| 0:37 | Intro. [Recording date: June 19, 2025.] Russ Roberts: Today is June 19th, 2025, and my guest is writer and journalist James Marriott of The Times of London, where he's a columnist. His Substack is Cultural Capital. And our topic for today is reading, based on a wonderful piece from his Substack called "How to Read and Why." James, welcome to EconTalk. James Marriott: Thanks very much for having me. |
| 00:58 | Russ Roberts: Now, I'm a little older than you. As I get older, I come to appreciate and realize how much I love books, and your essay just reminded me one more time. You say you read one to two books per week--a physical book and another on your Kindle. That's a lot of reading. How do you find that time? And why a physical copy and a Kindle? Those are two separate books, right? Those are not a Kindle copy of the paper book. James Marriott: Sometimes they're two separate books, although I've recently got into the bad habit of buying the same book twice--in physical form and Kindle, which is-- Russ Roberts: Done it-- James Marriott: Yeah. I'm not proud of it, but it has happened. Usually, the Kindle book I'm using to get through something a bit more long and difficult. I read before I go to sleep, and I always think it's a bit of a life hack--that if you read a Kindle every night before you go to sleep--the lights are out, my girlfriend has gone to sleep. I've got a good half hour to read something potentially a little bit more boring, which will ideally both send me to sleep and also, by the end of the week, I'll have read a relatively long, boring book in half-hour increments every night. As to how you can read one or two books a week, I think it's pretty easy, and I think it's easier than people think, and I imagine it was more common in a time before the Internet. But, I just try to make time to sit down every evening for half an hour, an hour, reading on buses, reading on what we have in London--the Tube--whatever the local transport equivalent is. I'm not sure what that would be. And, with little increments, you can build in quite a lot of reading. I think it's a less fabulous feat than it might seem. Russ Roberts: But you also write that it's ideal to read 50 pages at a sitting. Do you do that religiously, or semi-religiously at least, and explain why that argument gets made? James Marriott: I don't. So, that's actually not my argument. There's another fantastic piece about how to read by a guy called Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times. And, he makes the point that if you're not reading 50 pages at a time, you're not really engaged in the book. You'll lose your thread. You'll do that dreadful thing--which I agree exists--where you're reading a book, and you read two pages here, two pages there, you lose the plot, and it just never gets finished. I think 50 pages per sitting is somewhat extreme, but I actually do think that since I read that piece, I make more of an effort to hold myself to a bit of a goal. Reading obviously should be pleasure, but I find it more pleasurable to give myself a little bit of something to aim for, even if it's just 20 pages, and to just really say, I'll do 20 pages without looking at my phone. Russ Roberts: You confess or brag in that piece--your piece--that you got rid of your iPhone. Your smartphone, excuse me. Why did you do that, and what's the impact been? James Marriott: Yeah. I've got to say that is a brag, not a confession. I've written about that a few times. To be honest, it was about reading. The thing that began to depress me a couple of years ago when I got rid of my smartphone was that I've always loved reading since I was a kid. It's probably been something that I would think of as an important part of my personality, and I suddenly realized that I was just spending a lot of time when I should have been reading, on my phone. And I thought if I don't read books, and I'm on my smartphone, who even am I? That's not really what I'm about. So, yeah. I got rid of it. And, there are various ways to do it, and I have a kind of dumb phone--so, it is not a full-on Nokia brick--it's somewhere halfway between. So it's got WhatsApp. It's been really good, and I actually have read a lot more, and it really changes the way that you experience the world and you experience reading. Because every time I was on a bus, in the past I'd have checked my iPhone. But, you're stranded, and you suddenly realize that you've dialed down your distraction environment, and it just makes the pain threshold to opening a book really quite a bit lower. And, I found that really good. And, I guess I'm lucky to be in a job where I don't necessarily need the smartphone. I know that's not an option for everyone. |
| 5:00 | Russ Roberts: So, right now, being in the middle of a war here in Israel, I spend a lot of time euphemistically 'monitoring the situation'--a phrase I've started to notice on the Internet--which means I'm doom-scrolling relentlessly through my feed on Twitter or X, and hoping for some news. And, 99% of the time, there isn't any, and I'm just wasting time distracting myself. So, I love this idea. I have a problem, which is that I love books, I love physical books, and I spend an immense amount of time reading books--both for EconTalk and my own personal reading--on my phone. So, I'm reading--on my phone--typically on my Kindle app or on my Books app, a PDF [Portable Document Format] that an author or an editor has sent me to consider for EconTalk. And, I've become a little bit addicted to it, but it's not a guilty pleasure. It's a very mixed pleasure, because it isn't the same. There's some good things about it, but I love what you've done. And, the Kindle is a nice, portable substitute that lets you carry a library, and then the physical book for when you don't have connection or for whatever reason. Why aren't you reading all your books on the Kindle? James Marriott: Yeah. I sometimes wonder that. And, when I go on holiday with an enormous suitcase full of books, I think my girlfriend often has the same thought. Couldn't this all just be on one Kindle? It's interesting what you say about reading books on your phone, and there are definitely much worse things to do on your phone. And, if you're going to read books, then that's probably one of the better things. But, there are various studies about how much information people absorb from screens versus physical books, and it does seem pretty conclusive that you absorb more information from a physical book. And, because I do both so much, I do think it's the case. I do think I get more out of a physical book. It also makes reading a bit more of an event. Reading is supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be a hobby, and I think part of what makes it feel like a special thing you can do that's somewhat at odds with the screen-based world of the 21st century is stick your phone in another room, take up this amazingly ancient artifact made of paper in the form that has been taken up by readers for centuries or millennia, and sit down in a chair with it. And you're recreating the exact experience that human beings have been having for hundreds of years. And I think it's just a lovely thing. And, there are all kinds of benefits: underlined stuff, fold-down papers. I mean, Itreat my books very terribly. People who reverence books like relics will be furious at me, but I really bash them around. I think that's the pleasure of it. Russ Roberts: When I was growing up, the screens that people were worried about were television screens. And, my dad was an enormous reader, and he passed that love on to me very directly. I remember just looking at his books often, and when I was a little boy--six, seven, eight years old--and thinking, I can't wait until I can read these. There were some obscure history books that I just was so excited--and when I got old enough to read them, they were dry as dust, and I hated them. But, put that to the side. When I read a physical book, I'm connected to my dad, and he used to say when he was talking about television, 'You know, television is like a new thing--who knows if it'll last?' Books have lasted. Now, a lot of people have predicted their demise, but they are hanging in there. |
| 8:38 | Russ Roberts: Let's talk about how you choose what to read. How do you pick it? How do you pick them? James Marriott: Yeah. I dedicated quite a bit of the piece to this question, because I think one of the hardest things about being a reader is knowing what to read next. And I think often one of the things that most unfortunately puts people off reading books in general is being recommended the wrong book. And, I think people often are unaware of the disparity of quality in books on a given topic. So, I had various tips about this. I often put a good few hours--probably, cumulatively, into trying to find what books to read next if the book isn't jumping out at me. And, I think it is something that's worth spending time on. I have a few rules of thumb that I set out in the piece, if you're interested in those. Russ Roberts: Yeah. Go ahead. James Marriott: So, one of which I think is always have your antennae blinking. People that you know and respect who recommend books. If somebody recommends me a good book, and I trust them, and I think they've got good taste, and I think the subject sounds like something that might generally one day interest me, I tend to take a note--even if I don't think I'll read it now. I think it's good to have a bank of things that you can come to. Because people who recommend good books are pretty rare, and it's worth working out who these people are. Ideally, they've got a bit of the same taste as you, and sticking to their recommendations, and just jotting down anything they say--even if you'll come to it later. Because there is a lot of, I think, misinformation surrounding books; and a lot of people recommend books because they think recommending that book will make them sound clever. I've been guilty of it myself. And I think you have to be careful not to be drawn in by people who are recommending you books they think that they should be recommending you. Russ Roberts: I don't want to put you on the spot, so you can duck this question, but is there a book that you want to name that you've recommended, that you realized is not that great, but it made you feel good to recommend it? James Marriott: My God, that is an embarrassing question. No, nothing-- Russ Roberts: Preferably a dead author, by the way. Not a living author. James Marriott: Yeah. Have I overrepresented how much I've enjoyed some of Dostoevsky's novels? I'm sure I have, to be honest. And then, I have another kind of useful rule of thumb, which I've developed for nonfiction books, which I think is often really hard to find--the right book and a topic. And, I think when you're looking in bookshops, and when you go on Google, and you're thinking, I want to read about Voltaire; what's the book I should read about--I should read to find out about Voltaire? A lot of people are going to be pushing you the most recent Voltaire biography. It's what will probably pop up on Google. It's what ChatGPT [Generative Pre-trained Transformer] might recommend you. It's what Waterstones will stick on the front table, or whatever American bookshop you're at will stick on the front table. But as a reader, I think your priority is not to read the most up-to-date biography of Voltaire. You don't need to know the conclusions to all the academic consensuses on Voltaire, or whatever revisionist account of his life has popped up now. I think you're looking for the best-written book, and that's often a little bit harder to find, and its worth googling: What is the best-written book on Voltaire? Ask ChatGPT: What's the best-written book on a subject? And, that can actually be quite useful. Ask friends for it. And I think that recency bias often trips a lot of people up, and there are a lot of great books that are still perfectly readable. And, if you don't need to be at Ph.D. level in Voltaire, it's fine. Russ Roberts: Well, since you were picking on Dostoevsky, I actually think he is underrated. James Marriott: Underrated. Oh, we're going to have a fight. Russ Roberts: But, a similar point is that I much prefer the Constance Garnett translations of Dostoevsky, which are, quote, "out of date, old-fashioned." I like them much more than the more modern, hipper translations that have gotten a lot of attention in recent years. We don't have to say whose they are, but that's kind of a similar point. |
| 12:25 | Russ Roberts: I like your point about reading two books about a topic. Explain what the argument is there. James Marriott: Yeah. This is, again, not my advice, but advice that was given to me, that I maybe aspire to follow more than ever actually managed to follow. But, I think it's true that if you really want to get your head around a subject, read two books on it. And it's amazing how much goes in from reading two books. Often I would take maybe a drier, more academic book on a subject, and a popularizing book, and read them simultaneously. I did this recently with Rousseau, French philosopher, whom-- Russ Roberts: We just had an episode. We just had an episode. We just had an episode--it's this week's actually current episode-- James Marriott: Oh, brilliant. Russ Roberts: It's on Rousseau. And when I saw you actually mentioned Rousseau--two different biographies of Rousseau in your essay--I thought, 'Oh my goodness, I've never read Rousseau,' shamefacedly, 'and I've certainly never read a biography of him.' He's an interesting character, a flawed man. I knew that. But, go ahead. Carry on. James Marriott: I've got to listen to that. I think Rousseau is the most interesting man of the 18th century. He has just had an extraordinary life. Actually, he's a good example because there are a few good books about him in English. But a couple of weeks ago, I read this biography by a guy called Morris Cranston, which is the definitive three-volume life of Rousseau. It's great, but it is not easy going. And then there's another wonderful book, kind of popularizing philosophy book, called Rousseau's Dog, about how Rousseau and David Hume had an almighty falling out. It's an amazing story. And, reading those two books together, you absorb more than twice as much. You think you should be getting twice as much information, but somehow you're acquiring information and reinforcing it at the same time. And it's an extremely good tip. It sounds sort of basic, but it's much better than it sounds, I think. Russ Roberts: The other point--and I do that here on EconTalk. I'll do three or four episodes on a single topic--not exactly the same topic, but related--and there's a cumulative effect, as you're saying, even though podcasts are flawed. We'll talk about that a little bit later. But, I think one of the most important things about thinking is connecting. And, when you read two different books, two different voices, two different authors, two different approaches, it's not just like, 'Oh, I get a more thorough appreciation,' or 'I'm more likely to remember it.' You get, as you say, almost a much richer grasp of some of the topics. James Marriott: Yeah. I completely agree. I think it's a little bit like, you know they say the best way to learn is to teach a subject. As soon as you've had to explain a subject to a class, you know it much better than you would from reading a book. And, it has something of the same thing--that you're getting two different perspectives on a field of knowledge. It's a real life hack. I know it sounds simple, but when you try it, it is really quite amazing, I think, actually. Russ Roberts: And,\ I think you argued that you shouldn't always read the book that's called A History of Rome. You shouldn't just try to get the single most thorough overview. It's better to read two books that dig deeper into maybe different aspects or different time periods than a more general introduction. James Marriott: Yeah. No, I think that's also really good advice, and advice that was given to me, and that I've tended to follow. I've got a very noble friend who is always reading books called things like The Nineteenth Century, and it's, like, 800 pages long, and he's just going to do the whole 19th century. And, I'm just not convinced the human mind works that way. We have minds that look for the particular. We're interested in particular detail. We're often drawn to stories about human lives. And I think the long book about the 19th century that lists every war, trade controversy, famine, revolution--I think it's unlikely to tell a story in a way that sticks. And, I think often you need to find the individual story that will make you excited about the 19th century. But also, because every book is so dense and packed with information, the contextual information, even in what might seem like a relatively irrelevant book, will probably educate you more about the whole of the 19th century. For instance, if you're reading a life of Gladstone or a particular history of a war, you're still getting more contextual information than I think you would necessarily imagine. Russ Roberts: It's a fantastic point in your discussion. One of the Rousseau biographies--you talk about all the other things you learned about beside Rousseau. Not that Rousseau isn't sufficiently interesting, but a lot of it had to be told to you along the way that you were able to grab. An example for me of that that's rather, I think, extraordinary and undervalued--in some dimension at least--is Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson. I'm older than you, and I used to see Lyndon Johnson on television when I was a little boy. I found him dreary and boring. He had a thick southern drawl, and he spoke very slowly. He was not a great orator. And, he was, after all, only President because--this was my view as a child, and then as a young, uneducated man--I thought, well, he got into the Presidency because he was the Vice President when Kennedy was shot. He wasn't that interesting. He's not a compelling figure. And so, when people said to me, 'Oh, you've got to read this biography,' I thought, I'm not that interested in Lyndon Johnson. But, the fact is, that book--which is now I don't know how many volumes--four or five, and still has one more to go, we hope, if Caro lives long enough to finish it--that book is an extraordinary history of the 20th century, especially the first half of the 20th century. You learn about Texas, you learn about electrification, you learn about electioneering, you learn about corruption, you learn a lot about ambition and power. And, it's so much more than: Lyndon Johnson was born on a sunny day in Beaumont, Texas, or wherever he was born. So, I think that's a really important point. It's a fantastic point. James Marriott: Yeah. And, I think that book, the Robert Caro example, is a perfect example. Being British, I don't know an awful lot about American politics, but I think it's Volume Three of the Caro book, The Master of the Senate, starts with this unbelievably elegant essay on the history and purpose of the American Senate. It's a splendid piece of writing--for my money, one of the best pieces of political writing about America, or maybe any political system, I've ever read. And, you pick that up, and you get that in a book that is not called The Best Thing You'll Ever Read About the American Senate. And, I think that's the point about books--they're just so dense with information. I think we live in a world where we're assailed by information from every angle, but it's often quite decontextualized. It's often quite ephemeral. It doesn't really connect together. I think the older I get, the more I'm amazed that you pick up a 300-page book, and quite how much you can learn, and quite how much stuff you get through in a book, compared to--no offense, I love podcasts. But, compared to podcasts-- Russ Roberts: Absolutely-- James Marriott: which have their uses. But the density of information in the book, and the amount of the world that you can get from a book--it just blows my mind. The technology becomes more extraordinary to me with every passing year, I think. |
