Ep. 351: Making the Internet Good Again

I'm Cal Newport and this is Deep Questions, a show about cultivating a deep life in a distracted world. I'm here on my Deep Work HQ, joined as always by my producer, Jesse. Uh, Jesse, I was heartened to see a particular piece of reader feedback that you added to the script because it w it's been a a uh thorn in my side for a long time, and I'm glad that someone else noticed that. Yeah, it was Michael from Massachusetts. Okay, so I guess he was visiting Georgetown.

He was visiting with his kids because they're thinking about going there and they're juniors. So what Michael noticed, which is something I've long noticed but never brought up, is the Georgetown bookstore doesn't carry my books. Yeah, he was very upset. Not only do they not carry my books on the shelves, but they have right up front, and they have for a long time a table that is labeled faculty authors and it's books by Georgetown faculty.

And they're good books, but I will say, I, you know, my any one of my books has probably outsold half that table. Like they're pretty well-known books and they just do not put it on there. I, I assume that because my books aren't with an academic press, maybe they just don't consider them a faculty book because they're for a general audience, I guess. I don't know, but for whatever reason, uh, Georgetown just does not carry that bookstore, whoever runs the bookstore does not think about my books.

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