 Now, my friend Ben Kazanoka, he's always talking to me about this idea of life hacks, like advice where you can live your life or learn things more efficiently. And let's say I was approaching foreign language literature in translation as an economist and the following life hack occurred to me, I'm going to lay it out and you tell me why it's wrong. There's always more to read, always more wonderful things to read in all of the major languages. But if you can read a language fluently, usually you'll enjoy the fiction or poetry in that language much more. So you're not going to run out of things to read in the languages you can read in. So therefore, in translated literature, you should read like the very most famous works. So if you don't read Russian, yes, read Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace. And a few things, and then stop. And if you read, say, English, Spanish and French, then just read in those languages and translated literature at the margin, put it aside, never look at it again. Now that's not what you do, but what's wrong with that argument? Well, I think you're really missing so much because the problem is finding what is of value, what is important. And I mean, we have these established books like War and Peace or Crime and Punishment, but Russian literature goes so much deeper, for example, to take just an example of a big language. And it also changes with time so rapidly. I think that in every 10-year period, you could select a new set of a dozen recent, relatively recent of the past quarter century from that culture, works which would give you a completely different view and provide you with a completely different experience. And the bigger problem, I see, of course, is that you're missing out on so much literature from elsewhere, that there really is, for a lot of cultures and languages, there isn't that standout that you know. You know, oh, Russia Tolstoy, got it. But if you want to read something from the Philippines, you're unlikely to be able to find that one author. And there's so many other languages and cultures. And there's so much being written now, which it really is worthwhile keeping up with. But would you agree, then, that it's a good life hack, say, for poetry? So if I try to read poetry originally written in Russian, I don't speak Russian. I understand some of it. I know enough to get that I'm not getting it when I read it in English. It just doesn't come through, no matter how great the poet. And I don't enjoy it that much. So in this case, I followed the life hack. I just don't read poetry in Russian, and I feel that's efficient. Do you agree with that when it comes to poetry? But I do read poetry in the languages I read well. Yeah, poetry is a bit more difficult because, first of all, there seems a lot more with fewer, less poetry that stands out. It's very difficult, often, to recognize the great poetry of the day in the time being, especially with modern poetry. I find it very difficult to get a sense of what I really should be focusing on. So I mean, I guess it is a useful life hack because, really, there is only so much we can read. And I might very well act symbolically with poetry because I don't spend that much time reading poetry. But with fiction, I wouldn't accept it now. Here's another life hack, which I totally reject. But it may just be because I'm an addict of sorts, but you tell me why for you it's wrong. A lot of people say to me, well, I love fiction, but I'm never going to read new works because I can't tell what's really good. I'll just wait 20 years and then look back on what was truly excellent from 20 years ago. I wouldn't read that 20 years later. But in the meantime now, I'll just read classics or things in other areas which are verified as being truly excellent. Does that make sense? Well, I worry very much about people who rely on what gets that stamp of approval. And just because it has a cover review in the New York Times book review does not mean that that book really is, if we look at it from five or 10 years down the road, that that book will still be a significant work. And I find so much which is highly praised at any one point a long term won't be. And again, however, much that we look back on is we've lost in the Martians as well because it's really hard to keep track of all the great and we saw it strand earlier today, Stone or John Williams. This is a book that disappeared from view for a long time. It was always recognized sort of, I mean, people would say this is a great book, but it had really fallen out of view. Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai was just republished. I just ordered it on Amazon. I'm excited to get my copy. I didn't know about it. Right, and this was sort of a legendary text, but it had gotten a great deal of potential when it first came out. And then through odd series of coincidence, it just sort of fell from view. And there are many, many, many more books which are in this gray zone where if you really dig, if you really look, you could still pluck them out. But because there's so much new work being published, it's very difficult for it to rise out of that noise.