November is for reading

or: a month of sheer luxurious intellectual pleasure

Photo by Mariia Zakatiura on Unsplash

Welcome to November, in the Northern hemisphere it is the dreariest month of the year! Let’s do something to make it feel nicer.

I read the other day that The Times newspaper is launching a campaign to get everyone in the country reading for 10 minutes a day. And you know, I have no argument with it really: if where you are in life is that finding ten minutes of reading every day would be a real achievement and you commit to it then well done. Ten minutes of reading a day is 5 hours in November and then you’d finish reading a book a month and that would be excellent and much, much better, INFINITELY better than spending those extra ten minutes a day watching AI slop made by Sora.

However. The thing about reading a book over the course of a month is that… I think you’ll probably lose the plot of it quite quickly. Unless it’s a very long novel, the best thing is to try to finish a novel in about a week, and then it’s very alive in your head and colours what you’re looking at. The characters become very real to you, you hold little details in your head.

And also, I mean let’s be honest about our screen time. If you are a very very busy person, running three companies or raising three tiny children and you are racing around from morning to night and ten minutes of a book just before bed every day is what you’ve got, then that’s a brilliant aim. But if you’re on Substack, I suspect you of being someone who likes a long read and has time for it right now in life. So, my thought is: go and have a look at the record of your screentime on your phone. How many hours a day are you spending looking at the phone? Mine is somehow four hours a day even though I have no social media apps on my phone! Is it possible that let’s say HALF of your phone-staring time could instead be reading time? Not forever. But just for, let’s say, the drear-yet-potentially-cosy month of November?

So here’s my thought: how about in November we commit to reading for two hours a day¹? The aim here is to choose an amount that feels like at the end of the month it will be an achievement (along the lines of NaNoWriMo of blessed memory). That you’ll be able to look back at November and go “yes it was cold and dark, and the winter holidays were still too far away, but after all I read ten brilliant novels²”. If you polished off all of an author that you took a fancy to. Or you read the whole shortlist for a book prize. (The Booker is announced in 10 days so we have time to get a couple of those under our belts at least, but perhaps even more appetisingly the PG Wodehouse comic book prize is announced in December.) Or if you got through a big chunk of your unread pile.

I have more advice on reading to come but just to get us started off:

1. Consider having more than one book on the go at the same time, for different moods. I like to have a ‘hard book’ and a ‘fun book’ at least and usually also a ‘classic book from at least 100 years ago’ and a ‘brand new book from the past few years’

2. Obviously Kindle or Kobo (I adore my colour Kobo ³) make it very easy to carry more than one book with you at all times. My advice is to read physical books or to read on a device dedicated solely to reading, otherwise you’re just putting yourself in swiping’s-way

3. Have some normal dedicated reading times every day: depending on your life, the tried-and-tested times are:

   1. when you wake up book by the bed instead of phone (you may also find that you are able to focus better for the rest of the day - this effect is quite noticeable for me),

   2. an hour before you go to sleep is IDEAL (you will also sleep better),

   3. public transport time is always reading time,

   4. lunchbreak/coffee break at work,

   5. waiting time is always reading time: in a queue, waiting on hold on the phone, waiting for the kettle to boil,

   6. some of the loveliest reading time in the world is when you’re getting your hair done/pedicure done etc.

4. But also, be open to reading just a page or two between one thing and another. The book is taking the place of swiping on your phone. So literally, you can read a page when you’re in a lift. When you’re walking home from the bus stop (you used to see people reading while walking ALL THE TIME, and now of course they’re all just staring at their phones). When you’re making dinner.⁴ This is what makes the book colour your whole life of course. It’s what makes the book feel like a friend (like social media), not just an intellectual chore.

5. Enjoy reading in all sorts of different places. In addition to making no occasion out of it at all: also make an occasion out of it! Go out to a lovely cafe with a book. Snuggle up on the sofa in a pub with the book. Go and sit in a library with a book, get yourself a glass of champagne with your book, take a train to the seaside on a blustery day and drink a flask of hot chocolate as the rain lashes the windows with your book. These things don’t just look lovely on social media, they feel so lovely to do. A weird bit of advice: I wouldn’t take a new book by an author unfamiliar to you out for a treat. I would take a book I was already engrossed in, or an author I know whose new book I was really looking forward to. Otherwise it feels weirdly like taking a total stranger to a cafe?

And the interesting thing would be: at the end of November, does it feel like your life has been very diminished by losing those two hours a day of scrolling? Would we instantly like to put those two hours of scrolling back into our lives? Or would we… not?

If you found this a useful idea, do please give the post a like - it makes it easier for other people to find it. And it would be lovely to hear in the comments what everyone is reading, where we’re reading, and when!

1. I can’t make you, if one hour feels better or if actually you have six hours a day for reading then do that!

2. Or ten brilliant books about steam trains, or naval battles in history, whatever is more your speed.

3. AND it pairs with Overdrive so I can get my electronic library books directly onto it!

4. Yes, also if you usually take your phone to the loo, then take your book instead.