“Academics are finding that, for instance, they've spent their whole career assigning books like Middlemarch and Ulysses, and they're having to stop because the kids just can't get through them anymore. … I think it's the 400-word wall, which seems to be that 400 words is often the limit that students struggle to get past.”

One of my great, my great hubristic moments at university was trying to speed read Paradise Lost, which is even more mad. How long did you give yourself to do it? Not long enough. I have since read it properly. That was even more hubristic than trying to speed read Bleak House or Middlemarch, I think. Yes, I think academics are finding that, for instance, they've spent their whole career assigning books like Middlemarch and Ulysses, and they're having to stop because the kids just can't get through them anymore. There's something that you increasingly hear in these educational circles a phrase, I think it's the 400-word wall, which seems to be that 400 words is often the limit that students struggle to get past. That's apparently how long it takes to read for 90 seconds. You get through about 400 words. And that seems to be the point at which people begin to feel fidgety or need distraction or need to…