great two hours of reading today: some of a John Le Carré, some of a friend's new brilliant book, and finished Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet. Another added benefit: finding myself very driven to write as well.
2nd Nov: more Le Carré and a big chunk of Katabasis, plus some of the audiobook of The Land In Winter (but I personally am not counting audiobooks toward my two hours because what I need is more eye-reading time, my ear-reading is always plentiful)
3rd Nov: more Le Carré! 1hr 15 mins in bed with The Honourable Schoolboy before the day started (that sounds peculiar when I write it). And then a lovely 45 minutes sitting in the garden with Cory Doctorow's new book Enshittification.
100% pro this. (I actually got a border collie on the basis I could cut down my 6 hours of daily phone use to 3 and still manage 3 hours dog walking.) But still, the phone use creeps up. I HATE it. Attention span for physical books has plummeted (but then maybe thinking I can jump from scrolling into a novel about pre 1914 Hungary is a little ambitious.)
I think I might have to do a whole post of "tricks for getting yourself reading (and especially after a reading slump)".
A top one for me when life/sadness/exhaustion/anxiety about the world/grief/etc etc has meant I stopped reading for a while is:
* Set a timer for ten minutes (on watch ideally, or kitchen timer, not phone).
* Read for ten minutes. Most of us can do that without trouble, I think.
* Then when the ten minutes is over... if you fancy, just set for another ten minutes.
* Continue until you're not feeling it anymore
I often find I can do an hour that way, when if I just said to myself "now I shall read for an hour" my anxious brain would balk like a horse refusing a fence and I'd find myself deep in Wikipedia or whatever.
“my anxious brain would balk like a horse refusing a fence”… perfect. I spent the first two thirds of my life hoovering up books, now it’s like I’m allergic to them. The physical act of sitting with a book feels deeply weird and uncomfortable, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m wasting time (I know, I know)…
yes I know this reason to stop reading. the name of it is anxiety. the always-on internet produces anxiety, it feels like we're all working in the White House, constantly needing to be alert to every new development. It is helpful to remember what our own *actual sphere of influence* is (small, but not powerless, usually) and stick to that.
* Are the people I have care of (including myself) reasonably fed, watered, clean, able to rest?
* Have I attended to the work I have agreed to do in the world such that it is not in crisis, I have a plan for progressing it, and no one is anxiously waiting for something from me before they can continue with any useful work?
* If I have large concerns about the state of the wider world have I taken on one (1) meaningful volunteer action or project such that I know I am doing my share to improve things. (Posting anxiously about the world on social media is not a meaningful volunteer action or project. Reading anxiously about it even less so. Picking up one piece of litter from outside your house every day does more actual good than infinite anxious scrolling.)
If so then you are OK to stop worrying and spend 10 minutes reading a book. And then when you've done that, you could probably set a timer for another 10.
The irony is of course that when we stop anxious spiralling and spend time eg reading (also drawing, also gardening, also playing an instrument, also cooking, also going to a museum to see the great works of art of the world, and many other worthwhile non-anxious pursuits) we become A LOT BETTER at being able to actually do those meaningful activities where we really can have an effect.
I have noticed that children can *really* tell the difference between "the adult is looking after me and happens to be reading a book" and "the adult is buried in their phone and has stopped being present with me". I think everything is like that. Everything we care about can tell the difference between "I'm meaningfully engaged" and "I've been sucked into an anxious addictive machine-meld".
Vorrh, the first volume, by Brian Catling. And I usually have a re-read on the go, a charity shop paperback stuffed in a pocket for bus stops and railway platforms. This week’s is Cannery Row
I borrowed my son’s Kobo and am working my way through his reading list. A double win! Books to share AND reading outside my comfort zone.
I had to relearn how to read after the pandemic. Something broke. After a lifetime of always having three books on the go at once, I lost my ability to pay attention. And I write for a living, so it was deeply disturbing.
Audiobooks plus giving myself a weekly deadline to write longform here on Substack finally brought me back to books again.
I read when I'm walking to and from work, but of course it's harder in November as it's so often dark. Maybe I should invest in a head torch? Like many people, I lost my reading mojo in lockdown and it felt terrible, like losing one's libido. I couldn't even manage a few pages of a magazine. Luckily, I did get it back!
How do you do that without bumping into things? Would audio be safer?! I listen to audio books with just one earbud in for safety purposes - but finding it harder and harder to find exactly read ones which haven’t been messed about by AI in some way. So frustrating!
Sometimes parents of children I teach ask me this, as if I am providing a bad example to their children. I am blessed with extremely good peripheral vision, which means I can look up from the page I'm reading, scan my environment quickly, then go back to the exact line/paragraph I was reading without losing my place. I have been doing this for 30 years since I started teaching and never once bumped into a lamp-post.
