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Authors' Matters by ALCS
Authors' Matters is a podcast by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) where we talk to writers from across the profession about how they earn their living, or at least try to. From copyright to contracts, we’ll also talk about issues that make the writing living easier or more difficult.
Authors' Matters by ALCS
S5 Ep1: The Lost Art of Reading
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We know that adults are reading less than ever and scrolling more but what does this mean for writers and the wider publishing ecosystem? And how can we fix it?
Publisher Joanna Prior and writer Sathnam Sanghera sit down with host Caroline Sanderson to share their thoughts and solutions to the reading crisis - we guarantee listeners will go away inspired to read more.
Hello and welcome to Authors Matters, the podcast from the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society, or ALCS for short. Hosted by me, Caroline Sanderson, a writer and journalist. From Copyright to AI, this season we're talking about some of the wider issues that impact writers' lives and careers. And in these fast-changing times, we're also discussing the place and importance of creativity in all our lives. On this episode of Authors Matters, we consider the decline in reading and what that might mean for writers, publishers, booksellers, and the creative industries more widely, and for the health of our society too. In this national year of reading, the figures are deeply concerning. More than a third of UK adults state that they've given up reading, while the National Literacy Trust has reported shocking and dispiriting falls in children's reading, which last year was at its lowest level on record. Happily, the latest 2026 research shows a modest rise in children's reading engagement, but levels remain low. Now, obviously, this is worrying for writers, but some people have characterised the decline in reading as marking a much broader societal crisis with far-reaching implications. Reading for pleasure, as we know, is vitally important, but the skills that we hone when we read are potentially vital ones too. Learning and critical thinking, and empathy, and our ability to engage with the ideas and viewpoints of others. Still, given the other crises we face in our world, is this just a chattering classes problem? Is it an economic problem? Or is it, as some claim, as I've said, a civilisational problem, which potentially puts democratic society itself at risk? So this is a huge topic, and to help us get to grips with it, in the space of, oh, I don't know, about half an hour, we welcome two eminently qualified guests. Joanna Pryor has had a long and distinguished career in publishing and is currently CEO of publisher Pam Macmillan. She's also chair of the National Literacy Trust. Satnam Sangira is a journalist and author whose books span both fiction and non-fiction. And his most recent is Tonight, The Music Seems So Loud, The Meaning of George Michael. Satnam is also an ambassador for the National Year of Reading. Welcome to both of you. Satnam, you grew up in a house without books, but now you write them. So, in short, what have books done for you? Um, why did you agree to become an ambassador? Yeah, I think the year of reading.
SPEAKER_02I think one of the best things you could do for a child beyond a vaccine and food is to give them a book. And I know that from personal experience. I mean, I grew up in a house where my dad is illiterate, my mum didn't speak English, we had no books at all. If any books came to the house, they're from a library. But I think the reason I am a writer now, the reason I've had the life I've had is because of books. I mean, people talk about what reading does, it promotes empathy, makes you a good citizen, helps you sleep better. But more than anything else for me is they are tools of social mobility. You know, very cheap ones. And I think what's happening, what we're seeing, is a tragedy.
SPEAKER_01Jonah, I know you too are passionate about improving access to books and reading and creativity. And you gave a striking keynote at this year's London Book Fair, in which you stated the reasons why you believe the decline in reading and literacy is a bigger threat to the book business than AI. It's a complicated question, I know, but what brought you to that conclusion?
SPEAKER_00I think we've spent quite a lot of time in the last two or three years as a publishing industry worrying a lot about AI and the impact it's going to have on our business. And rightly so, it's definitely the biggest uh technological shift we've seen. It's societal, the changes are going to be deep and far reaching, and we'll, I'm sure, talk more about that. But it seemed to me that a lot of conversation was worrying about you know whether AI would start writing books and whether it would destroy creativity. And actually, all the while, the big problem for us is a decline in reading per se, and the fact that kids are not reading, adults are stopping reading, and that technology has got in the way sort of of contemplative, quiet time spent reading long-form narrative, and that that's much more of a threat to our future than the idea that a machine might write the next book a price.
