Reading and listening

[darkemeralds]

I continue to have trouble focusing on reading. I mean actual reading from a book.

In an attempt to re-corral my attention and recover some of that pleasure, I've

• Sworn off social media (we'll see how long that lasts...)
• Joined a silent reading party where twice a month we get together on Zoom and just read for two hours (a form of accountability)
• Got at least four very different books going (so that when it's reading time, I can pick what I'm in the mood for)
• Established a couple of comfortable and well-lighted places to read.

So far this year I've finished:

• Natalie Goldberg's Three Simple Lines (a lovely memoir and rumination on haiku)
• David Mitchell's Number9 Dream (long novel; I'm aiming to read all his novels in 2022)
• Ken Mogi's Awakening Your Ikigai (kind of a little philosophy/lifestyle guide)

Currently in progress:

• Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle (a caper/heist novel)
• Richard Tarnas's The Passion of the Western Mind (a huge survey of western philosophy)
• Sean Russell's Moontide and Magic Rise (a really long fantasy that I've been picking at for several months)
• Matthew Salesses's Craft in the Real World (on correcting some of the faults of the American MFA writing program)

...plus a bunch of audiobooks. I get a ton of reading done via audiobooks, and I'm okay with that, but there's nothing quite like the pleasure of silent, visual reading.

How do others keep themselves reading?

Comments

[cookiemom6067]

This resonates with me so strongly. I have completely gotten out of the habit of reading books in favor of reading fan fiction. I feel really bad about it, because I used to read several books a month. But, not bad enough to change my ways, apparently.

Where and how did you find the reading group? That sounds really helpful.

[darkemeralds]

Fanfic is one of my get out of jail free cards. It is at least real reading. And of course it's inherently engaging in ways that "real" books are often not because "real" books are trying to do different things. So if it's reading time, and I'm losing focus on a current book, I give myself permission to switch over to fanfic if I've got any going.

I put it on my Kindle, so it's distraction-free and phone-free. I think it "counts," honestly.

A friend of mine in my daily writing group has launched the Silent Reading Party. It meets on the second Sunday of the month in the afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Pacific time, and on the fourth Tuesday of the month in the evening, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Pacific time. Let me know if you'd like an invitation and I'll email it to you.

[cookiemom6067]

Yes, I would!

[darkemeralds]

See your private messages.

[dine]

I read lots, but mostly not books. I'm having trouble focusing on actual books - it's so easy to fall into fanfic instead, and I do. though I have tons of books (and keep acquiring more when I come across something that sounds interesting) I somehow manage to keep distracting myself with fic, and don't stop to pick up a book

[darkemeralds]

Yep. Fanfic is reading, though. In my hierarchy of not-wasting-my-life, doomscrolling on Twitter is at the very bottom, and reading anything longer than that, with my eyes, quietly, not on my phone, for at least several minutes at a time without distraction, is higher.

Sure, I'd like to redevelop my attention so I can read a great current novel or a serious nonfiction book for an hour without interruption, but meanwhile, as I mentioned to CookieMom above, if I've got a good fic going, I count it as one of the several selections I can turn to in order to keep reading. I think it "counts."

[azurelunatic]

Giving myself permission to bail out of a book if it's not doing all that much for me (as opposed to only stopping if I absolutely hate it). That makes me more willing to start reading something new.

Plus my three library cards all on the Libby app on my phone.

[darkemeralds]

Isn't Libby great? Aren't public libraries great? Personally, both my eyes and my mind are better off if I get ebooks on my Kindle rather than on my phone, because the phone itself is part of my attention problem, but there IS something about a due date that encourages me to stick with the borrowed book steadily.

I will DNF a book for whatever reason, but I need to develop more of a sense of permission about it, rather than just guiltily letting the book slip away and glare at me from the shelf.

[lyr]

Oh, hey. I went to grad school with Matt Salesses. I also have thoughts on correcting that particular MFA program, which is actually a large part of the reason why I jumped ship and went for a PhD in rhetoric instead.

[darkemeralds]

Very interesting! I like a lot of his thoughts, particularly in his questioning of what values define American literature, and his in depth exploration of who the reader is of a given work--what I call the narrative device.

Have you encountered Roosevelt Montás's Rescuing Socrates? It's a really interesting new book by the guy who runs (ran?) Columbia College's great books/liberal arts/humanities/core curriculum program. You might appreciate his take on the classics. It's a fundamentally conservative take, but also a very thoughtful, rich one. Here's a worthwhile review if you're curious. I'm enjoying the audiobook, which is read by the author.

[lyr]

I have not read it, though I am of course aware of the debate of which it is a part. I come down on the 'why does this have to be a debate?' side. This is to say that I see great value in reading Socrates, but I don't see why that means the canon of philosophical thought must be limited to an either-or. For instance, I remember taking a course in grad school on epics, looking at them as the origin stories civilizations told about themselves. We read Genesis, and The Odyssey, and The Aeneid, but we also read Sundiata, the foundational epic of Old Mali.

[darkemeralds]

From what Montás says in his book, the debate comes down to "How to universities attract students and make lots of money?" and therefore "great books courses regardless of content aren't commercial enough."

Assuming a study of great works can still be part of a curriculum, expanding the selection and definition of great works certainly seems like an obvious path to take.

[lilysea]

One thing that has helped me read is realising that I need REALLY big print - no, bigger than that - and so now I only read books on my laptop using the Kindle application, with font size set to MAXIMUM.

The one exception is graphic novels, where I prefer paper books to ebooks.

