not an avid reader (~3-4 books / year, trying to get that number up) but the things that have really invigorated my reading when it feels like a chore to get started:
- reading books that aren’t challenging to start off. all about love and the will to change by bell hooks were the first books i was able to successfully finish in like, years bc her writing style is very colloquial despite the subject matter being very dense. similarly, finding a fun fantasy book (or other genre fiction) to get back in the practice of turning pages and “wanting to find out what comes next” is gonna be paramount to being able to do that for books that are gonna require a little more give from you down the line (haven’t read a physical book in over six months so personally going to start legends and lattes soon to try and trick my brain into not thinking books are time-consuming and scary)
- audiobooks; for me at least reading requires too much visual processing + “sitting still” time that i can’t multi-task and read, so i have to schedule when i’m gonna try and do it (unlike tv where you can have it on in the background as you do dishes or working from home or something and can look up periodically) - taking a chunk of podcast + music time and replacing it with audiobooks has been a game changer bc i now read at the gym, at the office, and in transit <30 min long bc i have to track what station i’m at or see where i’m going
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Start small. I got back into reading this year by reading a lot of novellas and short story collections. No more than 200 pages long. It really felt like I was having to rewire my brain because I’d been out of practice with reading. Find a book that intrigues you (if you want to read graphic novels read graphic novels! you’ll get to your friend’s recs in time) and carry it with you everywhere you go. Then (and I know this sounds ridiculous) you just have to actively choose to read the book. I have to be like “ok we’re putting the phone away now and we are going to read 10 pages” sometimes I read more and sometimes I hit my quota and ditch the book for the day. I made a goodreads and you can set a reading goal challenge (which I’m now behind on) and that’s kinda fun.
Oct 20, 2024
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- Start with the books that interest you the most (maybe you should actually start with something that is not a recommendation from someone else because that's a lot of pressure! You could go to a bookstore and find a book that makes you excited to read to get you into the habit of reading again.)
- Take it one book at a time. The pile is daunting, so just find the next book that you are excited to read and read that one. We will never be able to read all of the books we want to, but that shouldn't stop us from reading some of them.
- If you hate the book, stop reading it. Again, we will never be able to read all of the books we want to, so don't waste time on books you don't like.
- While you're reading, have a pen or a notebook and look for things that make you feel or think something new, or things you want to share or talk about with your friend. Take notes or underline them. This sounds like it would be more work, but I find that it actually gets my brain into a more active state which makes it easier to focus and makes me feel excited and curious about what I'm reading.
- You can also try making it into a ritual. Light a candle when you read, or play some soothing music in the background or make yourself a little pillow fort or a specific cozy beverage to drink while you read. Or you could read in a bubble bath or something else that makes you happy. Then you will be reading with intention. And it's fun and cute! If possible, put your phone in a drawer or on do not disturb, for obvious reasons.
Oct 18, 2024
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if you're like me and got away from reading for a few years but are trying to get back into it, here are some things that have helped me in the last 6 ish months:
1) deleting some social media accounts / spending less time on them
2) replace my doom scrolling with reading either on my phone or with an e-reader (the more basic the better imo) (my kobo is on its way to me as we speak)
3) starting with shorter things like novellas and working my way back up to longer things (also if I feel overwhelmed by my lack of progress on something longer I read a short story)
4) remembering that reading is a skill and it will take time to get really good at it again like when I was younger and that's okay !
happy reading everyone!
Jan 13, 2025
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Mar 23, 2024
a treatise on the attention economy - checked it out on libby and got through it over the course of a work day, a lot of really interesting social and cultural explorations about how time itself is the final frontier of hypercapitalism and what decommodification of our attention and time should look like
the book starts with a story about the oldest redwood tree in oakland and how the only reason it’s still standing is bc it’s unmillable, and how being uncommercializable is essential to our survival. it ends with an exploration of alt social media platforms (mostly p2p ones) and what keeping the good parts of the social internet and rejecting the bad ones should look like
all in all a super valuable read; my only nitpick with the book is that odell isn’t just charting the attention economy but also attempting to “solve” it and relate it back to broader concepts about labor and social organizing, but her background is in the arts which leads to some really wonderful references to drive the points home while also missing some critical racial + socioeconomic analyses that one would expect (or at least really appreciate) from the book she promises to deliver in the introduction. but this does also make the book easier to read which is good because everyone should definitely engage with what she has to say
will definitely be revisiting
Mar 25, 2024