Who Do We Become If We Don't Read (or Write)?

Also Author April Dávila on the Mettā Interview, plus this week's masterclass

Who do we become if we dont read or write edited

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Yesterday, this bombshell landed in my inbox.

America, The Atlantic staff writer Rose Horowitch argues, is becoming “postliterate” (with a majority of adults no longer reading a single novel or short story in a year).

This led me to ask myself this question: who do we become if we don't read (or write)?

I’ve been a book lover and a story devourer since my childhood, a love that was given room to grow the day my parents allowed me to keep my lights on at night if it was because I was reading my beloved adventure books in bed. Later, an ex-boyfriend, in my twenties, told his new flame about me, and answering her question of ‘why her?’ (aka me) he answered: ’she‘s well read.’ Lastly, some of my favorite summer memories feature me in a bikini atop a sun lounger, in the back garden, an ice latte to my right, and a novel in hand.

Little did I know that decades later I’d be writing an essay making the case about reading, and writing.

While America‘s book reading habits plummets, I can’t help but acknowledge that the majority of us are increasingly absorbed in reading across our screens, bombarded with written messages across platforms. As I was contemplating this reality, a conversation with Dr Jonathan Kaplan on Out of the Clouds bubbled up to the surface of my mind.

Dr Kaplan, PhD. is a licensed clinical psychologist, author and teacher, an expert in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), an ACT therapist (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) who also works with the application of mindfulness and meditation in psychotherapy.

While I was ready to feel very judgemental about all these people not reading (I’m assuming the trend is global, though the article focuses on the USA), I’m grateful that my associative mind brought me back to what he said that day. What he said befits this very topic, but from another perspective:

“In cities, and particularly here in New York, you can’t open your eyes without seeing something that’s written. And it’s everywhere. Not just signs and street signs, but it’s on buses. It’s on the turnstile parts… they have advertisements there.

And if we contrast that, I would say going for a walk in the woods, there are no signs. There’s nothing in that environment typically demanding our attention…

But here, everything is really trying to call attention to itself and they’re all in competition, right? And we are just walking around in this environment. What we try to do typically is to shut it out… I’m going to put on my sunglasses and I’m going to put in my headphones and I’m just going to overwhelm it with my own stimuli.”

Dr Kaplan came to this observation the hard way: after years of meditation practice (begun, remarkably, leading meditation groups in South Central LA) and a deep dive down what he calls his Buddhist rabbit hole, he moved from a very rural, quiet setting to the Big Apple, and found the contrast dysregulating.

This change in living environment coupled with his meditation and clinical practice is likely what led him to see what most of us don’t:

“There’s an overwhelming amount of sensory stimuli in cities and we’re often prompted by the written word, which [I think] activates the verbal mind.”

No wonder then, when I’m overwhelmed, that I turn to household chores. It’s likely that we conflate emotional, intellectual and physical fatigue. Numerous times, I’ve surprised myself by switching to a manual task, without listening to a podcast or even music, and feeling my energy return in minutes, despite feeling a sense of deep exhaustion moments before.

Now many of people don't read books apparently, but if you're reading me, with my love of long-form and my propensity toward storytelling, I'm thinking you do.

Either way, this week, I invite you to consider approaching a writing practice with my guest on the Mettā Interview, April Dávila, who is also offering her masterclass on Wednesday 15th.

April is an award-winning novelist (her debut, 142 Ostriches, is a brilliant award-winning book) and a writing coach, and, like me, a certified mindfulness teacher. We met five years ago, on Zoom, at our MMTCP graduation, in the middle of the pandemic, and we stayed in touch. This week, her first non-fiction title, Sit Write Here (St. Martin’s Press), brings her two practices together: how meditation can take the struggle out of writing, quieting the inner critic long enough for the words to come.

