--- title: Five Best: Read Difficult Novels description: Read difficult novels, we ensured the success of foreign digital trolls by taking internet literacy for granted and more. canonical: https://time.com/5177307/read-difficult-novels/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-27T19:00:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:03.248Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Read Difficult Novels og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/5177307/read-difficult-novels/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read Difficult Novels twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Read Difficult Novels by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 27, 2018 7:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 27, 2018 7:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Read difficult novels.**](https://lithub.com/will-self-in-praise-of-difficult-novels/) By Will Self in _Literary Hub_ **2\.** [**By taking internet literacy for granted, we ensured the success of foreign digital trolls.**](https://theoutline.com/post/3443/devumi-twitter-bots-savviness-gap) By Kevin Munger in the _Outline_ **3\.** [**SNAP food assistance consistently lifts millions out of poverty. Why change it?**](https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/what-does-it-mean-snap-remove-people-poverty) By Laura Wheaton, Emily Peiffer and Victoria Tran at the _Urban Institute_ **4\.** [**Bring back the negative book review.**](https://thebaffler.com/alienated/in-praise-of-negative-reviews) By Rafia Zakaria in the _Baffler_ **5\.** [**This is the best time of day to learn a new language.**](https://qz.com/1215361/the-best-time-of-day-to-learn-a-new-language-according-duolingo-data/) By Burr Settles and Masato Hagiwara in _Quartz_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5177307/read-difficult-novels/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5177307/read-difficult-novels/"},"headline":"Read Difficult Novels","datePublished":"2018-02-27T19:00:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:03.248Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/5177307/read-difficult-novels/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","Innovation","Internet","review","language","reading","SNAP"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5177307/read-difficult-novels/","name":"Read Difficult Novels"}}]}] ```