Goat Heard
Posted on 12/12/2025 3:13:21 PM PST by Borges
In American high schools, the age of the book may be fading.
Many teenagers are assigned few full books to read from beginning to end — often just one or two per year, according to researchers and thousands of responses to an informal reader survey by The New York Times.
Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows, and college professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly reporting difficulties in getting students to engage with lengthy or complex texts.
Perhaps that is to be expected in the era of TikTok and A.I. Some education experts believe that in the near future, even the most sophisticated stories and knowledge will be imparted mainly through audio and video, the forms that are dominating in the era of mobile, streaming media.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If that is the case, then there is no need to be concerned about all of those schools in the country that have under 30% of students reading at grade level. They won't need to read much anyway.
It was short, at least!
All kids have to do today is get AI to feed them a book report for school, if schools even require them today. This once again proves my point that the internet, and platforms like AI have made people even more lazy than they already were. They don't have to use their brains to create anything anymore. That's why so many of them are ignorant and illiterate.
As a writer and reader,I find this heartbreaking.
Here's one:
Books like "The Scarlet Letter" and "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" made sure of that!
Here are some of the books I read on my own as a teenager. None of these were assigned by teachers.
The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966)
—An account of the Battle of Berlin in 1945
Whirlwind: An Account of Marshal Tito’s Rise to Power by Stephen Clissold (New York: Philosophical, 1949)
A Puppet No More: The True Adventure of Tony Kemeny and His Life-Long Quest for Freedom by Tony Kemeny (Buena Park, Calif.: Thomas Litho & Print, 1963)
—The story of a Hungarian refugee who became a puppeteer at Knott’s Berry Farm
The Fate of Admiral Kolchak by Peter Fleming (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1963)
—The story of a White general who fought the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War
This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness by T. R. Fehrenbach (New York: Macmillan, 1963)
—A narrative of the history of the Korean War
Up Ship! By Charles E. Rosendahl (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931)
— The case for the the US Navy to retain its rigid airships
The Ragged, Rugged Warriors by Martin Caidin (New York: Dutton, 1966)
—The story of Americans who volunteered to serve as combat pilots in China before and during World War II
Way of a Fighter: The Memoirs of Claire L. Chennault by Claire Lee Chennault (New York: Putnam, 1949)
—Memoirs of the commander of the American Volunteer Group and the China Air Task Force, later the Fourteenth Air Force in China
Jutland by Donald Macintyre (New York: Norton, 1958)
—The story of a 1916 naval battle
The Great Pacific War/H. C. Bywater
—A novel about an imaginary war between the USA and Japan that begins in 1931
Total Terror by Albert Kalme (Newyork: Appleton-Century, 1951)
—The story of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States
Challenge of the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The Turning Point of the War by Robert Leckie (New York: Doubleday, 1965)
—Narrative history of a World War II battle by a participant
The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread (New York: Putnam, 1965)
—A young adult novel set in Cleveland in 1944—the only YA novel that I read as a teenager
Fighter Over Finland: The Memoirs of a Fighter Pilot by Eino Luukkanen (London: Macdonald, 1963)
—Autobiography of a Finnish fighter pilot who served during World War II
None Dare Call It Treason by John Stormer (Florissant, Mo., Liberty Bell, 1964)
—A campaign book laying out the case against big government at home and interventionism abroad
Out of the Night by Jan Valtin (New York: Alliance, 1941)
—Memoirs of a Soviet agent
America: Listen! By Frank Kluckhohn (Derby, Conn.: Monarch, 1963)
—A polemic against the John F. Kennedy administration
The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater (New York: Hillman, 1960)
—A manifesto calling for a return to small government and constitutionalism
Sure. I read enough to pass the tests and book reports. CliffsNotes sometimes helped.
Evelyn Wood
I think it was 9th grade when I was assigned that one. I loved to read and still do, but I remember finding that one somewhat tedious.
Same here. I'm getting close to the end, so I'm starting to branch out to similar authors now.
I started with all the Sackett books and then started on stand alones. Finished Last of the Breed a couple nights ago and started Shadow riders last night.
It seems like every hero in those books can meet a beautiful women no matter where they are. On a high mountain top? Beautiful woman. In Siberia? Beautiful woman. Middle of a desert? Beautiful woman.
I usually read one book per day, occasionally 2.
You can read faster than you can listen. Videos and tapes are too slow.
I found many of the assigned books in 7-8 grade for my son were thinly disguised romance novels.
Funny line on Criminal Minds was when Shemar Moore was asking the brainy Dr. Spenser Reed about how nervous he was lately in a crisis involving him and his girlfriend.
“Look, I can’t concentrate. I only read five books all of last week.”
I also was in High School in 1960. I found books to be a great escape from family problems. First was CAPTAIN BLOOD then CORONADO’S CHILDREN, APACHE GOLD AND YAQUI SILVER, then more and more adult books that you can imagine such as The Manila Galleon, LLIAD, ODYSSEY. AENEID, BEAT TO QUARTERS and Beau Geste trilogies.Books for teens was not for me.
I have read hundreds of books. Last was Dr Zhivago and WAR AND PEACE, too many histories to count.
Now am re-reading the Illiad again.
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