I’m reading *A Canticle for Leibowitz* right now, and it’s hitting *so right.* It feels so good (chewy?) in my brain, I’d honestly forgotten how delicious the right book can feel. Most of the reading I did up through my twenties felt like that, so I suspect it’s more a change in my own brain than it is in the books I’ve been reading.
I was definitely the kid who got in trouble for reading in class. My parents had to make a “no books at the dinner table” rule. But my focus has gotten so bad - even though I don’t do a ton of social media - I appreciate this opportunity to practice with deliberation.
Fantastic. I suspect you are preaching to the choir a fair bit here - I imagine that I am not the only one who reads you for whom
reading fiction is a default.
Your advice about having more than one thing on the go is excellent. You never know what you are going to be in the mood for. I also find that the time of day matters. In the early morning I tend to stick to non fiction unless I cannot bear not to be reading what I was reading the night before (I wish that happened more). And I divide between short and snappy things which are good for accruing interesting facts but which don’t necessarily make me think, as a warm up, then move onto something that absolutely does. Then fiction in the evening, on the train, quiet moments etc.
I’ve got my phone use down to two hours a day by complete white-knuckle effort and that’s still two. hours. a. day. More than a whole workday per week. I’m going to do this. I always have loads of books I want to read so why not actually read them instead of scrolling fruitlessly for dopamine?
Great advice Naomi! I’m currently reading Before the Dawn by Japanese author Shimakazi Toson. It’s set on the old Nakasendo Highway in Japan where I’m headed soon leading a group of haiku writers. As well I’m rereading The Bookseller at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw, set in New Zealand’s South Island, another place I want to take a group of writers. Usually on our retreats our focus is writing but it just occurred to me wouldn’t it be wonderful to go on a reading retreat!
I used to read a lot, but something broke during the pandemic (like a lot of people, I think), and I started scrolling mindlessly through socials when I had that down time. So I'm going to use this month to make a conscious effort to cut down my mindless scrolling and read more.
I have started a reading tracker of books started/finished, and I read 200 pages yesterday. It's silly fiction (I'm working through Elizabeth Peters' "Amelia Peabody" mysteries set in the late 19th century and early 20th century in Egypt), but there's nothing wrong with silly fiction.
I am in the small children phase of life so 2 hours a day is sadly not quite feasible right now (unless I get very lucky with a nap) but I will aspire to it! I am sticking to one book at a time at the moment too because my brain can't quite handle the switch, but the main thing is to always have one on the go, as you say.
There are are definitely seasons of life so absolutely do not feel bad about this not being a season for two hours of reading a day!! It’s really just: turn to the book first rather than to your phone when you have a few moments.
There was a time, not so long ago, that two hours reading a day was the barest minimum for me. I don't know why that's changed recently but this has acted like a call to arms so thank you for that.
I usually have two books on the go - one fiction, the other nonfiction. I couldn't switch between novels, I think.
Yes I think there are a huge number of us who have that feeling of… Even five years ago it was very normal to read a lot every day and now somehow it isn’t.
I think we might still be a bit broken by the pandemic, I have to remind myself that I used to go out to cafés and libraries to read and work every day! The old lockdown habits still kick in.
but of course it’s also that the discourse became so much more toxic during the pandemic, and the technology billionaires turned up their efforts to hook us higher and higher and higher.
This is such a great way to spend November. I've been consciously doing 'read don't scroll' for a few weeks. BP (Before Phones) I read practically all the time, in all the little gaps in the day you mention above.
Reading on the bus makes me feel really queasy, so I generally have an audio book on the go - currently Divine Might by Natalie Haynes, which I also want to read with my eyes, once I'm done reading with my ears. Then I have one by the bed which is fiction, usually historical or spies - I can read a novel like this in a few days (I go to bed really early, to read) I agree with getting *completely into* the story and characters, they haunt me during the day sometimes.
Interesting shot there Kobo. I wish I could put library ebooks on my Kindle but it's is too old, so I don't check them out at the moment as I'd have to read them on my phone, the very thing I'm trying to avoid.
great two hours of reading today: some of a John Le Carré, some of a friend's new brilliant book, and finished Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet. Another added benefit: finding myself very driven to write as well.
2nd Nov: more Le Carré and a big chunk of Katabasis, plus some of the audiobook of The Land In Winter (but I personally am not counting audiobooks toward my two hours because what I need is more eye-reading time, my ear-reading is always plentiful)
3rd Nov: more Le Carré! 1hr 15 mins in bed with The Honourable Schoolboy before the day started (that sounds peculiar when I write it). And then a lovely 45 minutes sitting in the garden with Cory Doctorow's new book Enshittification.
