What is the Deal with People Who Don't Read Books?

I shouldn’t have let my Wondery+ subscription lapse because it’s the only way to avoid hearing ads on my favorite podcasts and advertisements on podcasts have always been something I grudgingly tolerate at best but would love not to experience at all. 

An ad on the addictive British true crime podcast Red Handed for Audible opens by letting listeners in on a dirty little secret of the podcasting world. She goes on to say that she doesn’t do research for the podcast by reading books because she hates reading so she listens to audio books instead. 

In hindsight this was almost assuredly a joke, or, at the very least, a comic exaggeration. The hosts are droll and witty as well as exceedingly, delightfully British. They’ve also written at least one book. Yet when I first heard the Audible ad some lizard part of my brain took it personally as well as literally despite the saner, more reasonable parts of my psyche understanding that the host’s confession was almost certainly tongue-in-cheek. 

My knee-jerk response to hearing a favorite podcaster profess to hate reading was an aggrieved, “What do you mean you hate reading? How is that possible? But you’re so smart! And funny! And obviously very curious about all of the awful, murderous things the world has to offer. How can someone so smart possibly hate reading books?” 

This guy: definitely a book reader.

My sarcasm detector can be a little wonky when it comes to the crazy-making world of the internet, where it can be very difficult to delineate between flagrant, unforgivable idiocy and satirical depictions of flagrant, unforgivable idiocy. 

I don’t want to be a snob or judgmental but when I discover that someone aggressively doesn’t read, or doesn’t read books, it invariably changes the way that I see them, and not for the better. 

People are complex. People are different. There is no one way to acquire knowledge and wisdom but it has been my personal experience that one of the best ways, if not the single best way, to acquire knowledge and wisdom is by devouring as many books as possible. 

I am biased, of course, in that I am both a writer and an author working hard on his ninth book so I take it personally when people say that they don’t read or that they don’t read books. 

I get it. Some people don’t have the attention span for books. Or they have difficulty reading because they’re dyslexic. But I can’t help but see people who actively choose not to read books as lacking an innate curiosity. There are, of course, other ways of satiating curiosity. There is experience, of course. You learn by doing and figure things out as you go. 

You can also learn from other people, by talking to them and asking them about their lives and their experiences. The problem with this way of acquiring knowledge is that involves communicating with other people and if you are as painfully introverted as I am, that is absolutely terrifying. 

The wonderful thing about books is that they do not require human interaction. Heck, you can order books from Amazon and skip having to interact with a clerk at a bookstore altogether.

Books liberate introverts like myself from the awful tension and anxiety of human interaction, of being part of the world instead of hiding away in your little bubble. 

When I found out that Kanye West claims to have never read a book in his life, despite his mother being a professor, I thought it made sense in the way that everything I discover about my former favorite rapper is terrible and weird and makes me feel even more estranged from the Hitler-loving lunatic he has become. 

I never end blogs by asking what y’all think because I want this blog, and this website, to be a one-way conduit of information and opinion but I am going to make an exception this time and ask y’all what you think when someone tells you that they don’t read books? 

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