While you wait for the new season of In Our Time with Misha Glenny, we’re introducing you to The Global Story, a new daily podcast from the BBC. In this episode, writer and voracious reader James Marriott discusses the so-called 'death of reading'. He argues that we may be entering a post literate age – shaped by addictive screen culture, fragmented attention, and an overflow of trivial or unreliable information. The conversation traces how the 18th century 'reading revolution' helped shape the modern world, and what its decline could mean for education, culture, and democracy today. If you enjoy this episode, you can find new instalments of The Global Story every day wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.