[darkemeralds]

Accommodating for vision problems has been part of my quest, too. That's where ereaders really shine.

I also have arthritis in my thumbs, so holding a book open is painful. My Kindle Oasis with a Popsocket on the back is wonderful. I buy almost all my books as ebooks (or audiobooks) and then, if a book turns out to be one of the great loves of my life, I'll buy a physical copy for my shelves.

[ruric]

I've read so few published books the last 5 years or so. I have the occasional binge for a week or a fanfic weekend but I've just got out of the habit of reading.

I've started listening to audiobooks when pottering around the flat doing stuff which means I feel like I'm catching up on some of the things I wanted to 'read' but there's a pile of 90+ books which glare malevolently from my bedside cabinet every time I'm in my bedroom.

I have hopes that once I get back to commuting into the office by public transport a couple of times a week in March that will give me about 40mins pre trip to do some dedicated reading!

But I suspect I need to limit my Insta and Twitter use and to claw that time back for other things!

[darkemeralds]

Exactly. As I've commented to a couple of other people above, I'm fine with fanfic. To me, it "counts" as areading, because it IS reading and not doomscrolling on Twitter. I make a point of putting fanfic on my Kindle, though, so that if I want to read it, I read it on a distraction-free device.

Audiobooks have been the absolute salvation of my brain over the past several years. I love them. I get almost all my reading done as listening, just as you describe, and I'm definitely not one of those people who think that audiobook listening is a lower form.

But I do find that actual, visual reading of words on (some version of) a page does something for me that audiobooks don't. That single focus for long periods of time, and that complete engagement, where the movie plays in my mind while the text enters my eyes almost unnoticed, is a kind of magic that I miss.

That's why I think reading fanfic counts as reading.

[branchandroot]

I never thought it would happen, but it has these past two years: when I'm having trouble focusing on the book, I put on tv. Some anime reruns of something I've watched a dozen times. For whatever reason, having that going in the background lets me settle and read again.

[darkemeralds]

That's interesting. I absolutely can't read with television or music or even much outdoor noise.

But I have found that sound tracks intended to enhance study, relaxation, or concentration can be really helpful. Ocean waves, running streams, soft rainfall, coffee shop tracks, rhythm-free meditative music, and binaural beats have all enhanced my focus for both reading and writing. There's a ton of them on Youtube for free.

[ranunculus]

I've had trouble reading the last two or three years. Part of it is vision. Donald has been pestering me to get a e-reader of some sort. That is so hard to contemplate. Reasons include failing vision, but mostly stress. The last couple of years have been extremely stressful with, let me see: at a minimum 6 of the major stressors in life all in one year. My mind just didn't have room for more imput, it was busy hashing out everything that was already there and just keeping going.
Recently I've read, and enjoyed several books, which is certainly progress!

[darkemeralds]

Major life stresses affect everything. Nobody probably in the whole wide world right now is able to function at the level of the Before Times, and that's without taking into account personal illness, family loss, income loss, etc.

Ebooks on an e-reader dissolve significant reading barriers for me: eyesight decline (font size, lighting) and the hand arthritis that makes it painful for me to hold a book open. Since I live in a very small house, it also helps mitigate the book-storage problem.

I don't love supporting Amazon, but I really do love my Kindle Oasis.

[ranunculus]

One of my hesitations is that the Kindle does look like a good product, probably the best out there BUT I won't buy from Amazon. Sigh.

[toft]

I read for 10min over breakfast in the morning; it gives me pleasure, and works for my shorter attention span!

[darkemeralds]

Short, regular increments also seem like a really good thing to add to my list. Ten minutes doesn't sound like much but it would add up--and it's better than ten minutes of outrage scrolling on Twitter!

[rainkatt]

I've had so much trouble just reading in the last two years. Pandemic weirdness, yes. Also, remodel mess/stall in 2020, two very sick cats in 2021, weird health issues of my own in the last 18 months, combined with my "normal" ADD/anxiety/depression, and ain't nothin' happening here.

I (re)read a lot of Nero Wolfe last year ("a lot" being more than six or eight; nothing like my usual book-every-twp-days). At the beginning of this month, I picked up Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, and I zoomed through it, at least compared to lately. (Less than a week) I wasn't sure it was my thing at all, but yup. (A few issues, but I'm looking forward to the sequel.) So yay for YA!!

Now I have something completely different–Can't Find My Way Home by Gwynne Garfinkle. I did start that right before the tooth surgery, so I can't say I'm zooming through it, but I'm enjoying it thoroughly, so there's that, and I look forward to getting sunk into it when I've got the opiates out of my system. I keep dozing off, and since I heal at the speed of frozen molasses, it's been a journey.

I'm hoping after that, that I'll continue, even if it's slowly.

[darkemeralds]

Pandemic brain has definitely exacerbated smartphone brain, which was an increment up from general social media brain, which was an increment up from just internet brain (for those of us old enough to remember a time before the internet). So yeah, pile personal-life troubles on top of that, and it's a wonder any of us are getting anything done at all. I'm so sorry you've had health issues.

I am 100% in favor of reading fanfic, re-reading comfortable old favorites (I went through much of Lord Peter Wimsey and Bertie Wooster and Jeeves over the fall), and preferring easy, engaging genre fiction. Because it's all reading and it's all good.

I hear nothing but great things about Iron Widow and just haven't gotten to it yet. It seems like an absolute must-read for everyone in the C-drama fandom as well as all the other itches it scratches!