This Day In History: The novel Jane Eyre was published in London on this day in 1847. It, along with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, is one of the most famous romance novels. The fact that it has been around for such a long time brings me to the Lindy Effect. The Lindy effect (also known as Lindy's Law) is a theorized phenomenon by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a book or an idea, is proportional to their current age. Thus, the Lindy effect proposes the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy. Longevity implies a resistance to change, obsolescence or competition and greater odds of continued existence into the future.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb stated: "If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. This, simply, as a rule, tells you why things that have been around for a long time are not 'aging' like persons, but 'aging' in reverse. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness. The robustness of an item is proportional to its life!"
In other words, if you only have a limited time for reading, then read a book that has been popular for a very long time rather than reading the latest books on the New York Times bestseller list. Jane Eyre has been in print for 170 years, and there is a reason for that and we can expect, according to the Lindy Effect, to have it around for another 170 years. In other words, read Orwell's 1984 rather than anything by Michael Wolff. Read Atlas Shrugged instead of White Fragility. Read The Count of Montecristo instead of The Hate U Give.
See also The Best Victorian Literature, Over 100 Books to Download
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