How to read (more)

Once, when we were kids in Ethiopia, my best friend stole my book and buried it in our backyard. Our houses shared a wall and our backyards were both our playgrounds, hers with the pomegranate tree and mine with the guava. I cried for two days because I couldn’t find my book anywhere and I was at a critical point in the story so I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know if she felt sorry for me or just got tired of hearing about it but on the second night of Bookgate she took me to the burial spot (next to the carrots) and told me to dig. After I finished my book, I asked her why she did that and she told me she was just tired of me being constantly buried in books.

That’s who I’ve always been. Someone who loves stories. I loved the short stories from Russia that my dad used to read dramatically to me on Sunday evenings. I loved the short novels labeled for young readers that I hoarded like treasure. I loved the summer reading lists of the Accelerated Reading Program in grade school. I loved the piles and piles of novels and poetry collections and essays that made up my Literature degree. You get the point. But there was a time, just after the start of the pandemic, when I lost this part of myself. I lost my ability to focus long enough to finish a page, let alone a whole book. I lost my interest in stories. It was one of the scariest changes that came with my new brain. And it was one of the first things I worked very hard to heal.

What I’ll share with you today are the things that helped me reclaim my love of reading. Perhaps you’ll find them helpful.

But first, let’s examine how you may think of reading as an activity, and how that might actually be working against you. The first question to ask yourself is about desire:

Do you actually want to read more, or do you think you should? If you think you should read more, but you don’t actually have an innate desire to do so, I think it would be in your interest to investigate that further. Why do you think reading is more of a respectable hobby than, say, playing a sport? Are you genuinely interested in reading as an activity, as something that fills your time, or do you think being a reader gives you some sort of status or signals something about your intelligence?

I ask this because whether or not you actually make time for reading is going to depend on how you value it. If it’s an innate desire, not connected to any status or other signaling and therefore not tied to performance, you may find it a lot easier and worthwhile to find time for reading. You may be more willing to take time away from other activities and devote it to reading, without it feeling like a sacrifice. Because you genuinely want to read.

Which brings me to the next question:

Are you someone who spends any amount of time working on your physical body, but find that you just don’t have time to read for an hour a day? (which is essentially a strength training exercise for your brain?) I know plenty of people who are religious about their 45-minute morning workout or hour-long walk in the evenings but do not have time to sit down and read a book. So they don’t. And that’s fine. My issue is when those same people then say they want to read more. Wish they could read more. Oh, if only they had the time! No offense if you’re one of those people. I am just asking you to be honest with yourself about the activities you are willing to devote time to, and the activities you relegate to the purgatory of I wish I had the time. Usually, if you truly want to do something, you can find the time for it. Even if it means cutting into the 7 average hours of screen time.

Now that we’ve covered the two most important questions - desire and time - we can get to the advice. Again, none of this is new. It’s just what makes sense to me.

• Read what you like. Too often I hear from friends don’t know where to begin because they don’t really know what kinds of books they’d like. My general rule is to start with the genre of other media you already consume. For example, if you watch a lot of mysteries or listen to true crime podcasts, chances are very high that you’ll enjoy reading them, too. And while we’re on the topic of reading what you like: please do not let anybody make you feel bad for reading books of certain genres, like romance. I personally do not gravitate toward romance or romantic comedies and read a lot of literary fiction. But that’s because I truly enjoy it. Unless you are a literary critic or educator (even then, there’s room for nuance) nobody cares whether or not what you’re reading is high brow or literary fiction. If you like it, great, read it.

• You do not need to finish that book. A couple of days ago I was recommending a novel to a friend when she told me that she was unable to read anything until she finished the took she started a while ago but is having a hard time getting through. If ever there is a time to stop reading a book, it’s when it feels like a chore and keeps you from actually reading it or anything else. Unless you’re in school and you are required to read it, why are you doing that to yourself? Let it go! Put it away and go pick up something else. Every book is not for every body.

• Books are not supposed to take forever to read. I think it helps to remember that most books, if you have the time, can be read in one sitting. Often when I’m on a long flight and I don’t want to sleep, I’ll start a book and finish it as we’re landing. I share this because it helps me to know that books of most sizes (nobody here is talking bout War and Peace) are actually quite manageable. It may help your brain to feel less daunted by the prospect of finishing a whole book if you remind yourself that technically, it would probably only take you a few hours to read it if you wanted to. Suddenly that book looks a lot less intimidating.

