is also now 40+ years old.
I'll admit that's not a realm I've explored much since I was in school some time ago so I have a question in that regard: what makes something "serious literature" in the first place and how are...
If the goal is to read serious literature I do actually believe there has been few books published in the last 50 years actually worth reading.
I'll admit that's not a realm I've explored much since I was in school some time ago so I have a question in that regard: what makes something "serious literature" in the first place and how are those works distinguished from their contemporaries? My current impression is that those are the titles that remain known and recommended decades to centuries later so by definition current works can't qualify as such, but I'm assuming I'm mistaken in some aspect.
I don't think I've ever seen a perfectly good definition of 'Serious Literature' since I think it's a fluid thing, but for me it's one of those 'I know it when I read it'.
I don't think I've ever seen a perfectly good definition of 'Serious Literature' since I think it's a fluid thing, but for me it's one of those 'I know it when I read it'.
My personal list of authors who I think are absolutely worth reading and teaching from the last 50 just glancing around my fiction biased bookshelves: Terry Pratchett Cormac McCarthy Stephen King...
If the goal is to read serious literature I do actually believe there has been few books published in the last 50 years actually worth reading
My personal list of authors who I think are absolutely worth reading and teaching from the last 50 just glancing around my fiction biased bookshelves:
Terry Pratchett
Cormac McCarthy
Stephen King
James S.A. Corey
Gene Wolfe
Brandon Sanderson
George Martin
Patrick Rothfuss
Mark Z. Danielewski
China Miéville
Tamsyn Muir
Some are more "for specific kind of people" and others like Pratchett should probably be required reading for curriculum around the world given he's elegantly and fairly touched on so many tricky subjects while keeping things much more entertaining.
This is just in my highly narrow tastes and I'm positive I could bounce a few more on there with less long term relevance (Jim Butcher/Scott Lynch), problematic issues (Enders Game/Speaker for the Dead or depending on your point of view Tom Robbins. Oh god and Gaiman.), or in non fiction/other genres. Of course I'd mostly bounce off my friends for stuff I don't read because....well i don't read it, but I find finance stuff interesting like Gods at War and The Ascent of Money. There's also stuff I bounced off of but admit is intriguing like This is how you Lose the Time War.
That's already a pretty good chunk of stuff and I know i'm boring and stay in my lane with my reading. Survivorship bias is always a thing when comparing classics to current literature but that doesn't mean things aren't being written that will hole up.
Edit-
Ah shit I spaced Joe Abercrombie when i've been thrilled my wife is finally reading him and I can finally ramble about how great he is.
Edit 2-
Going more into non fiction I think Dictators Handbook is something more people should read even if I don't actually agree with all of it as it's a good jumping off point for some less ideal polisci discussions.
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's, A City on Mars was also excellent from several angles, but somewhat uniquely a modern take on breaking down absurd claims with verifiable facts, and how our hopes for tech and the future don't always mean things are what we want them to be.
gr8 b8 m8 i r8 8/8 But seriously, I've practically given up videogames, Netflix, social media, etc just to read books. I would argue that books have never been better, and videogames, Netflix,...
gr8 b8 m8 i r8 8/8
But seriously, I've practically given up videogames, Netflix, social media, etc just to read books.
I would argue that books have never been better, and videogames, Netflix, social media etc have never been at their worst (at least for me). This is a great time to pick up a book and read.
Hell, you don't even need to read. You can also just listen. If you have goblin brain that means you need to do two things at once (I'm watching Silence of the Lambs while writing this), then you can listen and do something else - I've been listening to audio books while playing solitaire/balatro/slay the spire/anything simple or turn based.
Also, this guy claims "Because everyone alive today has the same perspective" and then prattles off about a perspective that I literally find so boring that I gave up reading. Incredible.
For the same reason you claim people watch television shows and movies, dumbass author. It’s entertainment. It’s like asking why you listen to music when we have music videos now. Why just hear it...
For the same reason you claim people watch television shows and movies, dumbass author. It’s entertainment.
It’s like asking why you listen to music when we have music videos now. Why just hear it when you can see AND hear it?
