and in this country, the national literacy trust saying that only 35% of 8— to 18—year—olds enjoy readinga. those are worrying statistics, obviously. but then i reflect that during the pandemic, there was an enormous boom in novel reading and novel sales. my publishers had the best year they'd ever had. and i persist in thinking that in a world of very short attention spans and the consumption of everything in tiny snippets, that the novel will retain a sort of counterbalancing allure. i take the point that education itself is different now, and that i understand that a—level students often don't read whole books — they read bits of them, or they watch the video or the film or something, and that there is a huge change in how literature is absorbed, but i'm not giving up on it myself. the other threat may be artificial intelligence. can you imagine that one day a generative ai software programme could write a better novel than you can? it'll be such a relief, yes. they laugh yes. well, i don't think you i really mean that, do you? no. yes, it's a chilling thought, obviously. there are som