Why do Writers Write?

With the world in a state of what Adam Tooze has taken to calling “Polycrises”, it may seem nothing short of offensive for me to have a bee in my bonnet about the absence in contemporary books of reading lists. But bear with me while I try to convince you of the contempt in which authors now hold us poor readers.

Let me pose a simple question – when an author sits down to compose a book, what do you imagine are her/his motives??

·       to help us understand an issue?

·       to help persuade us of something she/he fervently believes?

·       to make money?

·       to make his/her reputation? 

Let me suggest the following percentages as answers to each of these questions

·       1%

·       40%

·       20%

·       39% 

I can’t, of course, prove any of this – I’m simply suggesting that the author who is genuinely attempting to help the average reader understand an issue is a rarity to be treasured. Of course, there are “Dummy Guides” and “Brief Introductions” -  but many are written in a patronising way.

The last post criticised a couple of recent books for their failure to give the reader any indication of the books which might be found useful as further reading. An earlier post had mentioned Framers – human advantage in an age of technology and turmoil (2021) which also fails to offer a reading list although it does reference Range – why generalists triumph in a specialised world by David Epstein (2018) but not two equally important books – Gillian Tett’s “The Silo Effect” (2015) or Matthew Syed’s “Rebel Ideas” (2019) - not even in the index  

I’m currently reading George Monbiot’s Out of the Wreckage (2018) which integrates references to books he’s found useful into the text itself. This works very well – although it’s not something many others attempt. Offhand, I can think only of a couple of others who do this – David Runciman and Matt Flinders ..

Thanks to Monbiot I’ve been able to download at least a couple of books I didn’t know about – Viking Economics – how the Scandinavians got it right and how we can too (2016) and Democracy for Realists – why elections do not produce responsive government (2016)