How to read more

Attempting to reconnect with the bookworm I used to be

Hi, I’m Louise and I write stories from a life unexpected: a failed business, anxiety, infertility, and everything in between. Sharing can lift the shame so thank you so much for being here.

Before I get into this week’s essay (which, apologies, is a little late on a Wednesday rather than my usual Sunday!), I wanted to extend a very warm welcome to my new readers. After my guest post with Cait some of you lovely people have come over to see what I’m doing and I’m so happy you’re here. Feel free to have an explore of my older posts, but I thought I’d pull some free ones out for you to get started and get to know me. Do also say hi in the comments so I know who you are!

A year of writing

Why I went from a 9-5 to running my own business - and back again

Always searching for the perfect ‘recipe’

This week’s post is free, but I do also write some posts for my paid subscribers only. These are particularly personal pieces and so I want to keep them for my closest subscribers who will hold them tenderly. You can join us anytime, but no pressure to do that, I’m just glad you’re here!

---

Note that this post may get cut off in some emails, so if it does please go to the app to read in full. I don’t usually write as much!

I have a vision of myself as an avid book reader. In this vision, I have a library of cherished books and a large reading chair with cosy blankets where I spend my weekends with cups of tea and a good book. I soak up the stories of my favourite genres immersed in their words. Reading has a key place in my life and I carve this time out intentionally. 

Only this isn’t me. Not right now, at least.

And it bothers me! It has done for a while. It bothers me that I want to read more but just don’t. In fact, I wrote about it back last year when I was contemplating distraction. I talked about how my concentration has fallen off a cliff. This is still true but I wonder if it’s more than that. 

It hasn’t always been like this. I vividly remember the holiday in France when I was twelve where I read multiple entire volumes of the Sweet Valley Twins series. I would cosy up in my room in our rented caravan or curl up on a towel at the beach and just read for hours. I was immersed in the world of my books and just wanted to be in it all the time. I was the same at home, not just holidays. I’d spend entire Sundays on my rainbow bean bag just reading. 

As a 90s kid in the UK, I read all the classics: Sweet Valley, Goosebumps, Babysitters’ Club, The Saddle Club. (When I said classics, I meant classics of the 90s!). I also loved Enid Blyton and wanted to be in the Secret Seven. I read Judy Blume and the Narnia books. Harry Potter wasn’t a thing until my teenage years, but of course I went there when the craze took off. 

Just listing all of these out makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. From those entire days spent reading to reading by torch light under the covers when I was meant to be going to sleep, I was a self-declared bookworm. 

Of course, that was a much more analogue age. My sister and I weren’t allowed TVs in our bedrooms so that forced our hands on entertainment options. There were no mobile phones and barely any internet. If we weren’t playing outside, making our own board games, or trying to snaffle the GameBoy that next door had, we were most likely reading. 

These seem like golden times. I feel like I no longer have that same zest for reading. Or maybe I do, it has just been buried under all the responsibilities of adult life.

Right now I probably read one book a month. Sometimes I’ll read a fiction and a non-fiction book at the same time. I occasionally dabble in audio books. (Yes, I count audio books as reading - a long-standing argument with my husband, who does not!). But I average around 20 books a year, according to my Goodreads. Is this a good number? I have no idea. 

Goodreads feels like a strange phenomenon. On the one hand, it’s an amazing resource to share books and find new ideas, and I do like tracking what I’ve read as a log to look back on. However, I have an issue with the goals and striving that it can encourage. Somebody at work recently said that she was nearing her goal of reading 75 books this year. 75! That’s 6 books a month, 1.5 a week. This is staggering to me. The thing is that she felt bad about not reaching her target yet as the year comes to an end. What must she think of my measly 20? 

When do these goals stop being helpful and start being another stick to beat ourselves with about not achieving or doing enough? I set my Goodreads to a goal of one book (a year!) and then I always reach it. It means that I can’t feel bad for being behind my target, nor does it start to feel like a chore, but I still get the benefits of tracking what I read in a year.

But this post isn’t about numbers. Even though my Goodreads relationship is sorted and I’m not a slave to any sort of reading number, I still feel like I’m not in love with reading like I used to be. I want to read more. Not in a target-driven way, in a feeling way. I miss the feeling of being immersed in books as twelve-year-old me was.

I don’t think I am alone in this. The Reading Agency reports that 31% of adults in the UK don’t read in their spare time¹. Johann Hari explored this in his book Stolen Focus in the chapter ‘The Collapse of Sustained Reading’. He cites numbers in the US that say the number of women reading for pleasure has dropped by 29% and of men by 40%! The whole thrust of his book is about how distracted we have become, but this chapter focuses on reading as a victim of our distraction and I identified with it a lot. 

What’s getting in the way then? Well, I can only speak for myself on this. 