• You have to be intentional about reading. Guess what? If you actually want to read that book during all the little pockets of time when you’re not doing anything (and therefore scrolling on your phone) the book needs to be with you. You’ll never get through the book that’s just sitting on your nightstand, to be picked up every once in a while when your phone is dead. At any given time, I have at least two books (one physical, one electronic) with me for every occasion from public transportation to the gap between meetings to standing in line at the grocery store. And just in case, I have the kindle app on my phone, too. Do you need to be as obsessive? Absolutely not. But it helps to have the book handy. Take it with you and make it a habit to read even a page or a paragraph during the times when you would otherwise be scrolling on your phone. Your brain will thank you and you’ll be that much closer to finishing that one and starting your next one.

• Speaking of your next book: always have it lined up for when you finish your current book. This removes the friction of having to choose something after you were (hopefully) so absorbed in one topic/story, which helps you avoid losing momentum and getting sidetracked in the search for something new. If you use The StoryGraph (the only book tracking app that I like and recommend) then you can utilize the feature that helps you choose a similar book to the one you’re reading (or the opposite).

• Think about your home reading environment. I know that a book on the nightstand is the thing, but consider having another place where you go to read your book. Think about the music you listen to, and whatever else can make your reading time an intentional activity. For me, it’s the far corner of my couch, next to the window, my phone set to do not disturb and classical music in the background. The kind of music that fills the air but doesn’t compete for my attention. Throw in a warm beverage and a nice blanket and I’m there or hours.

• Nobody cares how many books you read, so stop judging yourself by that number. What does the number of books I read in a year mean to anyone but me? My life, my time, my choices, my privileges and my priorities are the only things that factor into the number of books I read. For example, I don’t have children or other dependents. I have a comfortable home and no need to work in the evenings or weekends. And, I have a deep desire for reading. So I am able to go from one book to the next, usually reading about 3 books in a week, sometimes less and sometimes more. All it says about me is that I have the time and the desire to do this activity. It doesn’t make me any more intelligent or disciplined or whatever than someone who reads a fewer number of books than me. So, let go of the arbitrary number and focus instead on just going from one book to the next.

• Keep a reading journal. This is helpful especially if you’re taking up reading as a brain-healing exercise. I keep a simple A5 journal where I jot down any thoughts that stick out to me, or questions that come up. It makes me more focused on the book and feel more confident about retaining some of what I read, which is important to me.

• To regain your focus, go back to basics. At the start of my journey to heal my focus, I found that while trying to read my eyes would wander all over the page instead of fixing on the sentence I was reading. So I would re-read the same sentence but feel like I’m not actually comphrehending it. And I would be mentally pulled into different directions (usually by my phone), often feeling uneasy, like I was forgetting something. One day, almost by instict, I moved my finger to the page and started tracing along the lines as I read under my breath. Almost like how we were taught to read as kids. I found that it brought me right back into focus and kept me there. Something about the physical act of connecting your fingers to the page does something in the brain, and I swear it works wonders to ground you back to the book.

• Reading does not need to bring you anything but pleasure. I am fairly easygoing when it comes to people’s opinions about book genres and what they prefer to read. But there is nothing I hate more than the completely wrong idea that reading fiction is a waste of time. Stop that. Human beings have a lot going for them, but for my money, nothing we do is quite as impactful as the stories we tell. It’s how we become who we are, and how we understand those around us as well as those far away. Stories are what make us, and what keep us alive. Do not for a moment tell me that fiction is somehow a waste a of time because you read that insipid Atomic Habits or some other ridiculous instructional manual for how to be human. Read exclusively that stuff if you so choose, but do not do so with the assumption that you are making reading a productive and therefore worthwhile hobby by avoiding fiction.

Clearly that last bullet point is a bit of a sore subject. Anyway, I hope you find these ideas helpful, and please share your tips and ideas for reading more (or enjoying reading more) in the comments so that other readers may find them.

Happy readig!

Lidiya