I speak as an unregenerate reader, one who still believes that language and not technology is the true evolutionary miracle. I have not yet given up on the idea that the experience of literature offers a kind of wisdom that cannot be discovered elsewhere; that there is profundity in the verbal encounter itself, never mind what further profundities

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all serious intellectual work happens on the page, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. If you want to contribute to the world of ideas, if you want to entertain and manipulate complex thoughts, you have to read and write.

At first, most of humankind's ideas and stories were fleeting, bound to voices and memories as impermanent as the wind. With writing they solidified. And with paper, they became immutable objects capable of travelling through time. The medium, especially in its modern form, revolutionized knowledge, art, and the sciences. It liberated thoughts by... See more