All language subtitles for The Next Big Idea - READING Are We Forgetting How To Do It.en

LinkedIn presents.

I'm Rufus Griskin and
this is the next big

idea. Today, are we
forgetting how to read?

It has become clear
to me, watching by three

sons navigate the world,
that the way they absorb

information is very
different from the way

I did, maybe the way
you did growing up.

Video, they would
say, without hesitation,

is simply a better
mode of communication.

Writing is old-fashioned,
it's outmoded. They're

not alone. Many of my
friends report that they do

not read as much as they
used to. Instead of opening

up a novel, they turn to
Netflix in the evenings.

Indeed, some friends
have told me, and these

are bright folks engaged
in the world of ideas,

that they can't remember the
last time they finished a book.

What has happened to us?
Is reading going the way

of the hammer Dulsomer?
And if so, is that okay?

I am honestly torn on
this question. On the one

hand, I think whenever
technology has changed

communication, we have
resisted that change.

Socrates thought the
written word was a potentially

catastrophic threat
to critical thinking.

Of course, non-digital
natives like me feel

nostalgia for the good
old days, but my kids have

a point. Video is a great
medium for communicating

complex ideas and sharing
appreciation for the

sublime. Who's to say
"breaking bad" isn't today's

"war and peace"? And
for my kids, it's not

just a medium they
consume, it's a language,

one in which they're
fluent. They shoot and

edit video with ease.
Who knows, maybe digital

communication will prove to be more
useful to them than the written word.

On the other hand, I don't rule out
the possibility that my kids are lazy,

Philistines, whose
minds are turning into

applesauce. I fear at
times that they and we

are losing what my
guests today, Marianne

Wolfe, calls cognitive
Patience. Marianne,

who is the world's
pre-eminent expert on reading,

says deep reading is
critical to our capacity

to sit with ideas, digest
them, work through them,

and respond thoughtfully.
We think, after all,

in words. So more
time with words, it

seems, should help
us think more clearly.

Marianne is a professor
at UCLA and the author of

several books, including
"Pruced in the Squid,"

"The Story and
Science of the Reading

Brain," and most
recently "Reader Come Home,

The Reading Brain
in a Digital World."

The point she makes
in those books is this.

Reading is not natural.
It isn't in our genes. To

read, we have to repurpose
neural circuits that

evolved to do other things.
And this unnaturalness

makes reading fragile,
vulnerable, difficult.

We may take reading
for granted, treat it

like a birthright, but
it's not. It's a skill.

And like any skill,
you use it or lose it.

This, by the way,
is not hypothetical.

Research suggests
our collective ability

to read slowly,
critically, to read deeply,

as Marianne puts it, has
already begun to deteriorate.

What will we lose if
we allow it to degrade

any further? Well, as
Marianne sees it, a great

deal. Like our ability
to think analytically and

generate new ideas, the
entwined arts of Patience

and empathy, even our
democracy may be at risk.

Luckily, though,
Marianne believes we can

find our way back to
the kind of deep reading

that's been so vital to
our species for so long.

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[Music]

Marianne Wolf, welcome to
the Next Big Idea Podcast.

What a pleasure roof
was to be with you. For

all kinds of reasons,
I look forward to this

conversation and the directions
you are going to guide us in.

I am so happy to be
talking with you today.

I have been deep in
your last two books,

"Pruced in the Squid," "The Story
and Science of the Reading Brain,"

and your latest reader come home,
"The Reading Brain in the Digital World."

And your books are both a powerful
argument for the importance of reading

and an expression of
the joy of writing and

reading because they're
beautifully written.

Let's make a case at
the opening here for

the urgency of this
topic in this moment.

I mean, I'm sure there
are people thinking, "Oh,

reading." That sort of is
not the most exciting topic.

But it is so critical.
I feel this personally. I

have three boys who seem
to believe that reading

is a backup system
if the power goes out.

But you have persuaded
me through your books

that this is important
not just for our

children, but for the
future of democracy,

for our nation, for our
species. And I've witnessed

firsthand raising three
sons that were in this

extraordinary moment where
the ways that we learn,

the ways that we
communicate, the ways that we

ingest information are
fundamentally changing.