Also, if you feel that strongly, why not make a video? I’m not reading your article. Who does that anymore? /s
Reading is such a special, subjective thing. Each of us has little preferences and soft spots that get poked and prodded differently by every author. I personally can't stand Hemmingway, it grinds...
Reading is such a special, subjective thing. Each of us has little preferences and soft spots that get poked and prodded differently by every author. I personally can't stand Hemmingway, it grinds me to read those books. Same with David Foster Wallace. If someone ever wanted to learn the perfect torture for me it would be to reread Infinite Jest. Those are two of the heaviest hitters in literature and I refuse to read them. But I love Murikami, Madeline Miller, and Lisa Sea. They are all modern writers, all in different genres, and I really really love all of their works. Like, I love their entire collections. If I only read "the classics" or "the best of the best" I'd have never read them.
I wonder if the author here just hasn't found "his" people in literature. I'm dyslexic, so it took me until I started commuting at 23 to really find my groove with books. It's such an incredible feeling when you read authors that resonate with you and I pity this man so much for missing out on that. I'd love to take away his obnoxious megaphone and hand him a short stack of books to try out.
I'd love to hear what people's "gateway drugs" were for literature. I can think of 5 that really catalyzed my love of reading:
Burmese Days - George Orwell
A Short Walk Through the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby
Island of Sea Women - Lisa Sea
Alexandria, a History and a Guide - E.M. Forester
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murikami
This guy truly can't comprehend that anyone would read for pleasure except smut? Really?
And he actually thinks that no one today is having any sort of unique or interesting experiences that people might want to learn about? The only way to get a new perspective is to read books hundreds of years old?
I don't know if this article was supposed to be rage bait, but it's certainly irritating.
Twitter financially incentivizes ragebait, which is one of the reasons it has become such an abhorrent place in the last few years. I avoid it as much as possible. I'm disappointed to see it linked here on Tildes.
I just saw that it was a Twitter link. Really disappointed that this got posted here.
Being posted on Xitter is how we know that the author has nothing of value to say.
I didn't read it, but thank you for that pull quote, and here's my version of that:
Unfortunately, reading Twitter posts for entertainment is ridiculous. You do not live in a website on the internet. You have theatre, you have sports, you have art, you have the real world. No one reads Twitter posts for entertainment anymore, because a platform for ragebait for short attention spans is inferior entertainment platform. The only people who still read tweets for entertainment are those who prefer their news to have DIY opinions they can get angry about.
I'm going to put as much thought into my main response to this, as the X poster made on theirs.
It’s a bit ironic to have a post including the words “not worth reading” on X, right?
“The stats back me up on this,” then proceeds to give no stats… I quit reading it around there (ironically I suppose). The tone also felt a little aggressive? I think there’s probably a good discussion to be had over whether people in general are or are not reading and whether what we are reading is good or not but this tone made me want to disengage from that discussion.
They lost me after essentially positing that Netflix was concretely more entertaining than reading. Don't get me wrong, I watch a lot of Netflix (and other streaming services) but there is something absolutely irreplaceable about picking up a paper book and letting it take you away.
I used to read fervently when I was a teenager, but more or less stopped in my early 20s when I had enough money to get whatever video game I wanted. That consumed me for the better part of a couple of decades before I started reading a few books last year. I had forgotten how much I really enjoy reading, even though now I've essentially picked up another hobby that's forced to contend for my time, but there are times and places where a novel is a perfect companion over a video or a forum like this, and certainly over a pseudointellectual Twitter post.
One of the stupidest things I have ever read. Thanks for posting; needed a laugh today.
Since I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read, these are the books published AFTER 2020
Published - Title
2020 - Entangled Life
2020 - The Hollow Places
2021 - Elder Race
2021 - The Heartbeat of Trees
2021 - The Dawn of Everything
2021 - Shards of Earth
2021 - The Dawn of Everything
2022 - Corpsemouth and other Autobiographies
2022 - Thistlefoot
2022 - What Moves the Dead
2022 - Remarkably Smart Creatures
2022 - City of Last Chances
2023 - A House with Good Bones
2023 - Put Away the Childish Things
2023 - Monstrillo
2024 - Light Eaters
2024 - Saturation Point
2024 - Night Magic
2024 - Alien Clay
2024 - Martyr!
