I don’t think there’s ever been a richer time for books of all kinds than right now. Perhaps that’s just the loudest crack of thunder before the skies dry up, but I would bet not. The traditional publishing business being disturbed has welcomed in many more voices, and while it’s difficult for a single title to fully permeate the culture, there so much more variety whether we’re talking fiction or nonfiction.

In Part II of their conversation published in the New York Review of Books, President Obama and Marilynne Robinson speak to the fears that the novel’s place in the culture is diminishing. The author believes fiction is bursting with variety now, while the President worries about narrowcasting. One thing I’ll say about Obama linking great fiction to great empathy is that there are some very well-read people who have little of the latter. An excerpt:

President Obama:

Are you somebody who worries about people not reading novels anymore? And do you think that has an impact on the culture? When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with being comfortable with the notion that the world is complicated and full of grays, but there’s still truth there to be found, and that you have to strive for that and work for that. And the notion that it’s possible to connect with some[one] else even though they’re very different from you.

And so I wonder when you’re sitting there writing longhand in some—your messy longhand somewhere—so I wonder whether you feel as if that same shared culture is as prevalent and as important in the lives of people as it was, say, when you were that little girl in Idaho, coming up, or whether you feel as if those voices have been overwhelmed by flashier ways to pass the time.

Marilynne Robinson:

I’m not really the person—because I’m almost always talking with people who love books.

President Obama:

Right. You sort of have a self-selecting crew.

Marilynne Robinson:

And also teaching writers—I’m quite aware of the publication of new writers. I think—I mean, the literature at present is full to bursting. No book can sell in that way that Gone with the Wind sold, or something like that. But the thing that’s wonderful about it is that there’s an incredible variety of voices in contemporary writing. You know people say, is there an American tradition surviving in literature, and yes, our tradition is the incredible variety of voices….

And [now] you don’t get the conversation that would support the literary life. I think that’s one of the things that has made book clubs so popular.•