The main obstacle is that other forms of entertainment are a bigger pull. Even while writing this post I watched two random YouTube videos. The effort required to watch something on streaming or to scroll my phone is less. Therefore, despite wanting to read a book, it’s often easier not to. It’s easier to pick up the iPad and just consume what is presented to me by an algorithm.

The other form of distraction to my reading is the to-do list. Spending time reading feels frivolous and wasteful when there are things to be done. At the weekend I often say to myself that I will spend some time reading, but inevitably I get to Sunday evening and haven’t read anything. The dopamine hit from ticking the to-do list off was too seductive. Even if I try to hack it and put ‘read’ on the to-do list, it always goes to the bottom after the household jobs. 

One ironic blocker to my reading more is the ‘To Be Read’ pile. In theory it should motivate me to read more, but it often becomes a burden. It’s like I look at the same books on my shelf for so long, I feel bad I haven’t read them and come to dread picking them up. At the time I would have bought them because I was excited about the story or something would have resonated within me to think ‘I want to read this book’. But once they have been on the shelf for some time, they gather dust and become less shiny and new. Other books dazzle me and so I buy more. And on and on.

Then I have a number of books that I have started and not finished. They sit on the middle shelf of my office bookcase with scrappy bookmarks sticking out of them, taunting me that I need to pick them back up again. Perhaps they have some crucial gift to bestow upon me and I have missed out on? There is an alternative perspective here that I got what I needed from them and should move on, but I mostly don’t.  

We can feel like we ‘should’ be reading certain things, whether to read what everyone else seems to be reading or because we’re too embarrassed to say what books we really like. I’m currently reading a ‘chick lit’/ romance book and at a work lunch this week, I felt I had to caveat this and defend why I was reading it. I told them I was ‘picky’ about my choice of romance novel writers, as if I only read the high-brow ones (whatever they are!), so they wouldn’t judge me (as what, less intelligent than them?).

I know that if I want to keep improving my writing skills, then read I must! And I do want to become a better writer. If I frame my reading around this, perhaps it will motivate me to make it a priority. I don’t like the idea of having a structure so much, I still want it to be fun, but perhaps setting aside time one weekend day and one weekday evening may work. 

I recently came across Molly of Hippy Highland Living and she often shares her reading strategies. One tip that stuck with me was how she reads seasonally. Molly picked her books to match the season of the year. So in autumn she was picking more thrillers and things set in colder places. I really like this idea and have acquired two such books for winter - Nigel Slater’s The Christmas Chronicles and Rosie Steer’s Slow Seasons (a book to dip into for all seasons).

Molly also talks about connecting with your why for reading. I already mentioned my writing as being one reason, but another big reason for me is that reading connects me to both the present and the past. I find reading, especially reading a physical book, to be a very grounding activity. It takes me out of my fast-paced monkey mind as I have to focus on a long-form piece of writing rather than short Instagram ads and video clips bombarding me. It also connects me to the past - myself as a young reader, the past as captured in the books I like, and also my Nan. My Nan is 94 and is still a vociferous reader. We chat about books and how she was always reading as young girl.

I find that reading is absorbing but not so much of an onslaught to the senses as TV or film may be. I find it gentler on my nervous system. Visiting bookshops and libraries is a balm to my soul. It’s the complete opposite of how I feel when I enter a giant shopping centre or a mega superstore. As someone of a highly sensitive disposition, I find reading a counter to the things in modern life that crank up my overwhelm gauge. 

Stories are a wonderful escape from daily life. There is something magical about a story someone else has written capturing your mind and heart. I get to picture the world that they have created and it exists for real as I read the pages. It comes to life. I can have a connection with the characters that I even miss when I finish the book. It is proven that books and stories can help us to feel less lonely - the Reading Agency says that 19% of readers say that reading stops them from feeling lonely. 

Reflecting on all of this has stirred something in me. Maybe I can get back to reading more like twelve-year-old me. And perhaps I really should for the amazing benefits. I will need to fight the powers of digital distraction, the never-ending to-do lists, and prioritise reading time (that isn’t ten minutes before bed - note to self, I always fall asleep). 

I don’t have the perfect library or high-backed chair complete with woollen blanket, the perfect distraction-free zone in which to read, nor the clear window of time in which to start reading more. It’s all totally imperfect and not conducive to my vision. But perhaps that’s not the important part. The important part is the feeling behind it. I want to get that back. 

So for now, I’m off to the dusty, not-all-that-comfy sofa bed in the spare room, with no library around me, to read my low-brow chick-lit book, with pleasure. 

Please, PLEASE let me know your tips for reading more below! I would love to hear them and learn from everyone else. 

1. https://readingagency.org.uk/about/impact/002-reading-facts-1/