2024 - Play Nice
2025 - The Hungry Gods
I’ll add the authors in a bit, but not a single book worth reading, and everything is erotica written for women /s.
I’m kinda upset at this ‘article’, not just because it’s bad but because I spent more time on this response than they did writing it.
To quote the dude "Thats just like your opinion man."
I suppose this is more than the meme of guys just wanna talk about rome or whatever that thing was. There are parts in there that I kinda agree with but parts that I don't. I find positions like this to be very weird because what if I enjoy reading WH40K? I kinda agree that we are all hyper connected and our experiences are becoming more homogeneous but I guess you could say that about many points in history. This also is written in that 'hyper capitalist way of continues improvement is the only way to live' kinda way. Seriously is someone about to jump out at me and yell "you've been punk'd!" A old reference for anyone who knows.
To the extent that this post is worth discussing in the first place, perhaps the link could be converted to an xcancel link?
Alternative title: "New xitter posts are not worth reading"
But I did read it, and now I'm here with my life and perspectives unimproved and unchanged. The post is clear ragebait, it's confrontational out of the gate, it just assumes rage. Maybe that's just how everyone talks on Xitter now, I don't go there often. It also establishes "this debate" out of thin air, though the nature of the debate is unclear. I assume they're using debate as a way to denote the rage they expect to illicit. Then at the end it just fizzles, having failed to pay off any of its claims.
I didn't read the replies because I don't want to log in but I can guess what they look like. With 300k views, the post accomplished its goal: Engagement with very little investement in time or mental energy on the author's part. The post is more interesting if you read it as a thinly veiled cry of frustration at the mental state of being overly online that the author is drowning in.
However, I enjoyed this bit:
It's kinda true! I disagree with most of the rest but that part changed the shape of my mouth.
Yeah that part is true because only a certain kind of person in the past had the education, time and resources to write a book. Now anyone can. That's one of the reasons why modern books present a much wider range of perspectives, contrary to what the article tries to assert.
It also kinda misses the job of a historian. Historians are secondary sources - and ultimately aim to record the truth of the past. Ancient historians were complete dogshit at that, because they would constantly make shit up, whether that be simply because they wanted to, because there was no concept of academic rigor, or out of political or personal reasons, to embellish their own side and downplay the enemy.
This forces the modern historian with their cat to spend hours upon hours trying to cross reference the claims made by ancient historians to see what is actually real and what isn't.
A historian always produces secondary sources. They are not primary sources. You want primary sources who live interesting lives. You don't necessarily need historians who live interesting lives.
Absolutely. History as a field today is drastically superior to what it was in the distant past — exactly like virtually every other field of human endeavor: architecture, biology, music, chemistry, physics, political science, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, there were some pretty impressive multi-talented Renaissance men back in the day, and that era is largely over. But it's over because, today, you make a name for yourself by specializing and actually being exceptionally good at what you do. To be a famous historian in the past, you needed fortune and the right connections, and then you could publish whatever nonsense came to you so long as you worded it convincingly enough.
Historically, listening to a famous general's opinions on history is the modern equivalent to listening to a celebrity's opinions. Sure, their unusual life experiences might give them some insights that might not occur to the average person, but wouldn't you rather hear the insights of someone who is specialized in studying history and subject to peer review?
You could, and arguably should, stick a big [citation needed] on the end of half of the sentences in this article. I mean come on:
This is a kind of ignorance that could only be produced by someone badly addicted to social media.
This is one of the dumbest and most elitist things I've read in a while.
That is so patently wrong. This writer is totally focused on the macro aspect of "experience", and totally overlooking the INDIVIDUAL. The "perspective" and "experience" I search for in fiction isn't about living life in some other country or culture or time, it's about the life of the person.
