Finding time to read

[darkemeralds]

Stress, weakened eyesight, busy-ness, online activity, sore hands, fanfic, annoyance at technology, an internet-induced attention deficit, and probably a few other things have all conspired in recent years to curtail my reading of books.

Lately, though, I've sort of taken it up again, this book-reading thing. ravurian has heckled me into a bunch of it, actually going so far as to send me books.

I was gonna list a bunch of them here, but then I got all knotted up over fiction vs nonfiction and paper books vs ebooks vs audiobooks, and then I realized that if you count audiobooks, I've never stopped "reading", and if things like lectures and podcasts count as audiobooks, my absorption of material has been pretty good all along.

And of course, if you count fanfic, which...why would you not, really?...well, I read more than I thought I did.

But still, I was sitting up in bed last night with a nice bright reading light on, and a cat nearby, and a real book* in hands whose achy joints I was completely ignoring, and it was really nice.

*Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Witi Ihimaera.

Comments

[karen_jk]

I used to be a literature student and a well-read person, and now I'm pretty much only well-read in Harry Potter and fanfic. Good fanfic, but fanfic just the same.

The exception is summer breaks at the cottage, when I read like crazy and love it. No access to the net other than a few minutes here and there via dialup or someone else's net stick helps.

Could I become a reader again?

[darkemeralds]

It was my recent long airplane trips that acted in the role of your cottage breaks: no internet, very limited device battery life, and the general inconvenience of turning the device on and off per the flight attendants' warnings. I took a paper book with me just in case, and ended up reading it quite happily, and that made me think that if I'd just give in and get the next stronger reading glasses and some good light, paper books needn't be beyond my reach.

The weak link is still my own attention span. What happened to the ability to be utterly absorbed in a narrative for hours on end? I miss that! But last night I read published mainstream fiction for more than an hour, and that makes me think that with enough free time, I could become a real reader again. I imagine you could too.

[llaras]

My biggest worry about reading paper books again is that I smoked when I read. I pick up a book now and that's where my mind goes. I have to maybe start a new habit to replace it? Heh. Tea?

[darkemeralds]

That strikes me as a very valid concern. I know that quitting smoking successfully required me to break those kinds of powerful associations. The same is true for [over]eating and television. Things that keep the hands busy are good. Knitting has been useful for me.

Eventually, I was able to have an alcoholic drink, get behind the wheel of a car, or sit down in an easy chair without cigarettes crossing my mind.