Surprisingly, while our reading declines, books are exploding, not dying. I asked Claude AI to check for me, and this is what it told me: "Per Bowker (the ISBN registry, the most authoritative source): 4.2 million books were published in the US alone in 2025, fifteen times more than twenty years ago (282,500 in 2005). Traditional publishing more than doubled in that time, to about 642,000 titles; the rest is the self-publishing flood, around 3.5 million — where fiction is the biggest genre, at roughly 477,000 titles, alongside a vast industry of journals, planners, puzzle and activity books. Going back your full fifty years, US output in the 1970s was in the tens of thousands of titles a year — so the arc is roughly a hundredfold increase in half a century." (1970s figure approximate)

We could approach the figures above and conclude that writers are chasing disappearing readers. A tsumani of books released through self-publishing, including AI-generated titles released on Amazon by scammers hoping to catch a few misdirected dollars (check out this rip current warning from Brené Brown) are crashing the market, that can't be good news, right? We could also posit that self-publishing is allowing too many vanity writers to put work out that is not good enough, that no one wants to read.

Perhaps.

I'd venture that most of the people self-publishing don’t know how to market their books.

And that traditional media is shrinking.

And what can it do against 4.2 million books a year?

Oh, and there are the book bans.

Any and all the above may put anyone, including you, off writing. Ever.

But on the other side, I think of what April shared in our conversation.

She says: “If you suspect you have a story in you, you probably do, and you should seriously think about writing it. I think all of our stories matter. My story won’t matter to everyone, your story won’t matter to everyone, but the people who connect with my story, they need to hear it.

And the stories that I connect to that someone else wrote, I’m so grateful they wrote them. It’s not about needing to be the next best-selling author. The metrics don’t matter so much as the joy that can be found in telling your story and connecting with people who needed to hear it, for whatever reason.”

I agree with her. I think stories matter.

I am also reminded that history is made by those who tell the stories. Despite the AI tidal wave, I think it's good that so many people are putting their voices out there.

And if you'd like to work on yours, this week is a good one to start.

This week, you can meet April twice: in your headphones today, and live at Le Trente, via Zoom, on Wednesday.

Listen. The Mettā Interview with April Dávila is out now. April is an award-winning novelist (142 Ostriches), a mindfulness teacher like me, and the author of the forthcoming Sit Write Here (St. Martin’s Press, 2026). We talk about writing, meditation, and why our stories matter to the people they’re for. We also explore her big question: What is the role of narrative story in our society? LISTEN

Practice. On Wednesday 15 July, April teaches Write More, Suffer Less, live at Le Trente (5:45pm CEST / 11:45am ET / 8:45am PDT). In 75 minutes, she’ll share how a meditation practice changed her writing life — and how it can change yours: learning to work with your mind instead of against it, so distraction and self-doubt dissolve and the words actually come. Less suffering, more flow, and a practice you can return to every time. No meditation experience required. Pay what you can, from $1, and the recording is yours either way. More details and registration HERE.

I'll stress that this masterclass isn’t only for novelists. If writing is how you reach people, and most of us now reach people in writing, then this 75-min online session is for you too, whatever kind of writing you do.

Sit. On Thursday 16 July, join me for Mettā Together, a lunchtime guided meditation at 1pm CEST. And if the timing doesn’t suit, I’m back on Insight Timer on Sunday 19 July at 6pm CEST / 12pm ET / 9am PT. Register HERE

If you want to write alongside me, Story Alchemy is back next week Tuesday 21st. Details HERE

If you’ve ever suspected you have a story in you, and want to explore it, or deepen your access to it, join us.

À bientôt,

Anne

P.S. Something for your own shelf:

I’ve just finished author Jessica Ann's debut self-published character-driven fantasy, Woven in Time. The first in a trilogy, I cannot wait to get my hands on book two. Thanks to Charlie (who attended another writing masterclass in January) for the recommendation, Jessica Ann will be a guest on the Mettā Interview soon.

Now for the head rather than the heart, Zach Mercurio’s The Power of Mattering, which I can’t recommend enough. I listened to it on Spotify, and had so many a-ha moments that I took too many screengrabs, so much so that I need to clear some time on my schedule to revisit the notes I was trying to make. This is a book that somehow delivered me to myself. Thanks to Mercurio's Mattering lens, I understand my actions and behaviors better. FYI the audio is good, though the editing felt a bit rushed for me. I'll get the printed copy for my notes.

Lastly, and this is a great, great one: Body Work, the Radical Power of Personal Narrative, by Melissa Febos. There is much I love about this book, so expect to see quotes from it to surface regularly. Her work is on memoir, and she writes: "Whereas writing was once an exercise in transcription, it has become an exercise in transformation. I urge you to hold your own life and work to this higher standard."