And why does this
matter? Because reading,

I've learned from reading
your books, is a kind

of cultural innovation
that we've adopted in the

last several thousand
years that has rewired our

brains. And if we are
deprioritizing reading right

now, and there's
evidence that we are, this

means the brains of
future generations are

effectively being wired
differently and maybe not

for the better. Do you
see this as an important

moment, as a hinge moment?
Oh, absolutely. And here

is what I will do to
talk to your sons and mine.

For them to understand
and appreciate the digital

screen world is a wonderful
tool that is necessary

for their existence.
At the same time, they

don't understand what
that is potentially

disrupting or diminishing from what
are the benefits of the other medium.

So I am asking all of
us in this hinge moment

to understand what each
medium does to change

our brain. And here we
come back to your initial

point, literacy changes
the circuit of the brain

of an individual, which
collectively changes

the way that society
thinks, which over time

changes the way that society
works, which eventually

over time changes our
species and how our species

thinks, acts, and
behaves to one another. So

the question of whether
reading is important is

eclipsed by the question
of how will the human

species learn to preserve
its best processes.

of thinking as it
expands and elaborates

that very circuit
with new processes.

I believe the first line
of the first chapter of

"Pruced in the Squid"
is we were never born to

read. You go on to say,
"Human beings invented

reading only a few
thousand years ago." And with

this invention, we rearranged
the very organization

of our brain, which in
turn expanded the ways we

were able to think, which
altered the intellectual

evolution of our species.
So it's an argument

that I had never really
seen assembled in this

way. Because I think
we all know that like,

evolutions happens over
hundreds of thousands of

years, millions of years,
not a few thousand years.

So language comes
naturally to a child who's

born into a family.
But the ability to read,

we all know as parents,
does not just happen by

itself. So your argument,
as I understand it,

is that this actually
requires a really deeply

intensive, immersive
process of studying and

training over the course
of a decade or more to

become expert readers.
And in the process of doing

that, we're rewiring
our brains. And this

process, which began
some 6,000 years ago,

really came to fruition a
couple thousand years ago

with the Greek alphabet,
which had some advantages,

seems to have been an
enormous benefit to our

species in terms of
the kind of thinking and

communication it made
possible. Do you want to

talk a little bit about,
I mean, I had no idea.

that the 26th letter
alphabet was itself

a kind of open system
that all of a sudden

made it possible for all the
spoken languages to be written down.

It's an enormous
intellectual epiphany to be

able to transcribe any
language with characters.

and keep it as an historical
memory that would be

democratically available.
We could now preserve

and didn't have to
rediscover the wheel generation

after generation by
carrying on through oral

language the traditions
and the body of knowledge.

So we could have this
body or corpus preserved,

and that became a platform
for going beyond it.

We tend to think of reading
as a singular activity,

but in fact, there are
many levels or degrees

of depth, you might say,
of reading. Can you tell

us about deep reading
and the miraculous beauty

of what happens in the
brain when we read deeply?

Yes, you know, Rufus,
I'm so glad you asked that

question. It all comes
back to the fact that when

we learn to read, we make
this most basic circuit

that connects visual
and linguistic areas with

cognitive areas and
then affective areas as we

elaborate over time.
But we can either develop

that circuit and
elaborate it with everything

that we read. Alberto
Mungal always talks about

the geometric progression
that happens in reading

from one book, preparing
ourselves to read more

deeply another. Well,
the brain actually does

that with neuronal
networks of connectivity.

that connect more
and more cognitively

sophisticated processes
to that very basic circuit.

Over time, we begin
to connect all that

we know, the background
knowledge, and use

analogical reasoning
to compare it to whatever

new text, our new
information we're getting.

And there's a kind of
frontal lobe dance, if

you will, that's going
on between what we know

and what we're encountering.
But that's just the

beginning because in
that dance, the background

knowledge is happening
and feeding the center. But

we're using it for really
important, sophisticated

processes. And I say
this to your sons, to my

sons, to society. We are
using inference. We are

using deduction and
induction with that, if you

will, that exchange of
what we know and what we're

learning. We're making
inferences. Is this true?

