In last week's books podcast novelist Mohsin Hamid suggested that his novel, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, was a "sprawling 19th-century epic novel" compressed into 200 pages.

The reason for this was because he believed people read differently now: "There are numerous reading strategies and compression techniques that are available when you are addressing a 21st-century reader which weren't available when you were addressing a 19th-century reader," he said.

His argument didn't convince Aggie H, who asked:

Do people really 'read differently' now? Have we really devised new 'reading strategies'? Do writers really think about 'compression techniques' as they write for 21st-century readers?

He's right that not all books need to be 800 pages. Some of today's over-excited, over-writing debut novelists might take note. I'm less convinced that good television dramas have reduced our need for deep, long books.

An 800-page book gives you 'a 16-20 hour engagement with one work of art'. But, he says, we now get our multiple narratives and deep characterisation from televised drama series with 16 or 20 one-hour episodes. I question the direct comparison. A television series is more fragmented. The novel still has the advantage of immersion.

AggieH's point was taken up by jmschrei, who wrote:

As to the question of whether people read differently or whether our need for the engagement afforded by 800-page novels has been usurped by television miniseries and dramas I think it is important to remember that many of the long novels of the past that we now approach as a singular works were originally published in serial format.

Do you agree with Hamid that people read differently today? And if so, what effect do you think it is having on literature?