4th Nov: Honourable Schoolboy, Enshittification, Katabasis
5th Nov: Honourable Schoolboy, friend's novel, a book called "The Curious Researcher" which was recommended by a Substacker called Flossy Fay
100% pro this. (I actually got a border collie on the basis I could cut down my 6 hours of daily phone use to 3 and still manage 3 hours dog walking.) But still, the phone use creeps up. I HATE it. Attention span for physical books has plummeted (but then maybe thinking I can jump from scrolling into a novel about pre 1914 Hungary is a little ambitious.)
I think I might have to do a whole post of "tricks for getting yourself reading (and especially after a reading slump)".
A top one for me when life/sadness/exhaustion/anxiety about the world/grief/etc etc has meant I stopped reading for a while is:
* Set a timer for ten minutes (on watch ideally, or kitchen timer, not phone).
* Read for ten minutes. Most of us can do that without trouble, I think.
* Then when the ten minutes is over... if you fancy, just set for another ten minutes.
* Continue until you're not feeling it anymore
I often find I can do an hour that way, when if I just said to myself "now I shall read for an hour" my anxious brain would balk like a horse refusing a fence and I'd find myself deep in Wikipedia or whatever.
“my anxious brain would balk like a horse refusing a fence”… perfect. I spent the first two thirds of my life hoovering up books, now it’s like I’m allergic to them. The physical act of sitting with a book feels deeply weird and uncomfortable, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m wasting time (I know, I know)…
yes I know this reason to stop reading. the name of it is anxiety. the always-on internet produces anxiety, it feels like we're all working in the White House, constantly needing to be alert to every new development. It is helpful to remember what our own *actual sphere of influence* is (small, but not powerless, usually) and stick to that.
* Are the people I have care of (including myself) reasonably fed, watered, clean, able to rest?
* Have I attended to the work I have agreed to do in the world such that it is not in crisis, I have a plan for progressing it, and no one is anxiously waiting for something from me before they can continue with any useful work?
* If I have large concerns about the state of the wider world have I taken on one (1) meaningful volunteer action or project such that I know I am doing my share to improve things. (Posting anxiously about the world on social media is not a meaningful volunteer action or project. Reading anxiously about it even less so. Picking up one piece of litter from outside your house every day does more actual good than infinite anxious scrolling.)
If so then you are OK to stop worrying and spend 10 minutes reading a book. And then when you've done that, you could probably set a timer for another 10.
The irony is of course that when we stop anxious spiralling and spend time eg reading (also drawing, also gardening, also playing an instrument, also cooking, also going to a museum to see the great works of art of the world, and many other worthwhile non-anxious pursuits) we become A LOT BETTER at being able to actually do those meaningful activities where we really can have an effect.
I have noticed that children can *really* tell the difference between "the adult is looking after me and happens to be reading a book" and "the adult is buried in their phone and has stopped being present with me". I think everything is like that. Everything we care about can tell the difference between "I'm meaningfully engaged" and "I've been sucked into an anxious addictive machine-meld".
Wise words!
I'd already decided to attempt an Insta-free month so this reading treat could be my reward instead of the planned reward which was to 'work more'.
Brilliant! I think this is a better plan…
Vorrh, the first volume, by Brian Catling. And I usually have a re-read on the go, a charity shop paperback stuffed in a pocket for bus stops and railway platforms. This week’s is Cannery Row
I borrowed my son’s Kobo and am working my way through his reading list. A double win! Books to share AND reading outside my comfort zone.
I had to relearn how to read after the pandemic. Something broke. After a lifetime of always having three books on the go at once, I lost my ability to pay attention. And I write for a living, so it was deeply disturbing.
Audiobooks plus giving myself a weekly deadline to write longform here on Substack finally brought me back to books again.
I read when I'm walking to and from work, but of course it's harder in November as it's so often dark. Maybe I should invest in a head torch? Like many people, I lost my reading mojo in lockdown and it felt terrible, like losing one's libido. I couldn't even manage a few pages of a magazine. Luckily, I did get it back!
How do you do that without bumping into things? Would audio be safer?! I listen to audio books with just one earbud in for safety purposes - but finding it harder and harder to find exactly read ones which haven’t been messed about by AI in some way. So frustrating!
Sometimes parents of children I teach ask me this, as if I am providing a bad example to their children. I am blessed with extremely good peripheral vision, which means I can look up from the page I'm reading, scan my environment quickly, then go back to the exact line/paragraph I was reading without losing my place. I have been doing this for 30 years since I started teaching and never once bumped into a lamp-post.
That is very impressive. I on the other hand have bumped into lampposts many times when I actually have been looking where I’m going!
