Would you really be so surprised to learn that we are reading less and less every year? Last month, a new study revealed that only 16 percent of Americans are reading for pleasure, which represents a 40 percent drop from peak rates just over a decade ago. (Terrifyingly, people are reading to their children less and less, too.) But in my corner of the internet, books don’t appear to have lost their status. Celebrities pose with them on boats and beaches and select them for their clubs and Bookstagrammers post towering stacks of their latest “hauls.” And though I surround myself with readers, it can easily feel harder and harder to make the time to spend with a book — and easier to buckle and give into distractions.

So I asked an assortment of well-read people — critics, authors, Substack

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