SPEAKER_01So you're a writer by profession, and um let's just sort of couch this a little bit as I suppose how it affects writers. ALCS is a writers organization which lobbies for issues that concern writers in parliament. I'm a writer too, as are all ALCS members. So we're part of this whole ecosystem which depends on people of all ages reading. So leaving aside what you've what you've described as a tragedy, sort of the whole the whole scope of it for a moment, how worried are you about this decline in terms of your own profession and that of other writers?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I think it's uh I think it's a civilizational problem. I mean, there's evidence that actually human IQ is falling for the last 10 years. And I think I'm convinced that's because people are reading less. I thought becoming a writer would mean I spend all my time talking about my books, and I do spend a lot of time talking about books, but I spend longer now talking to people who have pretended to read my books. I get every day I get emails from students asking questions which are in my books, but they would rather ask me than read a book. Whenever I teach creative writing now and I ask people who want to write books what they would compare their fantasy project to, they can't tell me. They can't tell me which books they enjoyed. Even the writers I know tend to send me um like Netflix recommendations rather than books now. And I think there's a massive thing going on with human beings now, and it's not just AI, I think it's podcasts. I think more than anything else, it's a scrolling where people are just giving up on thinking. And this is not just a crisis for writers, and it is, but it's a crisis for mankind. And I also feel it a literary event. I know you chair a lot of literary events, and you and I've talked to other writers about this, I don't know if you feel the same way, but you'll do a talk, and 500 people will come, or a thousand or whatever, if you're lucky. About 50 people will buy books. I feel people are instead of reading books, they're going to literary festivals, or they're listening to a podcast, or they're seeing a 90-second video on Instagram. Anything to avoid reading an actual book and employing their brain.
SPEAKER_01Well, here we are recording a podcast. Um yes, it's it's it's interesting about literary events, isn't it? I mean, I guess I don't want to go down that particular rabbit hole, but I mean, I I I personally feel the conversations that we have, those events are vitally important as well. And maybe there's a way that we can we can have both. I mean, Joanna, um, this is another big question, I know, but to what extent do you think this is a literacy problem? And to what extent is it a question of change in habits, the kind of things that Satnam's characterising, perhaps a general digital falling out of love with long-form reading, of at which books are the sort of center?
SPEAKER_00It's all connected, isn't it? I think. Um, I don't think we can separate what's happening to adult behaviour from what's going on in the literacy space with children and in schools, and sort of from birth, actually, the sort of lack of understanding of the sort of importance of a book as a tool for child development. You know, if parents aren't reading themselves and not enjoying reading in their own adult lives, the chances of them, you know, enjoying the point of books with their small children is very slim. And they may know that books are a good thing for a child, but that's not enough, actually. It has to be more about pleasure, enjoyment, the joy of it, um, the connection that gets made between a parent and child or a carer and a child when they're reading from the earliest, earliest stage. And I think if the sort of culture has slipped away around books, then that begins to impact sort of parenting habits as well. So it is this cycle. But I don't want to be entirely doom laden about the sort of adult engagement with books because, on the one hand, I recognise absolutely everything that Satnam is saying, but I'm also very heartened by what's going on through the medium of the enemy of social media. I am very interested in what is going on on book talk. I'm very interested in the sort of bookshop, this the lovely independent bookshop becoming Instagrammable. And, you know, if you walk by certain lovely independent bookshops at the weekend, they are full of people in there, some of them taking photos of their books, buying physical books, arranging them beautifully in their homes, and then putting them on their Instagram feeds. Now, are they sitting down and spending are they reading them? They're not reading them all, for sure they're not reading them all. But the uptick that has happened post the Wuthering Heights movie in sales of Wuthering Heights, I you know, I've seen it in a small way Pam McMillan. But you know, ask Penguin about that. They have sold so many copies.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I believe a bookseller's reporting uh that um with the odd the film of the Odyssey just having come out that people are buying the Odyssey.
