The Weekly Wrap: December 28-January 3

Readers as Endangered Species

I suspect you’ve read at least one book this year. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve read a book a week. This week, I’ve been seeing everyone’s end of the year posts of all the books they’ve read. However, one of the articles below woke me up to the bubble we are living in.

Less than half of Americans read ONE book this year. And that number is rising. It might be time to declare the reader an endangered species. But the protection of endangered species is itself endangered, so I wouldn’t count on it. And I would hate to be part of a future zoo exhibit titled “the endangered reader” with the mock habitat of a wing chair and a booklined room.

I’ve long pondered what we can do. About all I’ve concluded is that we avoid at all costs “should-ing” over non-readers. I almost wonder if we need to reach a cultural moment where people discover reading as this “cool new thing,” kind of like how the masses seem to have rediscovered vinyl when we all thought vinyl was dead, replaced by shiny discs in cheesy jewel cases.

My sense is that things like this still spread by word of mouth as people simply gossip about the good thing of reading in their lives, and maybe pass along books they’ve loved. In other words, don’t protect booklovers, but rather turn them loose to share the “disease!”

Five Articles Worth Reading

On that note, “Reading Is a Vice” argues against our strategies of arguing the virtues of reading. After all, we “do it for the thrill of staying up late to read under the covers by flashlight, unable to stop and hoping no one finds out.”

Reviewers have positively reviewed Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine in a number of major publications (even at Bob on Books!) In “Against Doom,” Emma Collins challenges Kingsnorth’s anti-technology jeremiad, concluding, “I’m tired of doom, and of doom being passed off as Christianity. Remember this: faith is about life. It’s about joy. It’s about salvation. Don’t get it twisted.”

I’ve been in a number of conversations, the gist of which is “young men are not doing well.” Richard Reeves, in “Making Men,” argues for “rites of passage,” in helping boys make the transition to responsible manhood.

However, some would argue our society as a whole is not doing so well. on one hand, we exalt radical individualism. But then we wring our hands over how to address the loneliness epidemic. Kristin M. Collier, a physician, argues that at the heart of Christian faith is restoring relationships with God, others, and ourselves. She explores the significance of communion as health in “Religio Medici.”

Lastly, this time between the end of one year and the beginning of another lends itself to consider the complexities of time, which we often take for granted. JSTOR posted a great collection of articles, “Keeping Time: A New Year’s Collection,” offering a variety of slants on this mysterious phenomenon we call “time.”

Quote of the Week

Historian John Hope Franklin was born on January 2, 1915. This quote makes the case for why we don’t erase the unhappy episodes of our history:

“If the house is to be set in order, one cannot begin with the present; he must begin with the past.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I wonder if book influencers will remember books published this month when they make their “best of the year” picks for 2026.

I love Ohio history and so I’m enjoying getting into Ann Hagedorn’s Beyond the River. It’s an account of the abolitionist and underground railroad efforts of the residents of the Ohio River town of Ripley. In particular, it focuses on Rev. John Rankin, who coupled prayer, and fighting off fugitive slave hunters with his rifle.

However, I hate cancer, which has killed people I loved and afflicted many who are near and dear. I’ve even had brushes with it in the form of a couple of skin cancers caught early. I’ve liked Siddhartha Mukherjee’s elegant writing and so have picked up his fascinating “biography” of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies. I’m early my reading, but one striking advance is that a cancer diagnosis is no longer a badge of shame.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Tuesday: Gerhard Lohfink, Prayer Takes Us Home

Wednesday: Nicole Massie Martin, Nailing It

Thursday: Andrew Hui, The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries

Friday: William F,. Buckley, Marco Polo, If You Can

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap  for December 28-January 3.

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