| 19:31 | Russ Roberts: But the point, I think, that you're making that underlies that observation, I think, is extreme. It's not just that there's a lot of information. Because I think people may misinterpret that expression when you talk about the information that's around us. It's true--a 300-page book has a lot of facts in it, and a lot of background, and so on. But the reason that I think a 300-page book is so extraordinary, if it's well done, is that you're spending time inside the mind of what you hope is a very interesting thinker, and you're reading a narrative. You're reading a story and a set of stories that have been woven together in the mind of a fellow human being, and it's absorbing that--that full tapestry--and the story that that person is telling, and the emotion that that person wants you to feel--which is so different than a tweet, or even a blog post, or a substack essay. You're entering a world, if it's a good book, if it's a great book. And, the opportunity to do that, and grow from that, and absorb it, and carry it, and connect it to the other books you've read and the things you're seeing in the world--that's where the power of books really comes from, seems to me. James Marriott: Yeah. I think that's really beautifully put. And, maybe the word I shouldn't have reached for wasn't 'dense,' but perhaps 'rich.' I think it's the richness of information which maybe captures the narrative context, the joining together of ideas--all this stuff that books do as a matter of course. You can't have a book that doesn't do those things. That has just, in my opinion, been lost on social media. And, the presence of social media just makes the richness of books even more extraordinary. Russ Roberts: And, I think it's a different way of seeing your earlier point about the history of the 19th century. If I'm going to write a history of the 19th century that's a mere 800 pages, it's going to have to be, 'This happened, and then that happened, and then this happened, and that happened'--at least if it's badly done. But, it's exhaustive. Or only the important things are covered, of course. But, that's not a great book. A great book is, 'I'm going to give you a narrative about why the 19th century is important through the activities of Gladstone,' or, 'through the American Civil War,' or whatever it is. And I think the--I just haven't thought enough about this before. The idea that a book is a way that the author is forced to tell the narrative to you in the best way they can, so that you'll absorb it, is really what a great book is. Amazing. James Marriott: Yeah. I completely agree. I think there's another subsidiary point, which is maybe worth making, which is that I'm never totally convinced--I'm sure it's sometimes the case, but the greatest thinker and writer about the 19th century--I wonder if that's the person who is drawn to publishing the book called The 19th Century, which just lists all the battles and wars in order. And, I wonder: if you want the great writers--which I think should be your priority, even for nonfiction--you want the people who can make it most exciting to you, they're perhaps not writing the super-comprehensive, list-of-wars-, battles-, and kings-type books, and they often will be a little more imaginative. One of my favorite books about the 19th century is Victorian Things by Asa Briggs, where he just lists Victorian stuff--the material world of the Victorians. Chairs, tables, books, and things. And, he just takes it that way. And, I just think that's a sign, perhaps, of somebody who has got a bit more of an imaginative approach to a subject. Isn't by no means inevitably true--I've got a lot of books I love that are called things like The Eighteenth Century--but sometimes a little thing to bear in mind, I think. |
| 25:15 | Russ Roberts: So, I want to share one more thought on this question. A friend of mine was a big Churchill fan, and he'd read most of--just about everything. It's impossible, but he'd read many, many things that had been written about Churchill. And I'd asked him once if the Martin Gilbert biography was worth reading. He said, 'Well, sure, if you want to know when he went to the bathroom on Tuesday, October 3rd, 1943.' And that's a parody of the point we're making--that just the listing of facts is not that important. And to say it a different way: I am not a Churchill scholar, obviously. I don't have the time or the interest to be a master of any of Lyndon Johnson, or Churchill, or Dostoevsky, or whatever it is. But, I've read a few books on Churchill. I've read maybe, I'm guessing, four or five--either biographies or different observations about him. I've read his own history of The Second World War, which I strongly recommend, by the way. It's an extraordinary book--including the memos and the appendices, which I recommend very strongly as well. He's a brilliant writer. But, what's fun about this is that I actually can't list many things about Churchill, even having read those books. I know he was involved in the Dardanelles. I know he was out in the wilderness. I know he was an early worrier about Nazi Germany. I know many facts--but nothing close to the history that in the 19th century or 18th century we've been making fun of. And yet, I know something of the man. And it comes from those different perspectives, narratives, stories, and so on that I've absorbed seriatim, and have made an impression on me, and have stayed with me. James Marriott: Yeah. I think that's really well put. And, I think there's a real bias: I think it's a--people talk about our tendency to make computer metaphors of the mind. We're obsessed with computers, and we think the human mind should be like a computer. And I think there's a slight bias to thinking you should read a book, and then, as you say, the result of that reading should be that you just are able to download everything you've read in conversation, and bore people to tears with everything you've learned about what Churchill said to his cook on the 7th of January, or whatever--which is not the point of reading. And, I think often what you're referring to is a more wholistic, but somehow untouchable, sense of Churchill in your head--that it's a very rich sense, but you may not be able to explain every single part of that understanding as information in a conversation. Understanding and information--it may be a little bit different, I guess. I think it's a very good point that you make. I love the Roy Jenkins biography of Churchill. I'm sure that's one you've read. Russ Roberts: No. No. James Marriott: That's my favorite of the books about him. Although, the slight downside as a British person is the more I read about him, the more I feel that he seems slightly disillusioning. He often comes across quite incompetent to me, and I think it's not what I should be thinking about our national hero. Russ Roberts: Well, a lot of people think it's the opposite. He is the national villain. I'm a big fan of the Manchester biography, which I think is one of the finest biographies ever written, period. It's a masterpiece. But, I think the point--which is, what you're saying is that a real human being--there are a bunch of people who love Churchill. 'Oh yeah, he saved the West.' There are a bunch of people that hate him. 'He killed a bunch of people in the famine. He let Indians starve. He's a colonizer.' Those cardboard images of an extraordinary man are simplistic. And, the more you read about a person--now, it's affected by what you've gone through in your own life by the time you get to that biography, and so on--it's complicated. But, I think it's a beautiful thing that you now have a richer picture of him and his flaws and his inadequacies, his shortcomings. He didn't write about them very much. It wasn't his choice. But, his biographers are allowed to do that. James Marriott: Yeah. I think it's an excellent point. And, actually, Churchill is a great figure to pick because he's someone who is so simultaneously frustrating and dislikable, and yet also so immensely charismatic and likable. And, you can sort of think, 'Oh my God, you're a dreadful, incompetent man. What on earth are you doing? Don't invade the Dardanelles. Don't do all these dreadful things that you're doing.' And then, you'll hear a little bit of his conversation. There's a great thing from early in his career when he's at a dinner party, and he's sitting next to somebody, and he says, 'Madam, we are all worms, but I do believe that I'm a glow-worm.' Which is just so disarming. And, those two things about Churchill are true: dreadful man, but utterly charming man. Genius, but incompetent. And, you could only get that richness from a book. And, that cannot come across on social media. And there's not a picture of Churchill you can derive--I really think--outside of a book. It's a view of the world that is only available in books, I think, of that complexity. |
