Maybe the realization among some people that we needed a book like that (e.g. a dietary supplement because our regular diet was no longer balanced and adequate) was the beginning of the end.
Well sad to say but anymore when I go into Barnes and Noble or other bookstores I wonder if this was what it was like during the decline of the Roman Empire.
Every year the number of well written interesting books declines in my opinion. Hell the fiction authors of just ten or twenty years ago seems like giants compared with now and I knew that the Steven King’s and Tom Clancy’s of that era was just hacks compared Steinbeck and others of earlier eras.
As for kids reading newspapers, most adults have given up on the newspapers. The typical newspaper of say the 1970’s read like Shakespeare compared with the trash that is called journalism nowadays.
Oh yes, 1 of the many books my uncle recommended. Never actually read it, but I did skim the list it had in the back when at a library. Really scary.