> Like your male or female co-worker might hear that such an such a poet was coming out with a new book, and buy it, and then for a few weeks the cultural conversation would be dominated by this - a book of poetry. Which people 50 years from now would be reading in lit classes.

I do still occasionally read books based on word of mouth, they're just not "high" culture.

E.g., Dungeon Crawler Carl, or the Murderbot series.

I guess that puts me in the same camp as the commoners who were supposedly one of Shakespeare's target audiences.