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

[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!