I stumbled upon a post by Ghastlymirror over on their blog about the challenges they faced acquiring physical books that meet their standards for reading material. This triggered some different yet related thoughts of my own, notably pertaining to my recent return to regular book reading.
What kept me away
For years now I’ve been reading infrequently, perhaps a half dozen books a year at most. I still “read” a great deal: I have a continuous firehose of content via my RSS feeds. But the idea of picking up a book and settling in for a week or so to read simply had stopped exciting me.
Why exactly this was the case is where the mysteries lie. I can’t pin it down to a singular cause, but I feel that the primary reason I stopped reading regularly comes down to setting ‘standards’ for myself regarding what must be read. I had convinced myself that what I should be reading is either “literature” or educational works. The kinds of books that sit on the shelf and look impressive, like Tale of Two Cities or Crime and Punishment. Books that are not easy to read, or necessarily very enjoyable. Books about society and science, culture and technology.
And those kinds of books, it turns out, are not in fact very enjoyable for me to read.
What brought me back
Frankly, I got back into reading by lowering my standards. I stopped being so specific about the kind of book I could or should read and instead started reading just for fun again. I didn’t intentionally start looking for bad books, but instead stopped looking for great literature or educational texts. I started looking back at fantasy and science fiction with a focus on series of novels that were more current than my interests of yore.
Reading “fun” books is, surprise surprise, fun. I am back into reading voraciously and enjoying myself. The sorts of “moreish” books I’m picking up are the kind I read thirty or forty years ago, and I forgot how much pleasure they bring. Just the act of getting lost in a novel does wonders for the happiness centres of my brain, and I am pleased to be back in the groove again.
I consume my reading now on a waterproof Kindle so I can read just about anywhere, including in the hot tub. My paper book collection is still there, full of books I’ve read in years past, but the Kindle is my go-to solution for anything new that I read. I get the attraction of paperbacks, but the practicalities in terms of space and portability are simply not in the favour of that mode of consumption. Especially not when I’m going through one or two books a week.
Conclusion
I pushed myself away from reading by setting standards for the material I read that reduced the “fun” quotient. I’ve restored the fun by effectively adjusting my reading material expectations and I am back to enjoying literary popcorn. My Kindle is my reading weapon of choice because I can carry multiple books and read while in the hot tub without getting any paper wet. All in all, I have made a pretty good return to reading form and am happy to have my nose in a book again.
The header image for this post was AI generated using ChatGPT
After I finished a degree in English Literature I didn’t read anything I considered to be a “serious” book for over a decade. Entirely intentionally. After that, over a quarter of a century as a Bookseller, a lot of what I’ve read has been genre fiction. I read a lot of children’s books, TV spin-offs and YA novels. I read whatever I want. Everyone should read whatever they want. Anything else is a waste of good reading time.
Well said, Bhagpuss! Reading for fun is what appeals to me- my brain needs those feel-good chemicals, I guess.
That said, I’ll still occasionally tackle a bit more challenging read most likely completely by accident.