For The Atlantic’s August-issue cover story, “The Age of Reading Is Over,” staff writer Rose Horowitch argues that we are living in a “postliterate world” where fewer and fewer adults read books of any kind, and examines whether civilization can survive this era. Horowitch wrote the viral 2024 essay “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books” and now explores the subject across American society, where the decline in reading cuts across age groups, gender, and education levels. Even the dem