“Readable” has become the chosen term of praise in our times precisely because so many of us find ourselves unable to concentrate as we once could or still aspire to. But to praise readability is to embrace the vicious feedback loop that our culture now finds itself in. Short on concentration, we give ourselves over to streams of content that further atrophy our reserves of attention.
I hate when I see this word used in a book review. To be fair, it’s a lot older than our contemporary culture of distraction. But if a reviewer uses this word to describe a book, they’re admitting that they don’t have anything better to say.