Xenophon's works won't tell you anything about life in an immigrant family in modern-day America. Polybius sure as hell can't tell you what it's like for a woman trying to break through gender barriers in various fields. Bernal Díaz del Castillo definitely can't tell you what daily life was like for a little Aztec girl in one of the cities he conquered.
I read fiction to learn EMPATHY. Because, even with the world being so connected, we only know our OWN life experiences. We have no clue what life is like for everyone else. Even now, many people can't wrap their heads around the concept of cutting off toxic family members because how could a parent possibly be THAT bad? People still scorn those who are unable to climb out of poverty. There are still morons who scorn those with visible burn scars or in a wheelchair, treating them as undesirable, unsightly spots on society, and ignoring the fact that they can just as easily end up in that position.
Hell, just yesterday on Reddit I saw someone share this hilarious tale on Tumblr of how the writer went to a house that was for sale, and in the span of a few hours ends up arranging a crazy estate sale that ends with a police officer potentially fired and his wife in legal hot water for illegally harassing their elderly neighbors. Hilariously written, highly recommend reading just for the description of a giant corgi and his two tiny Corgi minions, livestock and horse lesbians, and a bunch of old people showing up the way people show up for house parties. Wrapped up with a promise of some sweet, sweet justice. I've read it before, and loved getting to reread it because it's just such a fun and crazy story.
On the reddit post sharing it, someone talked about how they'd once sent it to a friend who immediately expressed doubt that it happened at all. This story isn't even all that out there. It's like something out of a sitcom, sure, but sometimes crazy stuff just happens all at once. But apparently it's too insane for at least one person to wrap their head around, because those circumstances just didn't line up with their own life.
I repeat: People only know their own life experiences. Living in the same time period with the internet doesn't mean we're hyper-connected and have the same opinions—hell, just look at politics! Humanity sure as hell doesn't have a singular universal opinion on that! We have no way to peek into other people's brains and see their memories and why they think a certain way.
Fiction is the best tool for that, because the writer knows exactly what's going through the character's mind. They don't need to interpret and guess at someone's motivations like when writing biographies or historic accounts, it serves as a direct look into someone's mind. Even unreliable narrators are useful because you can see how someone's perspective might not actually line up with reality.
Also, since the writer talked about history: I did not major in history, my biggest experience was a "Women in History" class in college many years ago. And just THAT was enough to tell how much hogwash that whole rant is. The writer describes all these historic figures who did major things and wrote up accounts of their actions... Based on my class, those people wouldn't necessarily be called historians, their accounts were what we called a "primary source". Their accounts are also heavily biased by factors such as political leanings and power dynamics. A good chunk of that class I took was about how all accounts are biased to some degree, and that part of the job of historians is to try to untangle those biases to find the truth.
The phrase "history is written by the victors" is a truth because the victors have much more control over what information and records survive, and they'll often go for the one that makes them look best. Like I said, a conquistador likely wouldn't have bothered recording the daily life of a little girl in the Aztec empire. If they did, they'd likely focus on the savage and uncivilized aspects. We can find these kinds of biases even outside of cases with a clear victor and loser. Take the Winchester Mystery House. It's famously claimed that Sarah Winchester began the never-ending construction to confuse the ghosts of those killed by Winchester guns so they couldn't curse her, but that mostly arose from contemporary tabloid-esque articles during and after her lifetime. The Wikipedia article has a whole section debunking various common claims about her—hell, I've actually gone there myself, and I still only recently learned most of those claims are false! I could swear the tour guide even mentioned how one room (I think the blue room mentioned in the "nightly séances" segment) was built "without corners" (i.e. no protruding corners) due to something to do with ghosts. Actually, the official site calls that the séance room, so yeah.
That was a bit of a tangent, but my point is that all those people the writer mentioned? Their accounts will be biased in some way. That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. William Wells Brown's experience in slavery definitely needed to be heard and spread at the time, especially to people who only ever saw the white slave owners' perspectives. His former masters' accounts would be VERY different, and would likely paint him as some uncivilized brute, and how they were justified in owning him because of Bible verses or something. (By the way, his father was the white cousin of his original master. That really adds even more layers to how fucked up it was.)
