Reading Is (NOT) a Vice
Several people recently recommended I read an article from The Atlantic called, provocatively, “Reading Is a Vice” (Jan. 2, 2026). Author Adam Kirsch argues that if we want young Americans…
Is Listening to Audiobooks Reading?
In a guest essay in the Times (November 23, 2025), Brian Bannon, the chief librarian at the New York Public Library and its director of branch libraries and education, argues…
The State of Literacy in the Digital Age
Five years ago, Planet Word opened its doors with a bold mission: to spark a love of words, language, and reading in people of all ages — at a time…
A Manifesto for Planet Word 2.0
Back in 2013 when we started planning a museum of words and language, it was mainly intended to be a new way to bring disaffected readers back into the fold…
Happiness and Literacy: The Dinner-Table Connection
In an interview with The Washington Post’s weekly family section (“The mundane, radical, fun, painful ways we can help our children find happiness” by Deborah Famer Kris, February 2, 2023),…
Prison Reading
So the latest financial outlaw and crypto-currency-exchange fraudster, Sam Bankman-Fried, was quoted in an interview prior to his downfall and arrest as proclaiming “I would never read a book.” Who…