This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

There's a common complaint that people don't read books anymore.

But the truth is, print book sales are up these days.

Since 2013, sales of physical books have increased every year.

At first, people attributed this to the rise of adult coloring books,

but even as their popularity

has dwindled. Book sales have risen. I'm talking about physical, old-fashioned books with

paper pages full of words. We love them.

The great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges once said, I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded

by books. And I kind of agree.

That's reporter Pierce Gelley, although he's not normally a reporter. I'm a graduate student in

creative writing, and for the past two years, I've taught fiction writing to undergrads at the

University of Virginia. I assign a lot of reading, but mostly it's in the form of photocopied pages.

Don't worry, the print shop pays for the rights. I don't want to force my students to buy too

much, but I always make sure I assign at least one physical book. And I always try to pick something

that's beautiful, one with a nice font, a lovely page design, a pleasing paper grain, and an

intriguing cover. Don't get me

wrong, the words inside matter too. But I think it's important for my students to have an object

that accentuates the pleasure of the physical act of reading, and something they would hold

on to after the class it ended. I personally toss hundreds of pages of radio scripts in the

recycling bin every month,

but I would have a really hard time throwing away a book.

...