Reclaiming the reading habit

[Chip-2mtl]

One of the things that got me off of my lurking posterior, and not just listen to S&L but also participate in the readings, is a fairly massive level of guilt. I used to be such a reader -- and then my tech obsessions took over (especially gaming and podcasting) as well as work and parenthood.

Ready Player One was an excellent gateway: easy to read and hit my personal nostalgia buttons. But making the time to read feels like work right now, even for something as light as my current read, The Color of Magic. For those of you who used to be avid readers, and found it again, what was the trick that made you turn to words on the page rather than yet another game of Team Fortress 2?

[Kev]

For me, reading is usually better than gaming. Gaming, unless I'm playing something new or participating in a group event, is a mindless activity.

Sometimes I get burned out on reading, especially if all I have on my TBR shelf is one particular genre and that's all I've been reading for while (I'm looking at you: Fantasy novels).

I've always been a reader, but my indulgence comes and goes. Sometimes I'll be reading constantly, sometimes I'll just read occasionally. Sometimes, I just don't want to read at all and want to go watch television or go play a game.

But reading has always come first and I've always gone back to it.

[Kate]

Bizarrely studying English lit and Philosophy in college kicked me right out of the habit of reading for pleasure. For years the the length of my reading list trained me to cut corners, focus on shorter works and poems, speak authoritively about things I hadn't read and scan journal articles for paragraphs I could canabalise (these are incredibly useful skills and I'm glad of them, it's just that learning them was a bummer). I didn't keep up with anything for fun other than new Discworld releases.

For about a year after 6 months after dropping out of an MA programme almost all of the reading I did was blogs and newspapers. And then I heard that announced that Brandon Sanderson was going to be writing the final books of the Wheel of Time, and I'd loved the WoT since I was about 10 but had abandoned it after Winter's Heart, partly because it had gotten pretty terrible but mostly because college had gotten in the way
Anyway, I was going through a pretty rough time and decided that rereading the whole series would cheer me up.
I figured that it would take about 6 months, it ended up taking less than two and completely revived my love of reading and undid all the guilt about not reading serious things that college had instilled in me (and also gave me a new appreciation of the much maligned later WoT books, they don't work individually, but Winters Heart through Knife of Dreams, when considered as a unit are much more satisfying).

[Kate]

Richardya wrote: "h school until I took a year off after high school. Then throughout college I didnt read another."

You're right of course, it's quite common but very sad. I hope someday to have the time to read all the books I bluffed my way to not reading while I was in college.

[Paul]

Kate wrote: "Bizarrely studying English lit and Philosophy in college kicked me right out of the habit of reading for pleasure. For years the the length of my reading list trained me to cut corners, focus on sh..."

I was lucky at uni, English lit was one of my sides (what Americans would call a minor I guess) and I was able to choose some pretty good units - like A History of the Gothic (starting with The Castle of Otranto and The Monk, through Frankenstein and Dracula up to The Silence of the Lambs.

I came close to stopping reading a few of years ago when I was having serious problems with depression, but reading is such a huge part of my identity I couldn't let that go, so I'd force myself to at least read short stories and graphic novels when my concentration was low and managed to get through it.

Technology is definitely an issue. Computer games can be so addictive, and I might go for a week at a stretch where I play Civ5 or Fallout or something of an evening rather than read, and only read for half an hour when I get to bed. The saving grace is I think I get bored of computer games fairly quickly. I have seen the reading of other people I know get completely destroyed by gaming. I guess it's a choice of what you want to do with your time.

What has happened to me recently is that my audiobook listening has plummeted as I've been catching up on back editions of podcasts I've discovered!

[Anne]

My biggest problem is a serious TV show addiction. I have too many shows and I simply can't skip an episode. I can do other things while watching a show, so I'm rarely fully focused, but it still is time spent on other things.

I read a lot until I was 18 or so and then there were a couple of years at university and later my IT training where I just apparently did other things. I don't think I didn't read at all, but I can't remember buying a lot of books, and when I did, it was mostly for school. I picked up again in 2004 which is also about the time that I started keeping track of my books and setting goals for how many books I wanted to read (I always set it to 52, one book a week, but I don't always make it - it still is a good motivator).

This year with my Kindle and long train rides I have changed the goal to 75 when I reached the 52. Not sure if I'm going to make it, but it's not completely out of the question.

[Paul]

Anne wrote: "This year with my Kindle and long train rides I have changed the goal to 75 when I reached the 52. Not sure if I'm going to make it, but it's not completely out of the question."