Or is this misinformation,
or worst of all,

these days, disinformation,
we have the ability

through these deep
reading processes to add our

own background knowledge,
our inference, our

deductions, our inductions
to make a critical

analysis of what is
written. There may be little

more important for a
democracy than to have truly

critical analytic
citizens. So when we citizens

of a society read
something, do we deploy.

those very important
deep reading processes

that give us the ability
to discern the truth

and attempt to
understand the thoughts and

feelings of others?
And you know this, Rufus,

but this wonderful interview that
former President Barack Obama had.

One of my favorite
novelists, Marilyn Robinson,

he had an interview
with her in which he said,

I consider you, I
think he used the term,

"ambassadore of empathy."
And what she said was,

the tendency towards
seeing others as enemies

and not to read so that
we understand others,

but the tendency to
see others as enemies

is the greatest threat
to democracy today.

I was so moved by the
quote you have in the

book from Barack Obama,
in his conversation with

Marilyn Robinson,
in which he talks

about what he learned
about being a citizen

from novels. Obama said,
"It has to do with empathy.

It has to do with being
comfortable with the

notion that the world
is complicated and full

of grace, but there's
still truth to be found,

and that you have to
strive for that and work

for that, and the notion
that it's possible to

connect with someone
else, even though they're

very different from you."
So I do think that this

is something that people
can debate the relative

merits of different
genres, of different mediums

of communication, but it
does feel like novels in

particular are extraordinary
empathy exercises,

more so than maybe any
other medium. I can't

agree with you more.
And I say that from the

standpoint of someone
who like your sons and

like so many in our
society, I truly love film,

but the novel gives
us a chance to pause

in the moment where
the film, the screen,

is always rushing us
along into the next

thought, the next
feeling, the next scene,

but the novel like
few other mediums.

It allows us to pause
in the midst of that

character's feelings
and to experience

and identify it like
few other experiences.

It is this incredible
kind of rigorous workout

in, as we were saying,
the ability to get inside

the head of another
human, and that Barack

Obama and you and I
and many others think is

critical to democracy
around some level, right?

Is that we're able to
really inhabit to the

extent that we can, the
thoughts and minds and

experiences of other
people. Getting back to deep

reading, you quote a few
times Marcel Proust who

calls reading that fertile
miracle of communication,

affected in solitude. Our wisdom begins
where that of the author leaves off.

This notion that it's a
duet, it's a dance, and

that this is how reading
is maybe different from a

film, maybe different
from some of these other

mediums of communication,
in that because it is a

somewhat low fidelity
medium, because not everything

is contained in the
words, there is room and

space to react and fill
in the blanks and push

back and have a kind of
dialogue with that which

we read. You were just
putting your thumbprint,

your intellectual
thumbprint, Rufus,

on the heart of what
Proust was really trying

to tell us. Very few
people understand what he

really got the heart
of, which is Proust was

saying, we leave the
wisdom of the author behind

to discover our own.
That's the heart of it all.

And you know, as much
as I love film and as much

as I'm on the digital screen
out of both intentionality

and you know, there's
efficiency, I do not

enter and pause in that
sanctuary. I think even

the word pause, we go
there, we stop, we think,

we take the measure of
ourselves along with the

measure of that author's
words and we are changed.

That doesn't happen as
easily in other genres. To

read this way, it seems
to be that it's important

to give ourselves permission
to go slowly. Quickly,

perhaps, when we're
excited, I love this notion

that you talk about
it, "Talo Calvino's use

of that" and expression,
"Testino Lente."

Hurry slowly, right?
When we get in this, as

I'm speaking to you now,
I've got a goosebumps,

I've got a goosebumps
because this, when we get

in these transported
moments of reading deeply,

we're rushing excitedly
to the next sentence and

then slowing down and
rolling it over and reading

it again. And it's, I
think of how people used

to type with typewriters
when writing the spaces

between the lines so you
could go back and write

in between the lines.
And I thought you have to

read slowly enough so there is space
between the lines for you to think.