But I used a key phrase in the above paragraph: his account needed to be heard at the time. Contemporary people would have gained no greater insights into the horrors of slavery in America if they only read older books from the past. Even accounts of, say, slavery in ancient Rome, would be radically different from the slavery experienced by Africans in America at the time. They would likely read those and shake their heads at how brutal ancient slavery was, while still finding ways to justify how then-contemporary slavery was much more moral and right.
Even now, slavery STILL exists all over the world, but it's radically different from black people in plantations. Some people likely wouldn't even recognize it as slavery because it's so different from what we're taught in classes. So it's important to share those modern accounts, both real and fictional, so that people can learn what it looks like right now.
Just... GAH. This article is one of the most elitist, stuck-up things I've read in a long time. I don't think there's a single part I agree with.
Elitist is right.
One of my great grandfather was breaking his back as a sharecropper. Another was working in a coal mining camp. I don't know anything about my other two great grandfathers; one died young in an accident, and the other was abusive and effectively disowned by the family.
The world today is far, far better-educated today than at any point in history. Huge swathes of the human experience were historically ignored and erased because the opportunity to communicate one's experiences, or otherwise contribute meaningfully to society, was simply unavailable to the vast majority of people. Fiction was informed almost entirely by the opinions and experiences of an extremely small and extremely powerful elite.
Apparently this guy thinks that was preferable.
Then who keeps buying all the fiction books?
@cloud_loud I'm curious what motivated you to share the article. Did it resonate? Were you looking to have a cathartic lament with other tilderinos? It's generated a lot of heat, which I'm sure was the point of the original author, but I'd love to know what about it made you want to share it with us.
Yeah, this feels like low-quality reddit ragebait to me... What's the best way to report a post again? Just tagging @Deimos?
I think the point, as they commented in this little thread, was to get us talking about it. I think more context would have been helpful.
I also knew it would generate a lot of discussion here and was interested in the thoughts that others would have on it
Ah right on, I figured. I think giving that context when posting might be helpful as sometimes folks get heated and assume bad intent. It definitely was a hot take!
There have been some really great, be it rage driven, takes on here. I had never read the Tumbler Estate Sale post that @CannibalisticApple shared and that's got to be the highlight of my 2026 :).
I love seeing how touched everyone is by literature and maybe we could use a thread where we talk about it through a positive lens rather than a reactive one.
If the goal is to read serious literature I do actually believe there has been few books published in the last 50 years actually worth reading. There is a very big difference between reading serious literature and reading for entertainment. Just like there is a very big difference between watching Schindler's List and the latest super-hero movie.
You can read nothing but the absolute cream of the crop of serious literature written throughout history and you will run out of life before you get through just the 'best of the best'. So why read anything else? What possibly do they have to offer compared to the classical greats? Free time in this life is very limited and reading takes immense amounts of time, so if I decide to keep trying to read modern books that keep disappointing me I am then missing out on reading a great masterpiece from the past.
But that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with reading for entertainment value and I'm sure there are lots of modern books that qualify as great entertainment, but not everyone reads for entertainment purposes and that's OK too. To each their own.
Also, this Twitter post is terrible, what a loser.
IMO that’s more a bias towards reverence of older works. Jane Austen works was considered drivel in its day, but today are part of English literature canon. The text itself didn’t change, just how people perceived it.
I think there will be plenty of works that in another 50 years from now will be considered great works. Blood Meridian is already there.
I agree with you, it takes time to filter through the years to become part of The Canon, there seems to be a lot of works written in languages other than English that are awaiting translations that are most likely extremely good.
Blood Meridian is a good example, but it is also now 40+ years old.
I'll admit that's not a realm I've explored much since I was in school some time ago so I have a question in that regard: what makes something "serious literature" in the first place and how are those works distinguished from their contemporaries? My current impression is that those are the titles that remain known and recommended decades to centuries later so by definition current works can't qualify as such, but I'm assuming I'm mistaken in some aspect.
