The Conversation

My July 23, 2026 blog “Is Anyone Reading Books” Here  was about a decline in reading. Since then, I’ve read a counter article in the August 4, 2026 newsletter THE CONVERSATION. The article is titled, “What the panic over Gen Z’s reading habits gets wrong.”    https://theconversation.com/what-the-panic-over-gen-zs-reading-habits-gets-wrong-288338

Basically, the article states that the long-standing, influential studies don’t capture how Gen Z reads. Today’s readers have multiple forms of a book: Print, ebook, audio. and web platforms.I hadn’t heard of some of  those platforms. They include: Wattpad, Webtoon, Kindle Unlimited, DC Universe Infinite and Marvel Comics online.

Gen Z often reads: multimodally – bouncing between one form to another for the same book. The article says, according to their data, 66% of GenZ identifies itself as readers and that’s up 14 percentage points from 2022. Also, in the previous 12 months, 65% of Gen Z read at least one print book, up from 59% in 2022.

Those findings roughly correspond with those of the Pew Research Center for the general population across all ages.

The article gives a variety of  reasons why Gen Zs pick different ways of reading a book, why some prefer the printed book, why some choose to check a book out of the library rather than buying a copy, and why many exchange books.

In other words, reading isn’t dying with Gen Zs, it’s changing.

If you’re interested, do read the full article.

Book Muse

My August 19, 2026 blog Here  was about using BISAC to help a potential book buyer find your book. I recently came across Book Muse,  Here a site that uses AI to find a book you might want to read. Since agents and editors often ask for comparable books, this is a great way to find books to list. Book Muse gives you three choices on how to find books: GPT Open AI, Gemini Google, and Claude Anthropic. You need to list key words that describe what you’re looking for either in a book to read or in books comparable to what you’ve written. I learned about Book Muse from the new edition of the Reedsy marketing newsletter. AI-powered book recommendations tailored to your unique reading preferences.

Check the site out. Decide if you want to have GPT give you recommendations, or Gemini, or Claude. Once you’ve chosen the method, type the key words you want it looking for. Then click that you’re not a robot and click on  “Get Recommendations.”

The words you choose are important, so if you don’t feel the selections you’re given are anywhere close to what you’ve written, try other words.

For Two Jade Bracelets, I tried a kidnapping, junk art sculpture, and Florida. I ended up with 9 possibilities. Only one sounded close, but that was one I didn’t know about before this experiment.

Let me know what you think. Okay?