Beautiful. When I was
in the 1980s, when I was

in high school, my
parents put me in a speed

reading class. They
thought this would be good

for me, right? And where
they would train you and

force you to read at
these incredible speeds.

And it was kind of
interesting because you would

actually find that you
could skim very quickly.

But I later had to
unlearn the habit because I

realized like, wait a
second, what is the objective

here? Is the objective
to get the gist of the

information? Or are you
trying to fully absorb and

interact with it? Are
you trying to let the words

base to let them marinate?
And so I mean, obviously

you need to have texts
that's worthy of that kind

of treatment. But I think
that part of what I see

as a sort of beautiful
thrust of your argument

is that this particular
kind of reading is also

a kind of thinking and
a form of learning that

is really critical to
developing human beings

who can think critically
and empathetically.

And we need this for
our society. We want

this for our children,
but more than that,

we need it as a species
to be able to think this

way. And there's evidence
that our ability to do

this is eroding. Is
that accurate? Yes, is

unfortunately one of the
things I would tell your sons,

as I've told mine, the
largest meta analysis that's

ever been done has been
a compilation of over 50

studies in which from
the year 2000 to the year

2017, in which they simply
looked at any study that

had a comparison of
the same story or text in

the two mediums, print
and screen, and then ask

comprehension questions
that got out. Did the

person understand this,
the plot, the sequence of

details, etc. And the
results showed incredibly

that print was truly
superior for that kind of

comprehension. But Akerman
in Israel then looked

at what these young
adults thought themselves

about what was better
for them. And they would

say, Oh, we know we
did better on the screen,

because we can read
faster. And you see, there

is this unquestioned
assumption that speed,

I think David Yulin
said this, that speed is

illumination, when speed is
actually often skipping to the

gist of the information,
which is all we need

in a lot of things
that we do, like email,

you know, we don't
need to have every word.

But if it is anything
that is worth its real.

use of deep reading,
what we have done is

absolutely skipped
beauty. We have skipped

the elaboration, the
historical elaboration of

arguments that led to
this particular viewpoint.

We have skipped the details that might
even in some novels portray the very.

resolution of the mystery
the whole work had been

building towards. And
there are works in which

there are pauses that
if you miss them, you've

missed that the protagonist
just, you know, in one

book, one short story,
I'll never forget, if

you missed this one
ellipsis, just an ellipsis,

you don't know that this
villain has impregnated

the heroine. An ellipsis,
you missed an ellipsis.

You can't speed read
that short story. But

it is the fact that
we are living in such

an over networked,
speeded society and

culture. And I'm
absolutely part of it.

Yes, yes. We all
are. We can't remember

where we left that
heart of reading, that

interiority, that sanctuary. We know
it's in there because we learned it.

Yes. But we in neuroscience,
you have this this

platitude, use it or
lose it. We lose our way.

We lose our way back.
And that's why my book

was called Reader Come
Home. So many people even

tell me when reading
enough to know why it's got

that title. But it's
the home that I don't want

people to forget their way
back to. How did Marianne

find her way back home
when she too lost her way?

That story right
after the break.

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[Music]

David Uland, who
you just quoted. Yes.

Had another wonderful
quote in your book. He

said, "To read, we need
a certain kind of silence

that seems increasingly elusive
in our over network society."

And it's not contemplation
we desire, but an odd

kind of distraction.
Distraction masquerading

as being in the know.
And he goes on to say,

"Reading is an act of
resistance in a landscape of

distraction." I really
get quote so loud. Isn't

that wonderful? But I
feel this. It's a radical

act. It feels like to
read a long book start

to finish. It feels
wildly anachronistic and

an active resistance
perhaps. And do you know

what my sons wanted the
title of my book to be?

I'm dying to know. I'm
dying to know. TLDR. Clearly,

we both have colorful
conversations with our

children at the dinner
table on this topic of

reading. We also have to
say to be fair that we're

all struggling now,
right? In this digital age,

with having this kind
of silence that David

Uland talks about, the
certain kind of silence

we need, the cognitive
Patience is another term

you use, right? The
cognitive Patience to do

this kind of deep reading
we're talking about.

