Some Assembly Required

It’s occurred to me that I can’t recall the last time I read a novel. It was over a decade ago, certainly.

Correction: My schoolteachers liked “whole English”…

The last novel I read for the first time (I have some annual rereads) was The Searchers by Alan LeMay.
I’m retiring soon and probably won’t read nearly as much because I won’t have a long commute. And I have a Kindle-full. I hope that God allows me enough time to get to them all!

Generally, the better educated are more prone to irrational political opinions and political hysteria than the worse educated far from power. Why? In the field of political opinion, they are more driven by fashion, a gang mentality, and the desire to pose about moral and political questions all of which exacerbate cognitive biases, encourage groupthink, and reduce accuracy. Those on average incomes are less likely to express political views to send signals; political views are much less important for signalling to one’s immediate in-group when you are on 20k a year. The former tend to see such questions in more general and abstract terms, and are more insulated from immediate worries about money. The latter tend to see such questions in more concrete and specific terms and ask ‘how does this affect me?’

Something to consider.

Something to consider
Thanks for the link, David. I find Samizdata rather variable, but that piece and its contents are terrific (as is Dominic Cummings’ original post).
I particularly like Niall Kilmartin’s longer version of the Orwell quote (from memory, as he says):
I have heard it confidently asserted that American troops are being brought to England to crush an English revolution, not to invade the continent. You have to be an intellectual to believe a thing like that. No common man could be such a fool.

Tim Newman on identifying with the neighbours.

It’s occurred to me that I can’t recall the last time I read a novel. It was over a decade ago, certainly.
…that Grishim guy
I slogged my way through the five “Game of Thrones” books
The overwhelming success of some popular authors is baffling because, when you get down to where the cheese binds (as I believe they say in Minnesota, or maybe it was Wisconsin), the bastards cannot write. Grisham? Yeugh. The “Harry Potter” series? Jesus, I made it through the first one and what turgid, derivative tripe it was. Dan Brown? James Patterson? aaarrggghhh- how do people finish those things without feeling like they’ve just let themselves down in some unspecified but essentially sordid way? Stephen King- yes, but he hasn’t written anything beyond halfway decent in twenty five years.
Can I recommend, in no particular order: novels by George Pelecanos, James Sallis, James Carlos Blake, George V. Higgins and James Lee Burke as exemplars of literary crime fiction?
Michael Connelly’s “Bosch” books are outstanding entertainment as are the dark, sometimes Grand Guignol offerings of John Sandford’s “Prey” series, as well as his somewhat lighter “shared-universe” works featuring Virgil Flowers.
Joe Abercrombie’s “The Blade Itself” trilogy is a much better alternative to “GoT” as I too find Martin unreadable. Eschewing the overrated J.K. Rowling I thoroughly enjoyed Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” and even shed a manly tear on finishing the final instalment.
Away from crime and fantasy, I’d also recommend Donna Tartt- her indoors and I re-read “The Secret History” quite frequently and we were both absorbed by “The Goldfinch”, at which the critics sneered but what do they know?
On the subject of re-reading, about every ten years I take down Evelyn Waugh’s “Sword Of Honour” trilogy and go though it from start to finish. I believe that if our American friends would really like to know what impact the Second World War had upon Britain, this is where to begin.

Michael Connelly’s “Bosch” books are outstanding entertainment
As discussed a while ago, the Bosch Amazon TV series is rather good too.

People read for different reasons. Part of the reason paper bricks are so popular is that many people do read them as a time-filling exercise (they used to be called “beach reads”, as I recall).
Personally, I’ve abandoned most fantasy fiction for historical fiction as I’ve found most fantasy authors really have no idea what they’re on about, and their works are either a highly romanticized version of the real world with a light fairy tale gloss on it, or else soaked in blood, death and perfidy far more than actual human societies have ever been. Basically, choose whether you want your fantasy world to look like the school notebook cover of a fourteen-year-old girl, or a the school notebook cover of a fourteen-year-old boy.
The “Harry Potter” series? Jesus, I made it through the first one and what turgid, derivative tripe it was.
And the first three are the good ones.
The Harry Potter books are frankly awful, but grant them this: they got an entire generation of kids who would not normally have read so much as the logo on a packet of crisps reading books – seven of them – some of which rival Gibbons’ Decline and Fall for length. They don’t stop reading just because the series is done; they move on to other things and they’ve become lifelong readers.
Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to have trickled down to the next generation. I know a number of 12-to-20-somethings who count themselves huge Potter fans, but have only ever seen the movies and have no interest in reading the books.
The latter tend to see such questions in more concrete and specific terms and ask ‘how does this affect me?’
The problem with the burgeoning vox populi, vox dei movement is that it ignores Tytler’s Maxim. The poor are not inherently noble, and are no more likely to eschew using the government to take money away from people who have it and give it to themselves than the elites are.

There was a time in my life, about 15-20 years ago, where these numerous recommendations for books y’all are providing here would have me salivating and also frustrated to know I’d never get the time to read so much. I used to walk into a book store or library and marvel at how many stories there were that even with a dozen lifetimes I’d never get to know. But as The Narrative (and thank God someone has come up with a term for this…I always got queezy using the term The Matrix, as I hated that movie) became more and more apparent to me, I grew more and more skeptical of every written word. I’m pretty sure it was the coming of the internet and the ability to respond/comment/expand upon what one had just read that turned my focus off of paper text sources to the more interactive. What especially drove me in this direction was discovering that many articles and such that in the past I would have read and absorbed in my context of understanding, that when pressing the author on some fine point or perhaps some other commenters on some fine point, was finding out that I really wasn’t as closely in agreement as I thought. Sometimes I felt enlightened and appreciative of this greater understanding, but on subjects that fit The Narrative I became more skeptical and irritated (1) that I myself had misunderstood but also (2) discovering many times that this was due to the writer’s intentional sophistry and disingeniousness (not passing spell check but dammit that needs to be a word).
As to what others have said regarding short stories and to David’s point about Broadly speaking, I want the point, not the padding, I can’t agree more. That I can get through several short stories and thus several points of view in the time it takes to absorb one novel with one person’s point is something that a great many so-called intellectuals dismiss. I tend to believe this is very much driven by the egos and “big-idea” nature of such people. Very seldom do you find people who have taken the time to read a great many long novels who have also gone out into the world and accomplished much. Though as the wife and I were discussing earlier, there’s no way of knowing this but I’d be willing to bet that only about 1 in 20 people who claim to have read say “Look Homeward Angel” or such actually read the whole thing. They got the Cliff’s Notes or whatever, paid attention in class, or basically went into it with the understanding of what the teacher told them to get out of the book without bothering to actually digest what they were reading.