SPEAKER_00People are buying the Odyssey. Now, are they going to sit down and read? I don't know, but supposing they read a bit of the Odyssey. I mean, that's great.
SPEAKER_02More than me.
SPEAKER_00Well, there you are. But I I so I think people are finding it hard to sit still and concentrate, and that is possibly not the book's fault, and we can come on to whose fault it is. But I do also think there is something has also is also arriving around the pleasure in the physical object, the fetishization of books again.
SPEAKER_02I think you're right. I mean, I'm not pessimistic. Oh, you're not, no, automatily, because I think there'll be a backlash to this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, there was a survey or some study that came out which found that scrolling is the number one leisure activity that people do. It's also the leisure activity that people enjoy the least. Yeah. And they enjoy reading books much more. And I think there will be a backlash to all of this. And I think within 10 years, there's gonna be such a demand for human activities involving the human brain. Because I think people are tired of this. Even though we all do it, we kind of hate it.
SPEAKER_00We do, and it's the it's and and I think the more we read about the companies that have created these algorithms, you know, the more we are understanding how we are being used and how we are, as Frank Cottrell Boyce puts it brilliantly in his various lectures about this. Uh, you know, we're basically working for Meta as we are scrolling. You know, we are unpaid labour for Meta. And just think about that for a minute. They're buying our attention. Uh, I mean, they're selling our attention, I should say. You know, we are giving them our attention, which they are then monetizing. Why would we do that? You know, you only have to stop and think about that for one second, and you should be deleting Instagram immediately.
SPEAKER_01It's a chilling thought and hopefully a galvanizing one. But I think listening to you both talking, it's sort of about we can't be too purist about this. I mean, I have I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by books all my life and involved with books all my life, and it's very easy for me to be purist about the physical objects of books and how much I love them. But you know, it's it's much more complex now. And Joanna, you mentioned book talk, for example. I mean, this comes back to something that we mentioned at the beginning about technology. So, Pam Whitmillan, in common with most other publishers, releases books in various formats, audiobooks, increasingly popular. Um, and there are lots of ways in which people are sort of engaging, perhaps indirectly with books, but books are still somehow at the centre, holding the centre of this. Um, where do we best put our focus in that case in terms of addressing the reading decline? I mean, I I wonder if physical books are still the top of the tree. You know, neuroscience definitely shows that something different happens in the brain when we read on the printed page. Um if publishers are competing more successfully with people's reading attention, then there's some embrace of technology needed, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Completely. And I I think technology has I think the new technology that is coming now more than ever before because of its power and its uh potential can really boost uh reach, you know. I think that's how we're trying to see it at Pam Macmillan, certainly, is to think of AI, machine learning, new technology tools, let's, you know, there's all sorts of different versions of this, uh, can rocket charge our ability to connect with readers. And I do really believe that. I do really think that marketing campaigns can be you know industrialized, really, by AI in thoughtful ways, always with the human involved, and the reach, therefore, could be greater, the personalization could be greater, so the seduction, in other words, to the potential reader could be more targeted and better. I'm really excited by that. I also think we need to understand much better what the barriers are, and it's one of the great things I think about the National Year of Reading is the research that we've received that's been done during this time to sort of understand what it is that's stopping people. Time is always given as a thing, but actually a lot of it is interest. You know, we're not meeting readers where they are, we're expecting them to, as you say, go into a bookshop, perhaps spend money that they maybe don't have, um in some cases certainly don't have, to read things that actually feel quite hard and not for them, and doesn't in any way reflect their either interests or their background, their experiences. You know, we have to address all of that. And I do think I use this phrase, we need to offer a radical welcome to books, and that I and I do think that technology can help us be more radical in our welcome. And I mean that I think that podcasts that talk about books are a fantastic thing. I think YouTube can be a great help. Listening to a book is reading, and yeah, reading on a Kindle is absolutely reading. And if we start telling people that the choices they're making are wrong, we're not going to grow the market for books in the future.