And you had your own
experience, didn't you?

And you went back to
read one of your favorite

authors, Herman Hesse.
Yes. In the Herman Hesse, I

knew everything. I knew
it was one of my favorite

books. I wasn't going
to be surprised. So I

could really just enter
it, I thought. Instead,

it was almost paralyzing
my cerebral cortex to try

to get the rhythm of
his prose, which is dense,

its labyrinthine, it's
sometimes nauseatingly

circuitous. And I couldn't
read it. I was so upset

with myself. And I said
in the book, I said, why

in the world did anybody
ever give him the Nobel

Prize for literature?
Right, right. You didn't

like it. You thought,
well, maybe I was wrong.

I didn't really like
it. And here it had been

one of my favorite
books. The moral, however,

was I discovered I
couldn't immerse myself. I

couldn't, when I'm
telling people to find their

way back home, I was
lost in my own digital

bleed over from the
dominant reading mode,

which is get the
information fast, efficiently,

and move on. And you
can't do that with some

novel, some novels, you
can't find. I do that on

an airplane with a Kindle,
nothing against that.

It's a relaxation of
the mind. But for the

immersive quality, in
which we really do enter

others, and we enter
other thoughts and feelings

that can elicit our
own, we have to have this

Patience that I myself
have lost, regained.

I had to discipline
myself for two weeks and

20 minutes a day. And
then finally, I came to

the point where it was
like coming back home. I

rediscovered myself. But
Rufus, you have to keep

disciplining yourself.
I have found that if I

book into my day with
really an effort to enter

even a paragraph or a page
of theology or spiritual

or philosophical
reading, but something that

demands nothing but my
Patience, nothing but my

thinking. And I began
that day and it reminds

me of how, and I really
mean this, what a little

ant we human beings are.
You know, we're going to

spend the rest of our
day thinking how important

we are and how important
all the things we have to

do are and we rush with
them. And we're distracted

constantly. And then we
come back and we do something,

we think, Oh, this is
marvelous. Aren't we great?

Ha. We really need to
come to that place where

we're not the center of
the world, but rather we

see the world and we try
on humbly other viewpoints,

humbly entering sometimes
even the spiritual

domain in which we feel
glimpses of the transcendent,

glimpses of what it is
to think about the highest

thoughts. But it
requires absolute

slowing down and
leaving the world behind.

I think of it almost as
a form of meditation. Oh,

it is. But it's more
interesting than meditation.

Well, you know, the
great irony is that we're

reading more than ever
right now. I think you say

50,000 to 100,000 words
per day, which is almost

like the length of a
book, right? That's an

extraordinary amount of
reading, but it's mostly

not deep reading, right?
It's a different kind of

reading. Very little of
it is. And that's a piece

of what happened to
deep reading right there.

Because all of us
are so bombarded by

information are so
easily distracted by the

thousand profiteers who
are trying to take our

distraction and and earn
something from it or use

it because of all
of that. We can't

help but use skimming.
And then we miss it.

Talo Calvinos plea to
us to realize that, you

know, the true author is
doing everything they can

to find the most perfect
expression for their

best thought. Well, we
miss all of that. And then

the publishers, they
realize, well, we can't

read that much deeply so
that things get shorter,

less dense. And I don't
mean just novels. I mean,

even our scientific
articles are becoming shorter,

less devoted to the
historical argumentation.

And then the authors
who need to be published

are changing how they
write. And then what happens?

And this is going full
circle back to what you

call that hinge moment.
We change. We're reading

what we're given. And it
has changed because of how

we learn to read with all
that information. So the

defense strategy and the
novelty reflects that we

have. And this sense
of being overwhelmed,

which pushes us to use
these familiar silos of

information that just
confirm our original bias.

Therefore, we don't take
perspectives of others.

We end up impoverished shallow
readers. And that's the danger.