| 28:13 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. So, switching gears, do you reread? Do you read books over again? James Marriott: I do occasionally. Not as much as I should. I think I still have that feeling that you have when you were looking at your father's bookshelves. I just think, 'Oh my God, there's so much I want to know.' I just picked up a book on medieval Europe for the first time today--not something I know much about--and I was looking at it. All these lists of kings who ruled Pomerania or whatever, and I was like, 'I need to get started on medieval Europe. There's a long way to go.' And, that thought maybe inhibits me from rereading as much as I should. I think it's good to reread, and I think it may have a little bit of the effect of reading two books on the same subjects at once. But, maybe when I get a bit older, that's something I'll embark on. Are you an advocate for rereading? Russ Roberts: Somewhat. I think it's fascinating to reread a book years later because you've changed. I have a friend who reads To Kill a Mockingbird every year. That's interesting. I don't advocate that, for sure, but it's fun to go back to a book that you loved as a young person and reread it later. And, you're often disappointed, but occasionally you're overwhelmed by how deep and profound it is, and you didn't appreciate it when you were younger. And I think that's amazing. I've made the point here many times--even if you're James Marriott and you read two books a week, that's a hundred books a year. And, if you read for 50 years--you might get a little longer, but 50 years is a good reading career--that's 5,000 books. You've got to pick them carefully. And, some books are better the second time than a different book is the first time. So, the idea of rereading a book--I'm not talking about my children, who read many of the Harry Potter books six and seven times. That was a comfort. It's not what we're talking about. But, the idea that a truly great book merits rereading when you're changed and older is, I think, very worthwhile. James Marriott: Yeah. No, I totally agree. And, I think one of the kind of, maybe points that we haven't made about books, but is worth making, is that when you pick up a great novel by Charles Dickens, or Jane Austen, or Henry James, or whoever, what you're getting to do is spend time in the company of one of the greatest people or geniuses who have ever lived. And, that's an extraordinary thing. And, there are few people whose works represent a kind of--you get to sit down and get into conversation with one of the all-time geniuses the human species ever produced. And, yeah, I think that probably is worth doing twice. If someone said, 'Oh, look, Shakespeare is in the next room. I know you spoke to him a couple of years ago, but do you want to come and chat again?' I think you'd go, 'Yeah, go on. Okay. Let's see what Shakespeare has got to say.' Even if he says the exact same thing to you again, it would be worth it. And, I think that is worth bearing in mind. Although some of the more disposable nonfiction that I'm occasionally--I'm sure you're also obliged to plow through occasionally for your job--you may not always necessarily want to return to. Russ Roberts: Yeah. For sure. |
| 31:21 | Russ Roberts: Do you give away books of your own? If someone is in your home and sees one of your books, says, 'Can I borrow this?' do you let them? James Marriott: Well, because I'm sort of--maybe this is a British thing. Because I'm polite, I sort of wince and go, 'Yeah, of course,' and then feel like a part of my soul has been pulled out for the rest of the day. Russ Roberts: Because you'll never see it again. James Marriott: Yeah. Would you give your books away? Russ Roberts: Well, I do--because I'm married, and I'm married to a wonderful woman--and she thinks it's a bad habit to not lend out your books. When I explained to her that they never come back, she disputes that. I accept the fact that my empirical evidence may be colored by my personal biases and do not keep a rigorous spreadsheet about this, so I'm open to the possibility that I might be wrong. But, because I love my wife and I respect her as well, a long time ago I decided to always say yes and to just assume I'll never see it again. And then I just buy another one. Now, if it's a book I've written comments in--which I never did when I was younger, so that's generally not a problem--on average, I might say, 'No, it's my personal copy. I want to keep it. And, besides, you won't want to read it with all my notes. You want to read it fresh and clean.' And then, I think, what's kind of nice: They respect my library and my taste sufficiently that they want one of my books. They claim they'll be giving it back, and I know otherwise, but that's okay. And, if I really cherish it, I'll just buy another copy. And, that's happened to me a number of times. It's okay. James Marriott: That's lovely. I've also discovered that I'm a hypocrite. Every time I send a friend a text saying, 'Look, you went off with that book of mine three months ago and I haven't seen it,' they're immediately able to reply to me saying, 'That's interesting, because I loaned you a book three years ago, and I see it every time I visit. It was on your shelf, and you've made no move to give it back to me.' So, yeah, I'm as guilty of taking books as I am of giving them away. Russ Roberts: Well, that's the other thing. James Marriott: I wanted to ask that you mentioned making notes in books, which I tend not to do. Do you think there's a case for it? A lot of people I respect as readers do take notes and underline. Russ Roberts: I regret that I did not take notes in the books that I loved, and especially the books I struggled with. The books that I have a difficult time understanding, I'll read them through once, and I found often I wouldn't take a note. The second time through, I try to summarize, often at the end of a chapter, what I think the author was saying, or to emphasize passages. I tend not to go back now that I've started to write in books. By the way, I viewed it as a sacrilege to write in a book when I was younger, and I never bent down a page. And, in fact, I never cracked the binding. When I would read a book, you could put it back on the shelf when I was done, and you wouldn't know I'd ever opened it. But I changed my attitude as I've gotten older. And, even though I generally don't go back to the books that I have underlined and annotated, I think something happens in the brain when you do that. I wouldn't want to assume that that's a waste of time because I don't remember them directly--excuse me--and I don't go back and review those notes. James Marriott: That's really interesting. I'm jealous of your pristine books. When I put a book back on the shelf after I've read it, it looks like I kicked it out the window into the mud, stomped in it, fed it to the dog, retrieved the tattered corpse of what was once a lovely book, and then returned it to the shelf. Some interesting advice I've had, that I occasionally try and follow--I think the critic James Wood says: if you are a new reader, and you are reading a classic novel and you're not quite sure what to get out of it, try and underline one sentence per page. Underline one line per page. And that's just a way of focusing your concentration on a book. It's a way of kind of sharpening your perceptions of it, and I think that might be good advice. It's again advice that I haven't followed, but I think it sounds like it could be useful. Russ Roberts: I think that's what you do with a bad book. Because I find with a really good book, I just want to underline every sentence. So, the idea that I'd limit myself to one--but I do love that idea. What's a really nice version of it is you read a page and you say: 'What's the best sentence on this page that's worth maybe coming back to?' It's a beautiful idea. James Marriott: Yeah. I think especially because I'm such a fast and greedy reader. My problem is often I should slow and pay more attention. I think it could be a good discipline for me. |
| 35:47 | Russ Roberts: Is there a book that stands out for you as a book that you have given away often? Is there a book you've given away the most times? James Marriott: That's a really good question. Maybe it's a mark of my own meanness that I'm struggling to think of something. Russ Roberts: Not of your library, just if you want to-- James Marriott: Bore the people. Russ Roberts: Hmm? James Marriott: What is the one for you? You say; and I'll try and think. Russ Roberts: I have a few, and I'm going to make a sad observation about this habit. So, I have one book I give away pretty often now, and I have two books I used to give away all the time. And, I'm going to tell you why I stopped. So, the book I give away pretty often now is Sum by David Eagleman. And, if you're at home listening and you haven't read Sum, it's short, and lovely, and thought-provoking, and quite extraordinary. The book I've given away the most in recent years is Seiobo There Below by László Krasznahorkai, the Hungarian novelist. This is a book that--we may talk about it later--I wanted to bring it up, and you'll see why if we get to it. But, this is a book that somebody gave to me who I respect, and I thought, okay, I'm going to give it a shot. I read the first page--I hated it. I read the first five pages--I hated them. And, I thought to myself, this is the book I've always hated, and it's pretentious. The first five pages--maybe the first eight pages--are a single sentence. A single sentence. And, it just keeps going. And, it's like, ugh, this modern literary shtick. Just tell the story. And, there's no story, by the way. So, I read that first chapter, and I thought, 'Now I'm going to have to tell my friend I hated his book,' because I don't like to lie. And so, I thought, I'll give it another chapter. And, I liked it a little bit more. And, although the long sentences of multiple pages didn't change, and although nothing really happens in the book, it's one of the most extraordinary reading experiences I've ever had. It is a book about beauty. It's a book about art. It's a book about religion. It's a book about the East. It's a book about Christianity. It's an extraordinary book. So, I'm on fire about it, by the time I get to the end of it. And, by the way, there's at least two chapters that are laugh-out-loud funny. The chapters don't go together, by the way. Another modernist thing I hate. I don't care. They're not numbered consecutively, by the way. It's a Fibonacci series, just to make me even madder. But, by the time I get to the end of the book, I'm thinking, this is one of the finest things I have ever read. And, I started giving it to people because people often are interested in my opinion. And so, I gave it away to a bunch of people. None of them could read it. Not one. Not one person. And, I think I've given it--let's see, to one, two--at least three people. And, I think maybe a fourth. Nobody said, 'I didn't like it as much as you did, but--' And, I asked them. I said, 'Did you read it?' 