Definitely another tick in favour of public transport! The thing that initially got me into audiobooks was cycling to work rather than getting the bus.

[Nick]

The one thing that has got me back into reading has definitely been eBooks and eBook Readers. Having to always remember and to carry a book I wanted to read used to be such a pain that it hindered my reading to the point of almost putting me off from reading at times. Now with eBooks and software reading programs I can read whenever I have a few extra minutes thanks to kindle on my smartphone (which I always have on me) or if I have access to a web browser there is the cloud reader. Also the portability of the kindle 3 helps when I do travel. Add to this that as soon as I'm done with a book I can immediately grab another without even getting up from where I'm sitting. I read a ton more than I ever used to.

[terpkristin]

I have been an avid reader for pretty much as long as I've been reading. Even as a kid, my mom would have to stop me from reading, especially while at the table. I would even resort to reading cereal boxes. ;)

While I was an undergrad, I didn't have a lot of time to read for fun. I would read here and there, but school was my first priority. In grad school, I had more free time and started getting back to my normal reading ways. Also in grad school, though, I started making some more money...which meant I could buy more video games on my own. I ended up starting to split time between games and books.

These days, I read quite a bit. Thanks to ereaders and audiobooks, I'm usually reading 2 books at a time. Audiobooks when I'm in the car or at the gym or doing housework, "print" (usually in the form of something on my Kindle) books when I'm at home/a place where I can sit and read or the Kindle iPhone app when I'm in line at the store or at a doctor's office or the like. I only wish I had a longer commute so I could listen more! ;)

One thing I have noticed, I tend to split my "free" time between reading, gaming, and doing craft activities. In part because my favorite games are JRPG's and in part because it allows multi-tasking, it seems that most of my gaming is done on my various handhelds (DS/3DS, PSP, and now iPhone). This means that I can play these games while watching TV or while watching sports on TV (I don't watch much TV but am a sports fan so if one of my teams is on, I try to watch). It's a shame, my PS3 and 360 end up only getting turned on if there is a game that's completely sucked me in (like Skyrim). Then my reading suffers.

Also, I guess it goes without saying, but I've found that I read a lot more when my injuries are causing pain/problems. Yesterday, for example, my thumb was acting up (it kept locking up and popping in and out of joint). Needless to say, that wasn't conducive to holding a controller or a portable gaming device...so I read, instead. Got a ton of reading done. ;)

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I got out of the habit when I was in grad school and juggling multiple jobs. I knew reading for pleasure was something I wanted to get back into, but I was reading fluff for a few years. Then I made a new friend who pushed me into better reading and I will owe him forever. No really. I feel like being a "serious reader" is who I've wanted to be my whole life, I just didn't know it.

[Tora]

Chip-2mtl wrote: "One of the things that got me off of my lurking posterior, and not just listen to S&L but also participate in the readings, is a fairly massive level of guilt. I used to be such a reader -- and the..."

I don't read as much as I used to, mostly because it's hard to find the time to sit down with a book. But two things really work for me. One is audiobooks, because then I can "read" while I sweep the floor, do laundry, wash dishes--anything that uses my hands but not my brain. The other is having the Kindle app on my iPod, because that goes with me everywhere, and it's easy to pop it out and read a bit whenever I find myself with a few minutes of free time.

[Matthew]

Paul 'Pezter' wrote: "The thing that initially got me into audiobooks was cycling to work rather than getting the bus. "

This is actually the thing that keeps me from cycling more: listening to audiobooks is soooo sloooow compared to reading dead-tree or e-book versions. So, if I ride, I lose about an hour and a half of reading each day, replaced with listening to the equivalent of only about 20 minutes of reading.

[Paul]

Matthew wrote: "This is actually the thing that keeps me from cycling more: listening to audiobooks is soooo sloooow compared to reading dead-tree or e-book versions. So, if I ride, I lose about an hour and a half of reading each day, replaced with listening to the equivalent of only about 20 minutes of reading. "

Audiobooks are definitely a slower pace (although I'm not an especially fast reader), but I do love em for being able to listen when doing other things - as someone said in another thread, housework, walking, or anything else that requires effort but no thought.

[Matthew]

Paul 'Pezter' wrote: "Audiobooks are definitely a slower pace (although I'm not an especially fast reader), but I do love em for being able to listen when doing other things - as someone said in another thread, housework, walking, or anything else that requires effort but no thought. ."

I agree entirely, except that I use that listening time for podcasts and other things that don't also exist in written format. So many things to listen to, so little time....

[Paul]

Very true...