I'm now going to take
on the role, Marianne,

of being a devil's
advocate here and engaging

you in a bit of debate
because although we clearly

are capable of finishing
each other's sentences.

but I think it's
fascinating to go back to this

moment when Socrates
was telling Plato that the

transition from the
oral to written language

threatens critical thought.
It threatens a culture

of dialogue that is
critical for us to be able

to think clearly. Socrates
mercilessly attacked

those who, quote, "think
like papyrus roles being

neither able to answer
your questions nor to ask

themselves." You write,
Socrates did not fear

reading. He feared
superfluity of knowledge and

its corollary superficial
understanding, which

is amazing because
that's exactly what we fear

today. There's too
much information. We're

concerned about
superficial understanding.

So I can't help but
raise the question, will

we always feel a sense
of nostalgia and loss

when our modes of
communication change? No.

So my real argument is
that it is not a binary

print versus screen. And
so I ask all of us, do not

ever think about either
or but rather what is best

for the purpose of
what you're reading.

And there are
individual differences,

there are developmental
differences, but I will

ask everyone until we
have still more knowledge

about how to have our
generation steeped in both,

I plea for all of us to
consider how to preserve

that deep reading brain
in the next generation

so that it can be used
across mediums and with

intentionality so that
we don't end up really,

you're individually
being a video culture.

And I love some of the
research on what it's

doing for high hand
coordination, for speed of

decision making, all
that's fine. But what is it

doing for true comprehension,
for those deep reading.

critical analytic
processes, show me that data.

And I can show you at
least till this point

that it is going to
demand that until we know

better how to have the
system redress its own

weaknesses, and that is
going on, until we know

how to do that, build
deep reading brains with

print for 10 years, 12
years, and then have our

teachers learn how to
help transfer those deep

reading skills to hybrid
or digital screens and

really be consciously
aware that we are building a

bilettorate brain
until I know differently.

That's how I want to
preserve as we expand.

So okay, we should all
be building bilettorate

brains, but don't feel
bad if you prefer podcasts

to magazines or
audiobooks to print. There's

a spoken word renaissance
going on right now.

I'm coming up, Marianne and I
discuss why that's a good thing.

Hey folks, quick update
from Next Big Idea Club

headquarters. We recently
launched a new podcast

with our friends at
LinkedIn. It's called the

Next Big Idea Daily,
and it's hosted by my

brilliant colleague, he
of the Malefluis baritone,

Michael Kavnatt. Every
week in 10 minutes or less,

you'll get a mini
masterclass in better, smarter

living from thought
leaders like Greg McEwen,

Jonah Burger, Jesse
Hemple, and Adam Copnick.

It's really a wonderful
show to listen, follow

the Next Big Idea Daily,
wherever you get your podcasts.

So there are a few areas
of hopefulness that I

see when I look out into
the world. One of them

actually is the world of
podcasting. I see podcasting

culture as really quite
reminiscent of this.

socratic courtyard. We
had a wonderful conversation

with Annie Murphy-Paul
who wrote a great book

called The Extended Mind,
which he cited fascinating

research by Hugo
Mercier and Dan Spurber,

showing that when we
think individually,

we have these
cognitive blind spots,

got confirmation bias, and
so on, where we basically

were very good at
convincing ourselves of what

we want to believe
when we are thinking in

isolation. But we're
much better at being

critical thinkers when
interacting with others.

And so when we think in
groups, we are much less

susceptible to these
kinds of biases. So this

push-pull of people having
dialogue and listening

to others, I think
there are probably quite a

few people, maybe some
listeners now, for whom.

podcasts have replaced
some amount of reading. And

I would argue that that's
not necessarily a bad

thing because I think the
podcast may be resuscitating

some of the healthy elements
of Socrates' courtyard.

I can't agree with
you more, and I love the

analogy. And I think
it's also so exciting and

hopeful to think that
we are making these

various courtyards
available to people.

