I never fell out of love of reading.
Being semi-retired, and generally indifferent to TV, I have plenty of time to read, and spend several hours every day doing it. Usually the Bible/theology in the morning, history and natural science in the afternoon, and novels or short stories in the evening. I like paper books, but I transitioned to Kindle some years ago and it has been a great way to buy books, learn about books I didn’t know about, and borrow from digital libraries and Internet Archive. I have always enjoyed learning new things. My reading schedule helps my do that and keeps my mind sharp. In some ways I am better mentally now than when I was younger. Reading is just an all-around satisfying experience for me.
I initially read the title as “Red-ing” as in Reading, Pennsylvania & was slightly confused....
That said, I have been a voracious reader pretty much my whole life... as a kid I read thru encyclopedias for “fun”. But in the past couple of years, I’ve really slacked off. I think it’s partly because I now need reading glasses and they bother me after a while, but also because of
“electronica” and other distractions. Even this forum (and a few others I frequent) take up a lot of time in my daily “downtime” routines. I do appreciate some of the suggestions listed, not sure if all of them work for me, but it does serve as a nice reminder to attack that pile of books by my bedside.
— as a side note — the last book I read was a young adult romantic fiction written by my daughter (I was helping with edits), and the one before that was “Hillbilly Elegy” by JD Vance (very good read, much better than the movie)
Reading PA? Reading MA? or Reading, Berks.?
10. Don’t count out audiobooks.
Translation: Make it a podcast! You will miss half the detail and probably the main arc of the argument or story, but hey, it’s something!
I would but I’m too lazy to read this.
My buddy just finished David Copperfield - I just read that last fall! So we talked about Dickens for an hour.
Book readers are the coolest people.
This is something I talk to people about every day. I started a local magazine a year ago and we have a 3rd party audit our readers about their reading habits. From 2023 to 2024 we saw a 60% increase the number of times that people read the same magazine each month (from ~8x to ~13x). Digital exhaustion is real, and disconnecting from Social Media, Digital and other forms of information overload for a few minutes gives you the ability to relax and actually think about a topic at your own pace.
My wife was Secondary English Ed major.We homeschooled our 3 daughters with an extremely extensive reading writing curriculum that she developed. They practically lived in the local library - the librarians knew them all by name. She is now a reading tutor with a 1500+ book home library and constantly adding more.
Youngest daughter requested and read the unabridged version of Les Mis at 7.
Middle daughter would devour novels faster than my wife could procure them from the library.
Oldest daughter read Bill Bennett’s “Book Of Virtues” at age 5. She now considers Poe “light reading”.
Scripture, history, and Louis L’Amore for me.
Great post! Thanks!