SPEAKER_01Satam, there's a great array of ambassadors for National Year of Reading, really, really, really diverse, um, as I say, array of authors from all different sort of fields and backgrounds. I mean, you you have lived experience of, as it were, the barriers to books in terms of your work as an ambassador for the National Year of Reading. And I think there's something great about having proper human ambassadors to talk the talk as well. What where where are you putting the emphasis in terms of what you're doing?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I know it continues to be an issue in my life, in that, you know, I've got three siblings, most of them haven't read a single word I've written. I mean, my sister lives in Canada. She's read one of my books, which was a kid's book. Uh, I think my brother has probably read a couple of books in his lifetime, you know, and I do I'm aware constantly that the literary world that we live in is a bit snobby. And I think if the one of the few books you've read is Moonwalker by Michael Jackson, great. I mean, we need more books like that then, you know, and we there is uh snobbery there, you know. But as a personally, I really struggle with I'm also thinking too many writers are anti-AI. I mean, in general, I think it's bad, but also it's not all bad, and it definitely a lot of people are finding engaging and it is sort of reading, and we need to find ways to use AI to get people switching to the physical book, perhaps. I don't know how you do that.
SPEAKER_00No, I mean it it's not a sort of direct route, I don't think. But I think understanding, trying to understand consumers is something that we do as publishers all the time. And I guess the new tools are just helping us do that again, it sort of more quickly, more effectively. Because we can spread our net, you know, we can gather information and then process information so much quicker with the help of AI tools. And that's you know, on the one hand, that's that you know, a purist might say, well, that's just doing the heavy lifting for you, and your brain's not doing that. But actually, when it feels like information is you know is infinite, it's really helpful to kind of well, you need to be able to gather more of it to make your analysis, I think, and to make your decisions than ever.
SPEAKER_02Is maybe that AI is so often wrong.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you know, if you're relying on it for your job, maybe you need a book on that subject. Because you can bet there'll be something wrong in your presentation if you rely on it entirely.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think this probably does link to the issues around non-fiction and the sales of non-fiction at the moment, which are, you know, with a few um present company excluded, very honourable exceptions of you know, books doing well. It's it's much harder. The non-fiction market in the UK is um declining year on year. I mean, it's not uh it's not a huge worry, I wouldn't say, but it's definitely we you know, we look at these signals on a on a month-by-month basis and they're declining at the moment. And I think a lot of that is because um people are going elsewhere for their information. Yeah. So if what you're offering is information in a book rather than a reading experience, it's gonna be a tougher battle, you know, with all the free information that is out there on the internet one way or another.
SPEAKER_02That's also an opportunity. But it's beautiful writing. It's beautiful writing, beautiful writing on AI and telling great stories. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know. Well, I mean, as a as a champion of nonfiction myself, um, I think there are many ways in which we need it more than ever. So that for me is the challenge is squaring those two two things, as you said, the competition from other information sources and what we have in a non-fiction book in terms of its, you know, reliability, the, you know, the creativity of its writing and and all of that. I want to change tack slightly and say, I wanted to ask you both the extent to which the declining reading is a political issue. I don't think this would be a robust discussion if we didn't consider access to books, especially given the cost of living crisis. We're all wanting to sell more books, of course, for our for our various reasons. But uh we mentioned libraries earlier, both public libraries and school libraries have got a huge role to play in allowing people free access to books. Satnam, you you mentioned libraries as you growing up, was where you had access to books. But of course, the past decades have seen library closures on an unprecedented scale. So, as I said, ALCS is an organisation that does lobby government on issues that are related to the creative industries and to writers in particular. So we really hope the impact of the National Year of Reading is going to last beyond 2026, but perhaps it also requires lasting commitment from government. It is partly a Department of Education initiative, I know. But we to what extent do we need politicians on board with this, do you think?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think I was probably slightly disconnected, but I think ultimately I think social media regulation is the biggest political issue of our lifetime. I mean, social media is rotting our brains, endangering our children, undermining our mental health, uh causing riots on our streets, disrupting our politics. It's the greatest issue of our lifetime. And one part of it, yeah, is also stopping people reading. And you're now talking about you're hearing politicians talking about how we need to force social media companies to uh give greater prominence to the BBC and ITN news and so on. But I think reading could be part of that. These companies need to be regulated, you know, the social media. Scroll, it's not just undermining our children's mental health. I think it's rotting the brains of people in their 60s and 70s, even more so. So I think there is a massive political issue. It might seem tangential, but I think I think it's huge.