'Yeah. I couldn't.' I said, 'I know, I know.' So, I stopped giving that away. I still like to rave about it, as I just did. Similarly, I used to give away The Fatal Conceit by F.A. Hayek a lot. I think it's 113 pages. Short. It's a great book to give away. People wouldn't read it. I used to give away the Caro biography, and again, it's like: What'd you give this to me for? This is the first volume--600 pages of a guy I'm not interested in, and it only gets up to his first election or something. James Marriott: He's left school by the end or something. Russ Roberts: Yeah. Exactly. He's weaned by the end of the 600 pages. So, I would say my record as a recommender is mixed at best. James Marriott: Yeah. That's really interesting. It makes me think that I don't often recommend books. Because I guess when you recommend a book, you're giving someone what? A task of--how many hours does it take to read a book? Russ Roberts: Depends. James Marriott: Ten hours, potentially--if it's a long book? I guess you have to be pretty certain that someone's going to like it. I do have a carefully honed selection of ultimate absorbing novels to read on holiday, which--I'm often asked for holiday reading recommendations. I give them, and then I incorporate the feedback, and I keep thinking this should be a Substack post for me at some point. Because it's the culmination of about ten years of telling people what to read on holiday, taking their feedback, absorbing it, refining the list. And, I think I've got a really beautiful list of absorbing novels to read on holiday, which is only about six novels long. But, I think those might be the books that I really would confidently recommend to people--and have, often, many times. Russ Roberts: It's a special genre, by the way. Right? There's a certain sweet spot of a vacation novel. It's got to be a page-turner, and it can be pretty superficial, but it really should have a payoff at the end, an emotional kick, a set of life lessons learned. Just to take an example, I love Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It's not vacation reading. It's just not. So, I'm not going to recommend that, for those of you thinking about what to read in the coming months. But, what's a great beach read‚ which is a special vacation genre in and of itself‚ is a bit of an art. I'm looking forward to that post. I won't spoil it. You could give me one. Can you give us one now? James Marriott: Yeah. No. I can give you a couple. I'll tease it, because I've got a few of them. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen is on it. Nobody's ever regretted taking that book and holding, in my experience. Russ Roberts: Okay. James Marriott: Beautiful little novel called Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler. Highly recommend. I always put The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst on that list. Those are three books I'd say are very moving, very involving. Russ Roberts: I haven't read any of them. James Marriott: Oh, go on holiday. Take three weeks. Actually, they're so absorbing and page-turning, you'll get through those three in a week, I think, on the beach. Russ Roberts: In your essay, you make a reference to Elena Ferrante. Is she in your vacation list? James Marriott: Yeah, she is. I love Elena Ferrante. I was actually questioning myself whether it was worth including, because so many people have read those books. It's like saying to somebody, by the way, do you know that pizza's nice? And, everybody knows that. Everybody knows that Elena Ferrante is excellent. Russ Roberts: Well, I actually would recommend against it for vacation reading. I only read the first one, My Brilliant Friend. It's the first one in the trilogy. It's so stressful. It's an extraordinary book, but it's so dark and it's so stressful. I do not recommend it for vacation reading. But, James, when your blog post comes out, you'll make the opposite case. James Marriott: It's true. I think my girlfriend read one of those books on holiday, and she just sort of exited the holiday. You just disappear into: what is going to happen to this Neapolitan lady in the unbelievably complicated life? |
| 43:15 | Russ Roberts: Can you point to a book or two that you feel had an outsized impact on you as a thinker, as a human being? James Marriott: God, that is a difficult question. There's one book that I always think--it's a cliché to say this book changed my life, but there is one book that literally did change my life. When I was at school, I was taken on a school trip. You could decide to apply if you were selected to go to Oxford or Cambridge. Those are your two options‚ the kind of top universities in the United Kingdom. And, we went to Cambridge, and I immediately walked into a bookshop, which is my habit. And, I picked up a book from a shelf called A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, which is just a lovely book about the history of reading. It's beautiful. And, I sat down in this bookshop, and I just got completely absorbed in it. And, I looked up, and I was like, 'Oh my God, I've missed the entire day trip to Cambridge. Looks like I'm going to Oxford.' That did shape the path of my life. Russ Roberts: That's a cheat. That's a cheat. But, it's a good cheat. James Marriott: I think that's the most honest answer. There are a couple of books I think have--I guess because I'm a humanities person, insights from the sciences‚ they tend to blow my mind, and I find very formative--a book called The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich, who is an anthropologist and a psychologist, really transformed the way that I think about people, the way that I think about human cultures, the way that I think about why we in the West are so individualistic. It's a long book, but it's really brilliant. It's one of those kind of 'explains everything' books, and that's had a very big impact on me. That's less of a cheaty answer, I think. Russ Roberts: Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. James Marriott: What about you? Russ Roberts: I've talked about it a little bit before, so I'll be brief. I remember reading a book called The Social Contract by Robert Ardrey. I was about to go off to graduate school, and that book blew my mind. I don't even know if I'd like it now. I might hate it. But it opened up--the reason it, quote, "changed my life," isn't because of the content of the book, but because of what it did to my brain. And, I thought: Wow, what an extraordinary experience to enter into that worldview. Which is very distinctive. It was a theory-of-everything kind of book, which generally I hate the older I get, by the way. So, read them now when you're young, James, because you'll still appreciate them. James Marriott: Yeah. I don't want to get disillusioned, but I feel it's probably coming, isn't it? The world isn't simple enough to be explained in a book. Russ Roberts: Exactly. It's coming. But, anyway, you take something from it. And so, that book‚ just reading it‚ I realized: Wow, wouldn't it be an amazing thing if I could write a book like that someday? And, it encouraged me to become an author. But, it also encouraged me to think about things in a more holistic, synergistic way. It was really an extraordinary read. I don't know. Oh‚ The Three Languages of Politics by Arnold Kling, which we've had at least two or three episodes about it on this program, is a book that changed the way I think about politics and ideology. There are probably others. It's an uneasy question to answer off the top of your head because most of the impact of any one book is hard to parse out. But, it's an interesting question. |
| 46:31 | Russ Roberts: I want to talk about--I want to read about a quote you have from Boswell [James Boswell], his Life of Johnson. It's about Johnson's [Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784--Econlib Ed.] view of reading: For general improvement, a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely advance. He added: "what we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention, so there is but one half to be employed on what we read." Now, that is a fascinating idea. I don't know if it's true, but I love the idea that you should read what you're drawn to, what appeals to you, and which you will be immersed in and what will grab your attention. What are your thoughts? James Marriott: Yeah. I think it's brilliant. That book, Boswell's Life of Johnson, is so full of brilliant ideas about reading. Dr. Johnson was probably one of the great readers in history, and he's wonderful on it‚ these quotes that Boswell collects about what he said. I think that's a really--a great quote. I think it's really true, which is that you can spend a lot of time thinking, 'I really should know about the French Revolution. I don't feel any particular inclination, but I feel embarrassed in conversation when people start talking about Robespierre, and I've got little to contribute. I'm going to force myself through it and get to know it.' And, I think Johnson is right. I think if you're forcing yourself through a book, you are often not picking it up. And, you should give yourself a little bit of freedom. Reading isn't totally a chore. It should be a pleasure. And, if you read what you're interested in, you will absorb it better and you'll take it on board. And, you could force your way through a 400-, 800-page history of the French Revolution and pick up nothing because you are hating it. And, you could find a book that may have a few incidental remarks on the French Revolution--it's that richness of books we were talking about. A good nonfiction book, you're never going to learn nothing. You might learn a lot more about the world than its title would imply. And, I think a certain, kind of--you know, read at quarter inclination because you'll take more in that way. Although I think Johnson would have added that he would have disapproved of fripperies like cheap novels. And, reading at quarter inclination for Dr. Johnson is, I think, there's a certain standard implied there as well. Russ Roberts: So, two things. One is, I've never read Boswell's Life of Johnson. I have a listener--I think it's a listener--who told me it's one of the greatest books ever written. I bought it, and I struggle to get through it. I'm going to try again because of your encouragement. |
