I am unashamed to admit it: I am a bibliophile. It’s okay. As a recovering politician and former member of Congress, I have been called worse. Far, far worse.

The evidence to indict me on this charge is incontrovertible. As a youth, after stumbling upon The Phantom Freighter, I read many other books in The Hardy Boys series by “Franklin W. Dixon” (the pen name used by generations of Hardy Boys authors); and as I was raised in the Great Lakes State, it was a natural progression to move on to such works as Dwight Boyer’s Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes. I even read Jaws when my parents refused to permit me to see the movie. (The book was even racier … Oops.)

Not even the intervention of the Beatles and rock ‘n’ roll put a halt to my love affair with books. Well aware, my father thrice took the opportunity to say, “know your enemy,” and handed me three books: Karl Marx and Frederick Engel’s The Communist Manifesto; John Toland’s Adolf Hitler; and Alfred Steinberg’s The Bosses. They have served me well, and I still have them to this day.

Of course, among my heavy doses of history, biography, and Burke, Kirk, and Buckley, there was literature ranging from Gabriel Garcia-Marquez to Elmore Leonard; and, because man cannot live by prose alone, there was Romantic poetry to abet my idylls.

Even now, I still steal away to frequent the four floors of Detroit’s legendary John K. King Used and Rare Books; and pop into the three stories smaller Water Brothers Books in my hometown of Livonia. And, in a penny pinch, it is never a bad idea to plumb the depths of the used books section at a local Salvation Army Thrift Store—or any thrift store, for that matter. There are few better ways to spend a day.

Having amassed scores upon scores of books, once I was married, I was nudged to remove a few bookcases full to my offices. Throughout the years, I packed and unloaded (some) of my books in Detroit, Livonia, Milford, and Lansing, Michigan as well as in Washington, D.C. At every stop I let my colleagues know the lending library was open. A few availed themselves of the opportunity to visit and check out the wares. In fact, one of my fondest memories after being elected to Congress, was when state Senator Burton Leland (D-Detroit) reciprocated by presenting me with an inscribed copy of The Beatles Anthology. Other former colleagues, such as the Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), also shared inscribed editions of their own books and those of other authors with me—gifts I will always treasure. (Thank you, my brothers B. L. and Lincoln, may you both rest in peace.)

And through the years, I have given inscribed copies of my own book, Seize Freedom: American Truths and Renewal in a Chaotic Age to these colleagues and others. There are few things in life better than giving or exchanging a book with a friend.

I tend to ascribe my love books to being the child of old-school Detroit public-school teachers. Their love for reading—both for edification and pleasure—was instilled in their two sons. So much so that I amassed quite a collection of books. When I left political office, I was once more nudged to reduce my personal library. Lacking an office to store my literary largesse, I made the decision not to sell the surplus but to donate them to the Salvation Army in the hope that they could both help the poor and afford others the opportunity to enjoy them.

But the best-laid plans of bibliophiles often go awry, and many donated books these days are simply pulped in a recycler. Indeed, this is a difficult time for book lovers, just as it is for all who dare to ponder what a future of artificial intelligence holds in store for America’s youth.

Apparently the two things are related. According to a story in Breitbart, the use of AI managed to get the Chicago Sun-Times and one of its writers to recommend books to the paper’s readers that don’t even exist:

Ars Technica reports that in a recent blunder that has raised concerns about the use of AI in journalism, the Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list for 2025 that included numerous fake books attributed to well-known authors. The list, which appeared in a 64-page advertorial supplement called “Heat Index,” was created by freelancer Marco Buscaglia using an AI system. Out of the 15 recommended titles, only five were found to be real books, while the remaining ten were completely fabricated.

Buscaglia nobly admitted his oversight and offered “no excuses.” As a likely harried freelancer working on deadline, Buscaglia undoubtedly failed to verify the AI results. While this regrettable vignette of AI may be a cautionary tale, it also reveals how much has been lost as we lose our appreciation for books.

There was a time when one would not need to use AI to suggest which books to place on a paper’s summer reading list. Such titles ought to be at a journalist’s fingertips and he should barely need to fact-check. This is not a failing of this particular freelancer so much as it is of a society that increasingly eschews active engagement with books in favor of more passive pursuits, such as podcasts, streaming content, and so on.

Bluntly, books simply matter less than they once did; or, in the case of the young, they never will matter much. Books appear to be destined for the same fate as the handwritten note, common decency, and etiquette. This is not to criticize people who don’t read them. It is just a fact.

Sure, Kindle and “audio books” are widely used; but these innovations merely delay the inevitable. Books are no longer deemed and end in themselves. In a great many cases, they are just a means to a remunerative end—be it financial, political, or both; and are either an accompaniment to such money and publicity schemes or a means to parley among the ruins of our dying civilization.

Now, before you accuse me of histrionics, consider this alarming news report from my home state, where “third-grade students are struggling with literacy”:

Educators say this grade is considered a critical year for all students, as it can determine just how well they do for the rest of their academic lives.

In recent years, M-STEP scores have dropped among this age group.

The Michigan Department of Education reports that third-grade students scored 39.6% proficient or above on the state’s English Language Arts (ELA) test for the 2023-24 school year.

This is compared to 40.9% in the 2022-23 year, 41.6% in 2021-22, and 42.8% the year before. Students didn’t take the M-STEP in the 2019-20 year, but in the school year before the pandemic, 45.1% of third graders were proficient in English Language Arts.

The reasons for this decline in literacy are as manifold as they are contentious, running a gamut from the COVID-19 pandemic to teachers’ unions to insufficient public funding. But the fact remains that literacy is not only declining, but the social media culture born of the communications revolution is not conducive to prioritizing it—let alone the concept of a lifetime of education or reflection. Could we save it, really, even if we wanted to?

As a nation, we are on the brink of producing a large segment of citizens who will be intellectually short-changed for their entire lives. If a free republic must be founded upon a delicate constitutional system of checks and balances to govern the constant tension between liberty and equality and work required to prevent tyranny, this is a death sentence for self-government.