I don't think I've ever seen a perfectly good definition of 'Serious Literature' since I think it's a fluid thing, but for me it's one of those 'I know it when I read it'.
My personal list of authors who I think are absolutely worth reading and teaching from the last 50 just glancing around my fiction biased bookshelves:
Terry Pratchett
Cormac McCarthy
Stephen King
James S.A. Corey
Gene Wolfe
Brandon Sanderson
George Martin
Patrick Rothfuss
Mark Z. Danielewski
China Miéville
Tamsyn Muir
Some are more "for specific kind of people" and others like Pratchett should probably be required reading for curriculum around the world given he's elegantly and fairly touched on so many tricky subjects while keeping things much more entertaining.
This is just in my highly narrow tastes and I'm positive I could bounce a few more on there with less long term relevance (Jim Butcher/Scott Lynch), problematic issues (Enders Game/Speaker for the Dead or depending on your point of view Tom Robbins. Oh god and Gaiman.), or in non fiction/other genres. Of course I'd mostly bounce off my friends for stuff I don't read because....well i don't read it, but I find finance stuff interesting like Gods at War and The Ascent of Money. There's also stuff I bounced off of but admit is intriguing like This is how you Lose the Time War.
That's already a pretty good chunk of stuff and I know i'm boring and stay in my lane with my reading. Survivorship bias is always a thing when comparing classics to current literature but that doesn't mean things aren't being written that will hole up.
Edit-
Ah shit I spaced Joe Abercrombie when i've been thrilled my wife is finally reading him and I can finally ramble about how great he is.
Edit 2-
Going more into non fiction I think Dictators Handbook is something more people should read even if I don't actually agree with all of it as it's a good jumping off point for some less ideal polisci discussions.
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's, A City on Mars was also excellent from several angles, but somewhat uniquely a modern take on breaking down absurd claims with verifiable facts, and how our hopes for tech and the future don't always mean things are what we want them to be.
gr8 b8 m8 i r8 8/8
But seriously, I've practically given up videogames, Netflix, social media, etc just to read books.
I would argue that books have never been better, and videogames, Netflix, social media etc have never been at their worst (at least for me). This is a great time to pick up a book and read.
Hell, you don't even need to read. You can also just listen. If you have goblin brain that means you need to do two things at once (I'm watching Silence of the Lambs while writing this), then you can listen and do something else - I've been listening to audio books while playing solitaire/balatro/slay the spire/anything simple or turn based.
Also, this guy claims "Because everyone alive today has the same perspective" and then prattles off about a perspective that I literally find so boring that I gave up reading. Incredible.
For the same reason you claim people watch television shows and movies, dumbass author. It’s entertainment.
It’s like asking why you listen to music when we have music videos now. Why just hear it when you can see AND hear it?
Also, if you feel that strongly, why not make a video? I’m not reading your article. Who does that anymore? /s
Reading is such a special, subjective thing. Each of us has little preferences and soft spots that get poked and prodded differently by every author. I personally can't stand Hemmingway, it grinds me to read those books. Same with David Foster Wallace. If someone ever wanted to learn the perfect torture for me it would be to reread Infinite Jest. Those are two of the heaviest hitters in literature and I refuse to read them. But I love Murikami, Madeline Miller, and Lisa Sea. They are all modern writers, all in different genres, and I really really love all of their works. Like, I love their entire collections. If I only read "the classics" or "the best of the best" I'd have never read them.
I wonder if the author here just hasn't found "his" people in literature. I'm dyslexic, so it took me until I started commuting at 23 to really find my groove with books. It's such an incredible feeling when you read authors that resonate with you and I pity this man so much for missing out on that. I'd love to take away his obnoxious megaphone and hand him a short stack of books to try out.
I'd love to hear what people's "gateway drugs" were for literature. I can think of 5 that really catalyzed my love of reading:
Burmese Days - George Orwell
A Short Walk Through the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby
Island of Sea Women - Lisa Sea
Alexandria, a History and a Guide - E.M. Forester
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murikami
If we are cool with low effort ragebait being posted on tildes, can we at least tag it as such?