| 49:07 | Russ Roberts: The second thing is: I want to disagree a little bit about your statement about nonfiction books. That's because--you don't have a podcast, do you? So, as a podcaster, I get a lot of books sent to me where the editor, the PR [Public Relations] person, the marketing person, tells me that this book is going to change the way I--[fill in the blank]--lead, manage, make decisions, run my life, whatever it is. And, that could be an interesting book. Usually not--because those people have very little to say about it. They might have an essay, but turning it into a book is hard. But then, they always have to say: And 'It's not just the author's opinion on these things--it's based on science.' And, they'll always have these, quote, studies. And it drives me insane. Because some of those studies I know are not reliable or not true. Don't replicate. And they're treated like they're true. And so, you can get a very false idea from some nonfiction books these days. I think that's a modern phenomenon. I think the kind of books that you like to read, I suspect, are books from longer ago than this phenomenon. It's a very specific thing. We're not going to name names, but it's where a person typically takes a set of studies from the social sciences, which are iffy at best--and then treats them like they're all true and weaves a story about them and tells you why this is going to change your life. And, I hate most of those. Sorry. James Marriott: No. I think you're right, too. In reference to your point about Boswell's Life of Johnson: Find a good abridged version. There's a lot in that book about Dr. Johnson's Anglican piety, which I think first-time readers aren't necessarily going to be totally thrilled by. But, a really good abridged version--of which Penguin, over the years, has produced some really good versions--I think is a totally honorable way into it, to get the best of it. And then come back and take the full thing in at a more leisurely pace. |
| 51:11 | Russ Roberts: So, I have read all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. There is a one-volume abridgment. I cannot recommend it. It could be fine, but I have a huge moral aversion to abridgments. Now, in that case, he may have approved it, which is somewhat better. I don't see you reading abridged books, James. This is a shocking confession. James Marriott: I know why. Well, I'm going to--I'm damaging the reputation carefully cultivated by that Substack post. I agree. And, I would not usually say to read an abridged book. But, I do think, because Boswell's Life of Johnson is essentially a book of anecdotes, it's a book of-- Russ Roberts: Fair enough-- James Marriott: There's not necessarily a narrative flow. Russ Roberts: Fair enough. James Marriott: You get through his life eventually. I think if you're struggling to get a way in, it's an incredibly long book. And I think a good abridgment can just set that book alight for you. And then, you get it, and then you come back. And, I think in that instance, it's valid. In regard to your point about recent books, I totally agree. One of my jobs at The Times is as a book critic, and there's a lot of shoddy nonfiction. I want to run this past you, actually. This is another theory that I threw out in the Substack post, which is that: I think there is a sweet spot of popular nonfiction that exists between about--my dates I put in it were about 1960 and about 2006. In my mind, the books that bookend that sweet spot are a biography of James Joyce by a guy called Richard Ellmann--one of the founding brilliant modern biographies--and another--God, not to bang on endlessly about Rousseau--one of my obsessions--a brilliant biography of Rousseau called Leo Damrosch is a great popular but scholarly biography. And, I have a theory that books written in between those two dates are in a kind of sweet spot of accessibility and professionalization. Everything before about--well, not everything, ludicrous overgeneralization--many popular nonfiction books before 1960 I often think can be a little woolly, a little old-fashioned. Written by men with large beards, sitting in the British Museum reading room, also trying to write 12 book reviews at the same time, which is certainly a lot of English literary culture. Everything after about 2006, I sometimes think that--this isn't universally true, but after about 2006, I'm just aware that people are checking their phones and they're writing books. Maybe if they're academics, they've been sort of too steeped in academic jargon. I also do think--you may not agree with this--but I do think that when I think of some of my favorite writers, like the historian Peter Brown, historian of late antiquity, he was born I think at the end of the 1920s or in the early 1930s. And, he had a experience of reading as a child that is irreplicable nowadays. He would have read constantly. And, he would have just absorbed on a, just, cellular level, books. And he would have read as a child, he would have read extremely widely in adolescence in a way that I'm not sure it's possible for people to do, perhaps. Maybe you get rare instances. And, I just think that richness of reading experience--that maybe ended in war: it wasn't quite the same after the 1970s--I sort of think that people who have that richness of immersion in literature that is maybe harder to get in modern society tend to write the really brilliant books on various subjects. It's not universally true, but it's something I often bear in mind. |
| 54:37 | Russ Roberts: Well, it's especially important--when we were talking earlier--I recently took a trip to Rome. Snd I realized I don't know enough about Rome and I don't know enough about the Catholic Church. I'd been to the Vatican, and I'd walked through a number of churches. And, as a result of that, I picked up an extraordinary book called Constantine's Sword, which is by James Carroll. It's about the history of the Church's relationship with the Jews. But, it's very specific to that, and it's not what I wanted. So, I wanted to find an overview. And I was surprised how hard it was. I went on ChatGPT. I said, what are some of the best books? And, I think when you get a list, as you said, I think sometimes the most recent ones are contaminated by academic fads, perhaps. Some of them are pretentious, as well, because being popular is sometimes seen as a negative. And, it may be that in earlier times, that was not as true. I don't know. But, I think there are sweet spots. I wouldn't be surprised if there were eras where certain types of writing were prized, and people who wrote that way grew up in a certain milieu of reading, as you suggest with Peter Brown. React to that. And then, I want to come back to Peter Brown. Go ahead. James Marriott: Yeah. I agree. And the point about genres is a really good one. Literary biography--I love reading about the lives of writers. I'm not sure the publishing industry can sustain great literary biography in a way that it would have done 50 years ago. There just isn't the audience for it. So, other people I love to read: Richard Holmes, who wrote biographies of the poets Shelley and Coleridge. He started out after university. He thought, I'm going to become a literary biographer and write biographies of poets, and that's pretty much how I'm going to make my living. I'm going to produce a book on Shelley that's this fat. His book on Shelley is probably a little bit too long--it's like 700 pages. And that was his life. That's not a financial decision anybody can make anymore. And, I think maybe that means that you just don't attract certain talented people into that field. Would a publisher even commission a 600-page popular biography of Shelley anymore? That probably wouldn't be the case. Russ Roberts: Zero chance. |
| 56:55 | Russ Roberts: But that brings up my next question, which is: You know, there's a certain snobbery in modern urban life, especially of finding the obscure restaurant that no one else knows about that has the best, fill-in-the-blank, dim sum, tacos, whatever it is. And, in literature, that's also somewhat true. I just mentioned László Krasznahorkai--was going to be one of my examples. How good could he be if I've never heard of him? I've never even heard of him. Well, I was a snob and I was arrogant; and I was wrong. And, I'm struck by the fact--first of all, so many people I read from that sweet spot, those 1980s and 1990s where I'm thinking: I was alive when this book came out. How did I miss it? It's so good. Did I not listen? Did people not talk about it enough? Was I not in the right circles? And, I do think there's an enormous volume of undervalued, underappreciated authors--for all of us. And they're all different for all of us because we have different tastes and backgrounds and so on. But, it strikes me that you need to be open-minded about it. And, despite my claim that you should only read the greatest books because you can only read 5,000, a lot of times the books that are best for you to read or that are going to open your mind to Shelley, to take an example--because I don't think I will ever read a biography of Shelley, but now the odds have gone up dramatically from zero to at least 3%--is that you don't know everything. And, it's remarkable how many talented writers there are. You mentioned Peter Brown; you mentioned Claire Tomalin in your essay. I've never heard of either of them. And as a result, I've downloaded samples from their books; and Claire Tomalin, looks like a lovely memoir. She's 91. I don't think she's going to be an EconTalk guest to my disappointment, but you never know. Why do you like Peter Brown and why do you like Claire Tomalin? Make the case. James Marriott: Please do mention them because those are two great writers who I think everyone could appreciate. Peter Brown, I think the book to start with is a book called The World of Late Antiquity, quite a slim book. And, his subject is that period, which I knew nothing about, between the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. And, it's always sort of, in the back of my mind, what happened then? What was happening in Rome in the-- Russ Roberts: Nothing. Nothing. That's why it's not worth reading-- James Marriott: what's happening in Rome in the 600s or the 700s? And, I picked up this book, The World