Something alarming is happening with reading in America. Leisure reading by some accounts has declined by about 50 percent this century. Literacy scores are declining for fourth and eighth graders at alarming rates. And even college students today are complaining to teachers that they can’t read entire books. The book itself, that ancient piece of technology ... Show More
Yesterday
Why the Iran War Is Tearing MAGA Apart
For nearly a decade, critics have predicted that this would be the moment Trumpism finally fractures - January 6, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, endless internal feuds, even Trump’s online beef with Pope Leo. And yet the movement endures. Derek is joined by Ross Douthat to unpac ... Show More
58m 21s
Apr 24
The Triple Crisis That’s Breaking Hollywood—and Changing the Future of Movies
Hollywood is in the middle of a triple crisis. You can measure it in tickets, jobs, and ideas. Start with tickets. The best year for the movie business this century was 2002, when Americans and Canadians bought 1.6 billion tickets, or about five per person. Last year, Americans b ... Show More
1h 10m
Apr 21
The Most Powerful and Dangerous AI Model Yet
Two weeks ago, Anthropic announced an AI model so capable and so dangerous that it decided not to release it to the public. The model, codenamed Mythos, could autonomously infiltrate computer systems around the world, exploit security vulnerabilities, conceal its own reasoning, a ... Show More
1h 2m
Dec 2024
The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)
Recently, professors at elite colleges told Atlantic writer Rose Horowitch that their students don’t read whole books anymore. They blamed cell phones, standardized tests, and extracurriculars, and they mostly agreed that the shift began in high school. In this episode of Radio A ... Show More
25m 27s
Nov 2022
This Conversation About the 'Reading Mind' Is a Gift
<p>Every day, we consume a mind-boggling amount of information. We scan online news articles, sift through text messages and emails, scroll through our social-media feeds — and that’s usually before we even get out of bed in the morning. In 2009, a team of researchers found that ... Show More
1h 9m
Mar 2025
Karl Berglund, "Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Streaming Age" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
What is the future of reading? In Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Digital Age (Bloombury, 2024), Karl Berglund, Assistant Professor in Literature at Department of Literature and Rhetoric at Upsala University, examines the rise of audiobooks as a new mode of reading ... Show More
36m 42s
Jun 2025
Evan Osnos, Author Talks New Book
Evan Osnos, author and New Yorker staff writer, discusses his new book "The Haves and Have-Yachts." The New York Times bestseller breaks down how the ultra-rich hold more of America's wealth now than they ever did, and how a world of superyachts, luxury bunkers and political dona ... Show More
6m 7s
May 2025
First Steps to Fluency: How Young Learners Become Independent Readers with Virginia Quinn Mooney
<p><b>Episode 226</b></p><p>In this episode, Virginia discusses the importance of fluency in K-2 grades, emphasizing its role in reading comprehension. She shares strategies for teaching fluency, including within partner reading, read-alouds, and shared reading. Virginia highligh ... Show More
39m 26s
Jul 2025
100 Years of ‘The Great Gatsby’
<p>This year, “The Great Gatsby” turns 100.</p><p>A.O. Scott, a critic at large for The New York Times Book Review, tells the story of how an overlooked book by a 28-year-old author eventually became the great American novel, and explores why all of these decades later, we still ... Show More
41m 52s
<p><b>In this episode of </b><b><em>Literacy Talks</em></b><b>, the trio excitedly welcomes Emily Hanford, the award-winning journalist and media producer whose work and </b><a href='https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/'><b><em>Sold a Story</em></b></a><b> podcast have c ... Show More