I would, however, not
I don't want to use the

word pushback, but I
will use the term differ

because I do differ from
the idea that podcasts

is an am... it can be an
amplification of what was

written, but you see
the act of writing itself

is so generative. And
so that is... that's what

what I love about writing
at its best. And that's

what Tony Morris has
said. Word work is sublime,

it is generative. I
think there is something

extraordinary miraculous.
This inexpressible drive

we have to use written
language to propel our own

thoughts. And I will say
that is irreplaceable by

any other genre, but
that doesn't mean it can't

be complemented by
podcasts. I think podcasts

will not, in my mind,
replace either the writing

or the reading of
books that give us pause.

in a very particular
way. One other argument I

would put forward is
that the power of the human

voice is extraordinary.
And it's easy to forget

that these modes of
communication that we see as

sacrosancts were always
based on the technologies

available at a given
moment in time. So if audio

recordings had been
available several thousand

years ago, that might
have been chosen as a

superior. And one of
my favorite conversations

we've had on the show is
with John Calapinto author,

This is the Voice.
And he writes and speaks

lyrically about the
power of the human voice,

which he calls molecular
lasagna. Delivering is

that wonderful. Delivering
all these layers of

meaning and communication
in parallel. And so talking

with you, Marianne,
your writing is beautiful,

but in some sense, your
speech to me is even more

beautiful. You have such
varied levels of emphasis.

If you were writing in
text, what you're saying

right now, we'd need
like 10 different levels of

italics or bold thought
to express all these sort

of levels of emphaticness.
We can feel the warmth

and generosity of your
attention through your

voice. So I, you know,
I think that though,

audio is worse, I think,
for retention. And it's

it makes it makes
rereading harder. And I think

rereading is an important
part of this deep reading

experience. I do think
feel like there are extra

layers of communication
that are powerful

and that maybe your
sons would agree with.

Oh, I have never heard
the term molecular lasagna,

but I will savor it.
And I certainly wouldn't

have come up with
lasagna, but he's absolutely

correct. There is this
auditory architecture

to how we use our words.
And when we think about

the beginnings of
language in the human being,

the first aspect of
language is music. The first

thing that I almost
gasped over was when my six

week old baby at this,
I just happened to have a

video right there taping
David. And he was going,

he was grasping music
in in our exchange.

He was grasping what
we call linguistics,

prosody. But what it
is, is the melodic contour

that the voice gives
language. And I haven't read

this is your voice. I
really want to, but I

couldn't agree more that
there are special gifts.

that we might call the
affordances of the voice,

as well as the affordances
of print or the screen.

Yes, I love that. Well, now that I've
exercised all of my devil's advocacy,

I want to confess,
Marianne, that I completely

agree with you in terms
of the importance of

building biliterate
brains in ourselves and our

children and preserving
deep reading so important.

Thank you so much Marianne
for your time today.

It's just been delightful
to talk with you.

It was truly a joy. It
was a fertile miracle of

communication. Yes, it
was, even though it was

not in text format,
I'd rather that.

And that's our show. To learn more
about Marianne's work, visit her website,

mariannewolf.com. A quick
note before I go, really

a confession. When I was
reading Marianne's book,

Reader Come Home, it
occurred to me that she might

see what we do here at
the next big idea club

as part of the problem.
We, like you, don't have

time to read as many
books as we would like to.

So we partner with
the worlds of leading

nonfiction authors to
create 10 to 15 minute

audio and text summaries
of their books. This

at first blush feels
at odds with a slow,

methodical, trance-like
reading that Marianne

is all about. But the
more I thought about it,

the more I came to
realize that the work we do

isn't antithetical to
deep reading. It's really

a compliment to it.
More than four million

books are published
every year, four million,

deciding what to read can be
as hard as finding time to read.

That's where the next
big idea club comes in.

We're a collection of
readers, journalists,

former book editors, and
we look far and wide to

identify the very best
new books from the best

writers in the world.
And then every day in our

next big idea app, we
deliver the five key insights

from a brand new book
in 10 to 15 minutes

of audio and text
directly from the author.

If it moves you by
the book, go deeper. If

not, tune in tomorrow
for the next new book.

Tell me what you think of
this mission. Does it resonate

for you? You can reach me
at rufus@nextbigideaclub.com.

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The Next Big Idea. Today's episode
was produced by Caleb Bissinger,

sound designed by
Mike Tota. The team

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ambassadors of empathy.

I'm your host Rufus
Griskam. See you next week.