It’s no secret that young people today are desperate for meaning. A recent report found that 58 percent of young adults experienced little or no sense of purpose in their lives over the past month. Some attribute this to social media. Others, to a lack of religion.

Enter Shilo Brooks, former Princeton professor and the host of Old School, a new Free Press podcast dedicated to the notion that there is one simple way to bring America’s lost generation home: via reading. “When a man is starved for love, work, purpose, money, or vitality,” Shilo explains, “a novel wrestling with these themes can be metabolized as energy for the heart.”

Every Thursday, Shilo speaks with guests, from Fareed Zakaria to Ryan Holiday, about the books that shaped their lives. Catch up on the previous episodes here, and make sure to hit the subscribe button to stay tuned for what’s next. Listen to the latest episode below, with the one and only Cornel West.

Why We Still Need Plato The Free Press Episode

And in the following essay, James Marriott explains why the stakes couldn’t be higher. Our liberal democracy, he writes, was built by widespread literacy—the same widespread literacy that is now being dismantled by screens. Unless we start reading again, he says, our civilization may not survive. —The Editors

It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history—and yet no blood was spilled, no bombs were thrown, and no monarch was beheaded.

What happened was this: In the middle of the 18th century, huge numbers of ordinary people began to read...