of Late Antiquity, and Peter Brown, I started tweeting excitedly about how brilliant and lucid and insightful this book was. One of those writers who, every single sentence is genuinely full of thought. There are no idle sentences. And, he's applied this huge intelligent and this huge, amazingly elegant prose style to this little obscure period of history. I started tweeting about it and everyone was going, 'You idiot. He's our greatest living historian in Britain. Nobody is better.' People who know about history. And, he's got an even longer book, which is maybe if you love The World of Late Antiquity, called The Rise of Western Christendom, which takes the same period. Russ Roberts: I got the sample for that one after I--because of what I just said. James Marriott: Yeah. And, I think you'd love it. I think he's such a lucid, clever writer. Claire Tomalin is a great literary biographer. There's an argument that she might be the greatest living literary biographer in Britain. The book to read by her, in my opinion, is her biography of Samuel Pepys, which is just an utterly charming book. It's a great subject for biography because Pepys wrote down everything he did every day for most of the days of his adult life with incredible candor about all his sort of naughty escapades. Some beautiful writing in there, too. And, Claire Tomalin is just such an unbelievably compelling advocate for Pepys as a personality. That was another book I remember picking up in a university library and just thinking--just being completely absorbed and losing four hours to it. And, her biography of Charles Dickens is fantastic, another incredibly interesting life. And, her biography of Thomas Hardy is also really good. Her book on Pepys, though, is wonderful. Probably one of my favorite books. Russ Roberts: Have you read any Stefan Zweig? James Marriott: I'm a little bit of a Stefan Zweig skeptic. I love his memoir-- Russ Roberts: The World of Yesterday. James Marriott: That was a really wonderful book. Russ Roberts: Extraordinary book. James Marriott: I'm not totally sure that I really think that his fiction is of marvelous quality, but what do you think? Russ Roberts: So, for those of you who don't know of him--and I did not know of him until fairly recently, another embarrassment--I just would mention‚ first of all again, his memoir, The World of Yesterday is an extraordinary book for 10 different reasons. It's full of insight. His life is unbelievable. His observations between the wars and the rise of the Nazis--it is an incredible book. In 1930, he was the most famous author in the world, which is sobering given how few people have heard of him and how few people read him. But, he sold millions and millions of copies. It was incredibly popular. I sympathize. I love some of his short stories, but not all of them. And, I don't love him generally, but I've just dipped in. I've read maybe, I don't know, 10 or so short stories. He's interesting; but his memoir I think is very important. But, I mentioned him because he wrote a number of literary biographies. Extremely short. His one of Montaigne is fantastic. I enjoyed it immensely. I've read two or three others. I like them all-- James Marriott: He's got a book on Nietzsche as well, I think. Russ Roberts: Say again? James Marriott: He's got a book on Nietzsche-- Russ Roberts: I have not read that-- James Marriott: which I didn't think it was marvelous, again. Russ Roberts: Okay. Fair enough. And, he was very much a popular writer. He maybe doesn't do justice to him. I don't know. |
| 1:03:01 | Russ Roberts: Let's turn to fiction. We've talked a lot about nonfiction, a little bit about fiction, but I want to give a wonderful quote from John Carey about great works of literature. Here's the quote. They "do not tell you what the truth is, they make you feel what it would be like to know it." That's a marvelous quote. I'll read it again. Great works of literature‚ and then here's the quote‚ "do not tell you what the truth is, they make you feel what it would be like to know it." Explain. James Marriott: Yeah. I think it's brilliant. That's from a wonderful book that he wrote called What Good Are the Arts, which is a little bit controversial, and he takes the piss out of things like the opera quite a lot. But, his advocacy for literature in that book is one of the greatest arguments for reading I've ever read. And, what he's getting at in that quote, I think, is a crucial difference between fiction and nonfiction. And a lot of these reading guides, which you can find online, I think are preoccupied with books or sources of information. Read a book about the French Revolution: know about the French Revolution. You have the fact at your fingertips. And, what John Carey is arguing for in fiction is an understanding that I think we're often a little bit--we tend to underrate, I think, which is a kind of emotional understanding. It is one thing to be told something is true and you can say, 'Oh yeah, I know when the French Revolution happened.' It's another thing to have had an emotional experience of truth. The example I gave in the essay, which I always find a useful way to try and explain the idea, is to do with Elena Ferrante, her books about young girls growing up in Naples in the 1950s. And, it was a powerfully interesting experience for me because I've been told a lot about what it was like to be a teenage girl. Everybody knows--suddenly disorienting sexual attention of men, difficult time in your life. These are clichés that everybody could tell you about being a teenage girl. But, I read those Elena Ferrante books, and I suddenly understood it; and I thought, 'Oh, I get it,' in a way that would never have occurred to me that this thing was there for me to get. And, everything I would tell you after having read those books about being a teenage girl would be exactly the same. But, I sort of feel like I can have this emotional understanding of it, which is incredibly important. And I think it's very underrated, actually. I think people think that that ability to feel your way into something doesn't matter as much as repeating the facts about it. I think this about the way that a novel by Trollope could show you about--the truths it could show you about a large institution, for instance, in a novel by Trollope. He often writes about these complicated institutions like the Church or Parliament. You can be told a lot of facts about the Church and Parliament and how they work and who is in charge of who. But, the experience of reading a novel that puts you through the emotional experience of that institution, you suddenly have this feeling of what it's like to be part of the Church or Parliament that is separate and deeper than merely being told the facts of it. And, I think that's a kind of understanding we underrate. Russ Roberts: So, Trollope is underrated generally. I just would put in a plug for Can You Forgive Her? if you've never read Trollope. Extraordinary writer. And, it's a puzzle why Dickens--I love Dickens--but, why Dickens is alive and well in English literary circles‚ not academic ones, but people like to read Dickens‚ but I don't think they read much Trollope anymore. Which is too bad, because he's a master. I think the other thing you get from Trollope, by the way, is a portrait of ambition, a portrait of corruption, a portrait of ethical dilemmas, which again, it's not bad to read the Caro biography of LBJ [Lyndon Baines Johnson]. You get that in there, too. But, fiction can somehow make it‚ put it in your bones. And of course, the reason that Caro's book is powerful is he writes it like a novel. He's giving you a portrait of Johnson that is much more than just: he did this and then he did that. He's getting inside Johnson's head. And, he does that through interviews with Johnson's colleagues, through Johnson's own writing, through the news of the day. And, he's weaving a--it's as if you're sitting in the room while he's got Johnson on the couch. And, a great novelist can do that, too. And, that's why Caro's book is so, I think, profound. Great novels are not just entertaining. They do change the way you feel about yourself, the way you see your position in the world, what you might aspire to, your understanding of the people around you. Sometimes it might be a person you're not--like a teenage girl. And, other times it's like someone who is just like you, but you've never really looked carefully at yourself. And, when you read that novel, you realize, oh, he's talking about me. James Marriott: Yeah. I think that's very well put. It's that way that I sometimes think feeling can be more complex than thinking-- Russ Roberts: Yeah. It's underrated-- James Marriott: Yeah. Especially, again, in our society that I think tends to think that the human brain should function like computers. But the feeling you can get from a great novel can often be an extremely complex and profound one that I think informs you much more about the world than reading a hundred facts about the world. |
