Reading is a luxury that requires 100 percent of our attention, and we don't always have that kind of time with responsibilities being more pressing. As a result, reading becomes a low priority even as we look longingly at the books on our shelves.
When I was younger, I loved bookstores. I could spend hours in there, and I did. But as I got older, technology took reading’s place, and so did the responsibilities that come with age. Making time to read is hard, and I realized that reading on an electronic device wasn’t helping.
I have nothing against e-books. Even after my realization that I needed a physical book versus an electronic one, I won’t say anything negative about them. E-books have their place, and one advantage is that they require very little space. No one will know what you are reading is another advantage as is being able to carry all of your books without breaking your back.
However, what I want most is to get involved with reading and give it my full attention for however long I can. Even now, as I slowly allow physical books to reenter my life, it’s hard to sit and read. But I’ve noticed that over time, as we do it more often, that ability to sit and read without distraction will come with time and patience.
The quest to read more has little to do with the act itself. There are many benefits to reading. As a writer, I feel it’s in my best interest to read. This became abundantly clear when I read “The Art of Slow Reading,” and the author talked about studying the books of other writers.
Louise DeSalvo wrote about Virginia Woolf’s habit of studying and analyzing the works of others, as well as her own habits. DeSalvo would read books related to what she was writing, and this struck me as a great idea. For instance, I’m writing a historical fiction novel. While I do all the prep work such as outlining, I decided to read as many books (fiction and nonfiction) on kings and queens, emperors and empresses and other historical figures.
The idea is to get a look at how other writers have successfully written about history. I want to know how they described settings, how they used the rules and customs of the day as part of the plot and how they described everyday life. The focus isn’t on getting the history correct (that comes later), but from a standpoint of a writer, how do I tell a good story?
As a positive consequence of this idea, it reignited the passion that has been missing for many years in my life. The pleasure of reading and getting lost in the worlds created for readers reminds me of the days when I had so much more time and could devour book after book. I know I can’t keep up with my younger self; however, I can definitely do better at making reading part of my life again.
In late February, I committed to reading two books a month: one fiction and one nonfiction. This was a stretch for me, but something I felt was doable if I could concentrate. And I did. I finished both books before March’s halfway mark, and I’ve already picked up another two books to round out the rest of the month.
But aside from the magic and nostalgia reading brought back to me, I also learned that that ability to concentrate wasn’t a hard skill to rebuild, and it affected other parts of my life.
Over the weekend, I curled up in my chair and read until I could read no more. I thought about whether reading could be the key I needed to slow down my life once again so that I could focus on what was important to me.
It requires removing myself from the distractions I’m used to. With reading, it was the technological distractions of the internet and social media. With writing or studying, it’s procrastination and the vast amount of things to do other than what I need to do. Lengthy texts look daunting because I’ve become used to the quick pace of technology. For example, it’s hard for me to sit down and do something for more than 30 minutes. A long time ago, before I was a heavy computer user, I had supreme focus and could get lost for hours in one task. I would like that ability back, and I think reading physical books could help by slowing down and learning to focus.
The last benefit I’d found by reading was the positive impact it had on my creativity. I solved problems. Just recently, I finished Margaret Atwood’s “The Penelopiad” and solved a problem that plagued a novel I’ve rewritten many times. I made annotations in the book (and with sticky notes) to keep up with ideas that presented themselves or to show sentences she’d written that were highly descriptive and an example of good writing. Atwood’s novel and my own have nothing in common, but it was as if my writer’s mind and reader’s mind worked in tandem to both enjoy the novel and to work out the kinks in my own stories. By the time I finished the novel, I felt rather accomplished. I’d finished a book I wouldn’t have ordinarily read, and I solved a few issues in my writing.
Reading has many benefits to the imaginative mind. In the past two weeks, I held physical books in my hands, I’ve realized how much I’ve been missing from my life. Sure, I have many responsibilities now, but reading will be a top priority. If not for the pleasure that reading brings, then for far more practical reasons. I won’t insist anyone reads or bemoan that not enough people are doing so. But if you want to read more, start slowly and monitor what you get from it. You may find you get more than you expect.