SPEAKER_00I think that's right. I think, and I I think in terms of the government listening to the to the data that's coming out of and the lobbying work that is coming out of our industry and our you know connected um organisations. Um the National Year of Reading is a very interesting sort of entry point for them, I think. And I think that's one of one of the things that is so important about it is we have got government attention to the reading crisis, yes, through the Department of Education, but there was also great support from the Treasury, from Rachel Reeves, uh, and around libraries for primaries, and also DCMS also support it. So there has been sort of unprecedented, actually, three government departments supportive of the literacy agenda, and that is the result of a lot of lobbying from a lot of different organisations over the last five years, I would say. So I think they understand in a way I would say encourages me the issues around reading, why it's important. And there was a fantastic report by the Education Select Committee, which outlined the ways in which government should take forward a reading for pleasure strategy across the next decade, and turn the National Year of Reading into a decade of reading and create a reading agenda throughout schools, throughout society, reversing the public library decline, putting a library in every secondary school and making it a requirement, giving every newborn child a library card. It was a really fantastic manifesto for change in this area. We've also had the government bringing in the under 16 social media ban. We've seen it happening in France and obviously in Australia. The amount of people I've talked to who think it's a bad idea, I find bewildering. I really do. But I've argued it across many a table, um, you know, and many a meeting um since. And, you know, I think it's a great statement of intent. So I feel there is some change. And dare I say it, we have a Prime Minister who studied English at university.
SPEAKER_02Gosh.
SPEAKER_00So that's the first time that's ever happened. There must be something in that. Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel, I feel there is maybe, you know, some real political will now.
SPEAKER_02It's also existential for politicians, surely. I mean, reading promotes good citizens. Do you want a population that reads books and is therefore empathetic, understands nuance? Or do you want a population whose brains are rotted from social media, who live in in echo chambers and rely on fake news? You know, so it should be an existential issue not only for the publishing industry and writers, but for politicians too.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. And it's great to hear you, Joanna, talking about there's just that feeling that there is change afoot, and and I guess that points to initiatives like the National Year of Reading that you know so many people are getting behind because it I, you know, you almost feel viscerally the importance of all this. So, and I'd do you think there's anything individual writers can do to? I mean, you are, as I said, an ambassador of the National Year of Reading. Um, I guess carry on writing is is one thing. But yes, I guess all of us in our way are can be great ambassadors for the change that reading has brought to our lives and how it's made us the people that we are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I guess I think we need to be less siloed as writers. I think we're sometimes bad at doing our own PR. I mean, without books, you don't have Netflix, you don't have the Odyssey, you don't have, you know, you don't have a whole industry, and industry is built on that industry. A lot of the things that people are doing instead of reading rely on books. And I think maybe writers. And writers. And sometimes I don't think we do a good PR job on ourselves.
SPEAKER_00I I think all of us who care have to, we also have to model the change we want to see. And just this is a really small thing, but a few of us at work were talking about how we're really, really trying hard to have a book out when we're in public, so when we're on public transport, for example. Just literally modelling reading a book in public. I know it sounds like a silly small thing. It's really interesting to me how many people notice and look, they don't necessarily ask you what you're reading or talk to you about it, but they do notice. And I think, as I do when, you know, it's actually someone reading a book. Um, and I think there's something about sort of showing up.
