How I Started Reading Again

A Short, Sweet Formula For Making the Choice to Read

They’re just like me for real.

We’re not a society of readers, so the data tells us again and again. Given that we’re all here on Substack trying to get someone to care about (and maybe even pay for) our writing, this should concern us all. Often, this crisis is painted as one of intelligence, or attention span. Americans are too dumb for literature. They’re too busy with Skibidi Toilet. They need a phone playing oddly satisfying compilations and Subway Surfers gameplay to sit still long enough for a movie. This is unhelpful and I would suggest a reframing, the problem may be better understood as one of immediacy.

Ever since I’ve been making my own money and have therefore been free to misuse it as I see fit, I’ve had the problem of buying far more books than I can feasibly read. I had no real desire to curtail this habit, a good used book is far better served taking up space on my shelf than some other moron’s. Add little free libraries to the mix and forget about it. I need to rescue these things, before the next rainstorm takes its toll. Still I struggled to work through my library at a satisfactory rate. I realized, after some reflection, that my issue was perception more than anything else. The other media competing for my attention offered a more immediate sense of progress. Movies are perhaps the best example of this principle in action. With the two hours available to me before bed, I could either read, say, one eighth of a four-hundred page novel or I could watch an entire movie and write my impressions of it on Letterboxd. I’d choose the movie virtually every time. The movie or the game or the TV show or the phone. The feeling of immediate progress offered was more intoxicating. Completing something insubstantial proved more potent than making progress on something substantial.

The brutal fact of the matter is that I can’t make you choose to read. You have to do that for yourself. But if you want to find ways to fit that choice into your lifestyle, I have some tips.

Establish Your Rotation

My system is simple. I try to have two books going at any given time. They are not subject to restrictions of genre or subject. The sole restriction I place on them is size. At any given time, at least one of the books I am reading absolutely must fit in the back pocket of a pair of jeans or the largest available pocket on my jacket of choice. No exceptions. This one goes with you everywhere. Take it to the office, take it out to the bar or cafe, take it when you’re running errands. You need to train yourself to be aware of an alternative to the immediacy offered by your phone.

The second book can be anything. It will likely be bigger than the first. This one lives by your bed, or in a central position in some other part of your home where you spend your evenings. Again, be aware of that alternative. The idea is to work on this one before bed. Treat it as a health decision if you must. Maybe get a little old money with it. Make yourself a nightcap, lounge, get away from the screens. You’ll sleep better.

Tips for Success, Pitfalls to Avoid

Allow me to offer some generalized advice, which I feel will be useful to anyone seeking to start (or rebuild) a consistent reading habit:

• Start Light - I fear many of us go wrong by jumping in at the deep end. We want the street cred that comes from chewing through a serious literary work the size of a porterhouse steak. This may enrapture some, my general impression is that it’s more likely to derail an aspirant to habitual reading. Lighter fare can build your confidence and help you develop a proper hunger for those bigger books.

• Give Yourself Projects - Friend of the blog, Alex McDonough, has spent most of this year working through a randomly-sorted reading list of fiction clogging up his shelf. His series ELIMINATE DOWN has been the result of the machine god’s book club list for him and I’ve enjoyed watching him work through it (as well as reading his impressions). But it’s confirmed for me that I enjoy the freedom to set my own agenda. Reading for pleasure means pursuing your whims and passions. One of the most rewarding things about rekindling this habit has been the discovery of writers and works I now count among my favorites. My minor obsession with Richard Stark’s Parker novels was completely nonexistent before the summer. My eye will probably always be out for compelling nonfiction narratives after the one two punch of Evan Wright’s Generation Kill (RIP) and Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven. I’m still in the process of exploring the weird world of Don DeLillo (Libra is my current “big book” after a very enjoyable first reading of White Noise). If you’re not in school anymore, it means you can set a curriculum that’s far more enjoyable than anything you ever got from a teacher.

• Build an “Out” Pile - Speaking as a dedicated pack rat; there is no good reason to hold onto everything on your shelves. If anything, a purge can clear space for new acquisitions. If you’re like me and picking up cheap or free books fairly regularly just because you’re curious and like a deal; I advise building a pile of books you’re unsure of. If you should finish one of your current projects in progress and feel unsure about where to go next, draw from here. Read it, then decide its fate.

• Don’t Be Afraid to Read Crap - This last piece of advice is perhaps more aimed at writers than readers, but reading not-very-good work can be arguably more enlightening as to your own tastes than reading good books. I’ll provide my own example. When I was a college sophomore I was introduced to the work of Thomas Pynchon via Bleeding Edge (“the one about Goku” as Sean McTiernan refers to it). I was immediately taken with Pynchon’s prose and aspired to write like him, but how the hell can I possibly do that? It’s impossible. I can only write like me just as you can only write like you. This year, I read Alan Dean Foster’s Bloodhype and fucking hated it. Mr. Foster is now my opp for life, though he has my respect. I now know how I don’t want to write, and that’s far more actionable in my everyday writing than some lofty ideal that I want my work to match.

• Know Your Habits - I read a lot on planes. On a recent weekend trip, I bet that my time in airports and on planes would be sufficient to finish a short novel and I was right. Learning to read your own habits as a reader makes reading an easier inclusion into your schedule and also brings the progress that’s often necessary to encourage the habit.

This is, of course, very general advice. However, after nearly a year of this system I can say for a fact that it works for me. Your system will likely be different in ways that suit you. I wish you luck in crafting and refining it.