I’m reading *A Canticle for Leibowitz* right now, and it’s hitting *so right.* It feels so good (chewy?) in my brain, I’d honestly forgotten how delicious the right book can feel. Most of the reading I did up through my twenties felt like that, so I suspect it’s more a change in my own brain than it is in the books I’ve been reading.
I was definitely the kid who got in trouble for reading in class. My parents had to make a “no books at the dinner table” rule. But my focus has gotten so bad - even though I don’t do a ton of social media - I appreciate this opportunity to practice with deliberation.
Fantastic. I suspect you are preaching to the choir a fair bit here - I imagine that I am not the only one who reads you for whom
reading fiction is a default.
Your advice about having more than one thing on the go is excellent. You never know what you are going to be in the mood for. I also find that the time of day matters. In the early morning I tend to stick to non fiction unless I cannot bear not to be reading what I was reading the night before (I wish that happened more). And I divide between short and snappy things which are good for accruing interesting facts but which don’t necessarily make me think, as a warm up, then move onto something that absolutely does. Then fiction in the evening, on the train, quiet moments etc.
I expect I'm preaching to the choir too, but I love this choir :-).
And I was still quite surprised by how high my screentime is - I think it creeps up when I'm stressed/anxious/looking at the news :-(.
I’ve got my phone use down to two hours a day by complete white-knuckle effort and that’s still two. hours. a. day. More than a whole workday per week. I’m going to do this. I always have loads of books I want to read so why not actually read them instead of scrolling fruitlessly for dopamine?
Great advice Naomi! I’m currently reading Before the Dawn by Japanese author Shimakazi Toson. It’s set on the old Nakasendo Highway in Japan where I’m headed soon leading a group of haiku writers. As well I’m rereading The Bookseller at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw, set in New Zealand’s South Island, another place I want to take a group of writers. Usually on our retreats our focus is writing but it just occurred to me wouldn’t it be wonderful to go on a reading retreat!
I used to read a lot, but something broke during the pandemic (like a lot of people, I think), and I started scrolling mindlessly through socials when I had that down time. So I'm going to use this month to make a conscious effort to cut down my mindless scrolling and read more.
I have started a reading tracker of books started/finished, and I read 200 pages yesterday. It's silly fiction (I'm working through Elizabeth Peters' "Amelia Peabody" mysteries set in the late 19th century and early 20th century in Egypt), but there's nothing wrong with silly fiction.
NOTHING wrong with silly fiction
I love those books. Really good audio versions too!
They're really good. They crack along nicely and I feel like I'm learning stuff as well.
I would recommend a slow read with an online group. I've read a couple of 'difficult' books with Footnotes and Tangents.
I, too, like a fiction and non fiction for different moods and times of day.
Putting my phone in another room helps me not to hear any diverting alerts!
Happy November reading everyone!
This is brilliant!
Thank you!!
I am in the small children phase of life so 2 hours a day is sadly not quite feasible right now (unless I get very lucky with a nap) but I will aspire to it! I am sticking to one book at a time at the moment too because my brain can't quite handle the switch, but the main thing is to always have one on the go, as you say.
There are are definitely seasons of life so absolutely do not feel bad about this not being a season for two hours of reading a day!! It’s really just: turn to the book first rather than to your phone when you have a few moments.
There was a time, not so long ago, that two hours reading a day was the barest minimum for me. I don't know why that's changed recently but this has acted like a call to arms so thank you for that.
I usually have two books on the go - one fiction, the other nonfiction. I couldn't switch between novels, I think.
Yes I think there are a huge number of us who have that feeling of… Even five years ago it was very normal to read a lot every day and now somehow it isn’t.
I think we might still be a bit broken by the pandemic, I have to remind myself that I used to go out to cafés and libraries to read and work every day! The old lockdown habits still kick in.
but of course it’s also that the discourse became so much more toxic during the pandemic, and the technology billionaires turned up their efforts to hook us higher and higher and higher.
Right then. Plan for later this morning: an hour in my local café, rereading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, ahead of seeing his show on Thursday.
This is such a great way to spend November. I've been consciously doing 'read don't scroll' for a few weeks. BP (Before Phones) I read practically all the time, in all the little gaps in the day you mention above.
Reading on the bus makes me feel really queasy, so I generally have an audio book on the go - currently Divine Might by Natalie Haynes, which I also want to read with my eyes, once I'm done reading with my ears. Then I have one by the bed which is fiction, usually historical or spies - I can read a novel like this in a few days (I go to bed really early, to read) I agree with getting *completely into* the story and characters, they haunt me during the day sometimes.
Interesting shot there Kobo. I wish I could put library ebooks on my Kindle but it's is too old, so I don't check them out at the moment as I'd have to read them on my phone, the very thing I'm trying to avoid.