SPEAKER_02Attractive people reading books in public.
SPEAKER_00I think that's it. Physical books, too. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Also, if you're reading a book, you're attractive.
SPEAKER_00That's right, too. There are great, there are, you know, there are also great Instagram accounts about that. Yeah, it's a thing, though.
SPEAKER_02But also I noticed on the tube, on the way here, a lot of people were reading. It does give you hope.
SPEAKER_00It does give you hope. So I think I I know that's a small thing, and you probably meant something much more systemic, Caroline, when you asked Satan the question. But I do think we do have to model this behaviour, you know, and and we are the passionate advocates, not for our industry so that we all make more money, but because we truly deeply believe that that that actually successful society is dependent on it. It's quite an important thing to make money from.
SPEAKER_02Maybe I should start giving them as books as presents. I stopped giving books as presents as a writer because people assume you got them for free.
SPEAKER_01I know, that's nonsense, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I'm gonna start giving them as presents again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think it's interesting, isn't it? I I mean, books have been very good to all three of us. They're an integral part of our lives, and as we've discussed, they're a passport to so much else. And I think it's this thing about we have to be careful not to be sanctimonious about it here. But I I do wonder if we what we need is a some kind of non-sanctimonious reading is good for us campaign, a bit like eat your five a day. You know, it it reading for pleasure is hugely as important as we've said, but reading's not just about pleasure. Sometimes reading is about kind of learning or coming to terms with difficult things. And but I think that sense that it's good for you, it's good for your brain, it's good for so many things. Is is is that too, as I say, is that too sort of sanctimonious a way to go? I feel there's sort of something there in terms of health promotion of a different kind.
SPEAKER_02I think you're right, it has to be not sanctimonious. And I sometimes think those of us who read a lot are too judgmental of people who read slowly, or maybe read a book that was won a prize ten years ago, you know, and we need to just be tolerant and celebrate all reading whenever it happens, even if it happens in a very dysfunctional and slow manner.
SPEAKER_00I I agree, and I think I understand where you're coming from, but a lot of the research that we've done about reading, um, and you know, I'm referring to the research that was done around the National Year of Reading to get make sure we got the campaign right. People mostly know it's good for them. Um they're not, it's and that's not the barrier, you know, it's that's all that hasn't been enough of a motivation for them. I think what they really want to know is they're going to have a good time, that they're going to enjoy it, that it's going to be either, you know, joyful or yes, instructive, yes, tell them things they didn't know, open their eyes to a world they weren't familiar with, whatever. But they have to feel it's it's and that it's going to interest them. People can't bear the thought of being that something is going to be too hard, that's going to feel that it's not really right for them, or that they're, I don't know, they're somehow that it's off-putting in some way. And I think that's the danger here for those of us who love books and have grown up with books, is we, yeah, the snobbery that you mentioned, just the fact that we can read three or four books, you know, we might be reading three or four books a week, or certainly a month, and those other people would just be delighted that they've got through a book on their summer holiday. And that's okay, you know, it is okay. So this is this kind of radical welcome idea. It's just anything you want, we'll meet you where you are. Book about pop stars, book about football, actually food writing. If you're a great cook, uh you know, if you want to listen to something while you're you're running, whatever it is, that's fine. Just read because it's it's really wonderful. It's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I often try to do this thing with people, people in my life who don't read that much. I'll say, oh, this is about to be an amazing Netflix series, an amazing film. Read it before it comes out.
SPEAKER_01Get in there first. Yes. Yes. Well, I think we're all going to go away from here with our with our books on public transport and looking like we're having the time of our lives, which of course we all normally are. Uh, thank you. That's been so interesting and illuminating to hear from you both. Thanks for joining us on Authors Matters. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
SPEAKER_01We aim to reflect the views of a wide variety of writers on Authors' Matters, but their views are, of course, their own. Check out more episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, and please join us next time.