A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Article: “Books Everlasting: The startling renaissance of reading, from the shop floor up” by Nathan Heller, New Yorker, October 26, 2026. In last week’s Seen & Heard, I wrote about a podcast featuring James Marriott, a London Times columnist, who argued that the amount of reading done by people has greatly diminished in recent years. This New Yorker article provides a counterpoint, taking the position that reading is more robust than ever, especially if you include e-books and audio-books, which is how many people consume books these days. (I’m not sure the earlier article disregarded that; it may be an issue of how reading is measured.) This article serves the secondary purpose of profiling James Daunt, the current CEO of Barnes and Noble. Daunt launched his own bookstore in London in his twenties, expanded it to several branches, and then was hired to run the fiscally failing Waterstone’s bookstore chain (which is to the UK what Barnes & Noble is to the US). Daunt’s formula for chain store success is to allow the local staff to treat each store as if it’s a small independent shop. Rather than have templates for book orders and displays sent down from corporate headquarters to be implemented without alteration by each store, local managers order the books they believe will be most welcome by the readers of that community. By all accounts, Barnes & Noble is doing pretty well these days which is a relief to book lovers, even if they rarely go to a B&N. I recall a decade or two ago when B&N morphed into a toy store that happened to sell a few books. Those days are gone now and the store is doing well. I come down somewhere in the middle of this debate. Today there are more distractions and demands on our time than ever before. If you’re tired and it’s at the end of the day, it’s much easier to start scrolling through the attention-high of TikTok or BlueSky than it is to pick up that 300 page biography of some famous person. However, those same distractions are used by “influencers” to promote books. So called “BookTok” drives the sale of many books. In the end, life is complicated and reading a complicated book (or article) helps put events in the proper context as opposed to rapid fire social media that just plays on the emotions. 

Article: “In study of ex-NFL players, 75% had CTE” by Allyson Chiu and Aaron Leibowitz, Boston Globe, October 29, 2026. CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a brain disease only detectable after death that is thought to be caused by repeated head trauma. An article from August that I’ve previously cited reported that 95% of the brains of 235 NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 that were studied post-mortem for CTE had the disease. This new article is about another study that is broader in its scope. It studied all NFL players who died during the past 15 years and concluded that 75% of them exhibited symptoms of CTE. Because there has been more attention given in recent years to protecting players who have suffered head injuries, the article states that this does not necessarily mean that 75% of today’s NFL players will have CTE (but it doesn’t say they won’t either, since the jury is still out on the efficacy of these protective measures). When it comes to this issue, I always go back to the old saying, “It’s hard to get a person to understand something when their paycheck depends on them not understanding it.” There is so much money being generated by the NFL that no one wants to walk away from it. I’ve seen it that way for five or even ten years and have felt guilty because I kept watching football. I’ve stopped this year, though walking away from football fandom is not solely caused by concerns over CTE although that’s part of it. That most of the billionaire team owners are big supporters of the current regime has been a factor, as has the domination of gambling in the football story today. I have no problem with someone betting, but I don’t and have no interest in it, so hearing endless talk and commercials about betting on games is offputting. Finally, there’s no lack of other things to do in life so not watching the NFL hasn’t created any kind of void in my entertainment menu. 

Article: “World Series 2026: For Milwaukee Brewers, finally winning a title is a celebration decades in the making” Yahoo Sports, October 29, 2026. The Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in five games to win the team’s first-ever World Series. I was happy for the Brewers for several reasons. First, having experienced the regional thrill of a home team winning a championship, it’s nice that Milwaukee was able to experience it. Also, the Brewers were born in 1969 as the expansion Seattle Pilots of the American League. That was in the midst of my prime baseball card-collecting years so I still have some Seattle Pilot cards and feel almost like I was there at the beginning. (The Pilots moved to Milwaukee as the Brewers in 1970 and played in the American League until 1998 when the team switched to the National League. I also found this outcome amusing in a couple of respects. First, neither team has a big payroll with the Brewers ranking 17th and the Rays 21st. Also, whichever network owned the rights probably lost money since (1) the series only went five games; and (2) neither team comes from a big media market as would be the case if the Dodgers or Yankees were involved, so I assume viewership was not great. I confess to being among the many who did not watch any of these series. In fact, other than a few innings in April, I didn’t watch any baseball this season. Staying away from baseball was neither philosophical nor political; it was more about priorities since there were so many other things I preferred doing with my time.