| 1:08:37 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. You mentioned earlier, which I unfortunately agree with you, that podcasts are a pale technique compared to reading a book for mastering something, understanding something, absorbing something. You say--this is a quote: Generally podcasts and summarizing apps are useless as shortcuts to information. Books remain the best technology ever invented to understand life and the world. There is no alternative. Putting aside the cheap shot at podcasts--but I do agree with you--talk about what I would call--I don't know if you used this word or not--but it's what I think about as grappling. When you read a serious book, Seiobo There Below is an extreme example. But, even Dostoevsky, a writer who has stood the test of time‚ there are passages, as I think you mention, that you're going to struggle to get through them. You may be bored, you may not understand the context, you may lack the background for some of the things that are being discussed. But, oftentimes you're being presented with an idea that you've never encountered, and you've got to grapple with it. Grapple with it in the sense of first understanding it, and then seeing what's significant about it. And, I think about that a lot in the world of AI [artificial intelligence] that we're entering and how AI is an anti-grappling device. It just says, 'Eh, too hard for you. I'll explain it.' 'Yeah, tell me in a paragraph. Tell me in two paragraphs. Tell me in a page what this book is about.' And, that's a tragedy. I'm very concerned about it. James Marriott: Yeah. I completely agree. And, the point you make is a really good one. I often feel this way about poetry, actually. I love reading poetry, and I read quite a bit of it. I always think, every time you read a great new poet, it will often seem bewildering. I remember reading Sylvia Plath the first time in my teens and thinking, this isn't poetry‚ this is just ranting nonsense. And, I read her a bit, and I read her again and again and again, and I suddenly realized that I was being shown a whole new way of seeing the world that couldn't have been summarized and it couldn't have been [?]. And, I guess part of the grappling process you're talking about, I think, is having a bit of humility as a reader and saying, I'm being presented with something very different from what I've encountered before. And, your brain will start fighting. You'll go, no, this isn't how it is. I know how‚ this is nonsense. And then you kind of learn to say, 'No, look, I'm going to allow myself to be shown and I'm going to put myself through the experience of this book, and it's going to be difficult, and it's going to be bewildering, and I may not like it often, but I will trust‚ because this person is a great writer, and people have told me this‚ that I will have my mind changed and my worldview changed by the difficulty of this process and by its[?] strangeness.' Obviously not every book is going to show you a new world with its difficulty and strangeness. There are shoddy social science books you referenced that aren't going to do that. But, I think with a great book, submitting to the difficulty and submitting to the weirdness is a really important part of the experience of reading. And, yeah, the problem with AI is that you can just cut that bit out of it. You can cut the difficulty out of it. And, the difficulty often is what is remaking your mind, I think. Russ Roberts: For sure. James Marriott: It's mad, to me, to cut that out. Russ Roberts: Yeah. No. It's a fascinating moment. |
| 1:12:04 | Russ Roberts: Let's talk about poetry for a minute. So, going back to my father‚ my father had very strong feelings about what was good poetry and bad poetry, and he prejudiced me for a long time. Not a bad thing to start with. He was against most modern poetry, and so I read a lot of classic poets of the past. Like, for him, I think T.S. Eliot was--there's nothing after T.S. Eliot-- James Marriott: Where it all went wrong. Russ Roberts: What? James Marriott: Where it all went wrong. Russ Roberts: Exactly--but, he liked Eliot. But, after that, it was a mixed bag‚ very mixed bag‚ a negative bag. And so, it took me a long time to appreciate some modern poets. But, I think what's fascinating about poetry is, I think people misunderstand what poetry is about. And, I think they think it's about emotion‚ and it is, of course. It is about feeling things that--the poet wants you to feel something, often that they felt. But, it's taken me a long time to realize that really great poetry is a way to communicate something ineffable, something that cannot be communicated otherwise. And, what an extraordinary thing that is. It doesn't always work, and sometimes you can't access what that poet is trying to capture with those words. But, a lot of the poems that, quote, "don't make sense" to you when you first read them are because they're trying to do something extremely difficult, which is to make you see something that can't be described‚ or at least not easily. James Marriott: Yeah. I totally agree. There's an idea that crops up in, I think, criticism of the Romantic Era where it was--does Schopenhauer say this? Correct me if I'm wrong--that 'poetry can show you a deeper layer of reality.' Reality is composed of this sort of superficial layer, and there's a deeper layer underneath it. I'm not saying I believe this metaphysically. But, it used to be common to talk about poetry as this thing that could kind of help you access this realm beyond our superficial, material world into something more profound. Obviously we can't really speak like that in our disillusioned 21st-century world. That's how poetry often makes me feel. And, like you, I struggle to say why I think it's so important, because it sounds ludicrous to say that poetry can show you a kind of deeper reality. That's probably‚ if you were to press me‚ that's how I feel about it. And, it's the thing I've struggled hardest to make the case for, because I would find myself hard-pressed to say why it's useful. It's probably ultimately my favorite thing to do. It's the most consoling thing I can do. If I ever feel depressed or upset or worried, poetry is the thing that feels like it has restored me to some kind of wider plane of significance where everything else seems petty. It is incredibly important to me. But I find myself very hard-pressed to say why. Russ Roberts: It's terribly out of fashion. Do you want to recommend two or three poets or two or three poems that you particularly like? James Marriott: That's a good question. Two or three poets who I love: Philip Larkin--if you're not a great poetry reader, Philip Larkin is very easily lovable. Tennyson--Alfred, Lord Tennyson--I absolutely love. Get a thin, select edition of his poems. They're extremely beautiful. If you love beautiful language, they're great. And, yeah, I'll say Sylvia Plath--somebody who I do return to and was somebody who I certainly dismissed in my teens and thought it was over-emotional and ridiculous. And, I remember--it's one of those things where one comment can change your view of something. I had a teacher at university who said that Sylvia Plath was a little bit like expressionism in the visual arts. She was pushing language to its extremes all the time in the way that expressionist painters might push color or emotion to extremes. And, that really opened her up for me. And, she's someone who I have had my mind changed on and was very glad to have had my mind changed on. [More to come, 1:16:05] |
Is long form reading a dying pastime? Journalist and cultural critic James Marriott joins EconTalk's Russ Roberts to defend the increasingly quaint act of reading a book in our scrolling-obsessed, AI-summarized age. He urges juggling a paper book and a Kindle, recounts ditching his smartphone to rescue his attention, and shares tactics for finding the "right" beach novel and biography. He and Russ also debate the value of re-reading, spar over Dostoevsky, celebrate Elena Ferrante, and swap suggestions for poetry that "puts reality back in your bones." Throughout, they argue that the shallowness of social media makes the best case for diving into the dense, intellectually difficult, yet uniquely transformative power of books.
READER COMMENTS
Bob
Jul 21 2025 at 7:27am
I live in western North Carolina. We lost electricity for a few weeks and internet for over a month in our rural location where there is no cell phone service. We have a generator that gave us electricity for lights, the refrigerator, and water pump. I’m a big reader but am constantly hopping online to look up one thing or another. But I’m not on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc. so I smugly think of myself as relatively free from that. Good news: in a week without internet distraction I regained the ability to read deep and long. I thought that capacity was gone forever or would take months to regain. But it came back very quickly without the internet. Bad news: despite enjoying that situation immensely, once internet access returned, my ability to meter use so that I didn’t resume the hopping habit quickly disappeared, and I am again a distracted reader. And I think of myself as very disciplined. It’s like crack. Crazy.
Shalom Freedman
Jul 21 2025 at 9:15am
This conversation between two passionate book-readers raised made many good points about the special value of reading books. James Marriot at first talked about the greater amount of ‘information’ one gets in reading books. But in the conversation both he and Russ Roberts made it clear that they were talking about much more than information. Russ Roberts makes the best description of this.
“ I think a 300-page book is so extraordinary, if it’s well done, is that you’re spending time inside the mind of what you hope is a very interesting thinker, and you’re reading a narrative. You’re reading a story and a set of stories that have been woven together in the mind of a fellow human being, and it’s absorbing that–that full tapestry–and the story that that person is telling, and the emotion that that person wants you to feel–which is so different than a tweet, or even a blog post, or a substack essay.
I would also add that there are so many kinds of books, so much variety and richness that the book-world would seem to offer something for everyone. But this touches another point that books are used for so many diverse purposes, and books are of such varying quality that the assumption of the conversation between Russ Roberts and James Marriot that book-reading is by and large a wonderful thing does not take into account the different kinds of book-reading experience there are.
More importantly as lifelong obsessive reading non-stop everywhere book-reader I can ask why I perhaps seven or eight years ago stopped this. Why I instead of loving to read books and enjoy reading so much I became a reader of all kinds of different articles and watcher-listener of podcasts. It may be perhaps just a shorter breath in old age. It may be because living in Israel I am constantly in need of knowing the news and what the situation is.
But I still love reading books occasionally as I look with longing at the many great books I have read and know I will never reread most of them again.