A few months ago, I read a piece from a writer describing how, about ten years prior, he had “forgotten” how to read. Of course, he hadn’t truly forgotten, but he had spent the years leading up to that point only reading articles online and social media posts. He could not name a single book he had read in those years, and possibly hadn’t picked one up since college. Upon realizing this, he made some drastic changes around how he read, mostly by sending books or articles to apps on a tablet, then sitting down with the Wi-fi turned off, and reading the selected pieces. This is really what reading comes down to today, isn’t it? Being a bit ruthless, eliminating the distraction of the Internet, and sitting down in a quiet room to read. His experience, while extreme, mirrors my own methods of getting my reading done.
Why reading?
I don’t know that reading necessarily makes one a more empathetic, engaged, and assertive citizen, but I do believe reading and thinking makes those things more possible. Reading great literature speaks to the best aspects of our human nature. It encourages us to find the humanity in every ‘character’ we meet, on the page and in our lives. It is certainly possible for one become a more empathetic person through reading accounts of people unlike yourself – but that isn’t an guaranteed result. Reading books is also about more than mere information gathering. It’s an experience only had by reading great literature; feeling the sting of realization which prompts Emma Woodhouse to change her thinking, feeling the despondency of Zamyatin’s narrator in We.
My aims for reading
To write regularly, one must read regularly. I aim to have a steady intake of quality information, which I annotate and store, then put to use as it makes sense. I read much more material than I can immediately use, which is one reason I keep a robust note system. I aim to read three or four books each month, in addition to the books one inevitably thumbs through for quotes or to “X-ray,” the previously-read books one looks up passages in, the excerpts one rereads for inspiration or to refresh the memory, and all the other books one looks through for any number of reasons over the course of a month. My aim today is not necessarily to make recommendations or suggestions, but to put down how I go about getting my reading done. If something makes sense to you, feel free to adapt it.
Selecting what I read
I plan the majority of my reading by the quarter. Three months, which works out to ten or twelve books, is a decent amount of time to read up on a specific topic. Planning by the quarter helps me avoid the scramble of not knowing what to pick up next. I detailed my planning in more detail in this piece, so I will do a quick overview here. First, I identify a topic I want to study and compile a reading list. These lists will include books, current articles on the topic, and scholarly articles. I also search the databases of any journals and magazines I subscribe to, for any pieces they might have. I don’t set strict numbers of articles to read, but I do aim for at least three books and two lengthy journal pieces. I’ll read however many articles I have time for. The key here is not to assign myself too many materials, because this is not everything I will read in a month.
While I plan out my reading from a topical standpoint, but I don’t make those plans the entirety of my reading. The topical reading is the first wave, then, I find titles and articles to coincide with any upcoming travel. From there, depending on how much time I have, I will pick up a title I’ve been meaning to get to, or something I found referenced in a previous book. Like most readers, I have an ever-expanding pile of books to read “next”. What generally happens is, after reading on a topic for a few weeks or months, something in my to-be-read pile becomes especially timely or fits nicely with my recent reads, and I’ll move that to the top of the list.
I don’t consider ‘random’ histories a waste of time or energy at all because I’ve seen how they fit together and help fill in more details about history and culture. For instance, I read Mark Kurlansky’s Milk several months back, which in part dealt with Mongol Empire, who drank mare’s milk, called koumiss. This detail was passingly referenced in Tolstoy’s autobiography – he referred to a time in his youth when he went out into the countryside and drank koumiss. I immediately understood the cultural context – how wild and ‘uncivilized’ his actions would have been viewed at the time – as well as what the milk literally was, only because I had read up on the history of milk. This happens with all sorts of topics, where something I read somewhat randomly gives more understanding or context to a current read or event. This is why we read, is it not? We want to learn more about the world and the people around us, so we take notes and observe details, and put it together to make a more accurate view of the world. This is why even when I read something I’m not necessarily going to write about, I don’t pay any less attention to it. It all contributes to a deeper and more vivid understanding of the world.
The one thing I hardly ever plan is my fiction reading, which I do before bed. My last novel was from Dickens. Right now I am at the end of The Nibelungenlied. I do know my next novel will be Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, because we are visiting Paris next month and I want something French to read in my spare time. After that, who knows! With fiction I tend to stick to classic literature. There are so many titles that have already shown their worth through the centuries, I find it difficult to even consider contemporary fiction.
Much has been said recently about the merits of “quitting” books which no longer hold your interest. I don’t necessarily “quit” books because I spend about a half-hour with them before actually ‘reading’ them to begin with. I wrote a detailed explanation in my post about X-Raying books, drawn from the ideas of Mortimer Adler, and will summarize here. Instead of spending hours reading and arriving at this pain point of deciding whether or not to finish a book, I ensure I will actually want to read the book before I “read” it in the conventional sense. This twenty minute investment has made all the difference in my reading choices and made my decision-making much more efficient. In short, to x-ray a book, read the preface and end pages, along with the first chapter and afterword, if there is one. After, flip through and read a paragraph or two here and there to get a feel for the tone. The idea is to spend twenty or thirty minutes investigating the book before you decide to spend twelve or more hours reading it – and even before you spend two hours with it.
Those twenty minutes give me a surprising amount of information to work with; whether or not I want to read other books on the topic, whether I want to recommend the book, whether this might be an area of prolonged study in the future; or whether none of those things apply. If I decide the book is not right for me at the moment, those twenty minutes have saved me hours. If I decide to read it, I’ve already ‘vouched for it’ in my own mind, and I’m looking forward to reading it. The question of wanting to finish it has been eliminated.
Another factor making choosing a book relatively simple for me is that I routinely compile lists of titles to read. I check e-book retailers weekly for deals on the titles on my lists. I also keep a list of books to read specifically on paper. These include philosophy texts, history tomes over 400 pages, fiction, and other books considered ‘foundational’ within their respective area of study. As I said, this list is mostly history and philosophy texts, with the occasional biography.
Finally, I must mention my anti-library. The term comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, The Black Swan.
“Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others—a very small minority—who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an anti-library.” (emphasis mine)
The anti-library contains tomes you have not yet read, but which you know contain answers to questions you will have. Therefore, those foundational topical tomes are there when I need to learn the basics of Max Weber’s philosophy, or to learn about Churchill or Theodore Roosevelt, or Spengler’s Decline of the West. The point is to have the book ready to open for answers when the questions present themselves. An anti-library is the antithesis of limiting the books on the shelves to what you’ve already read. It’s also not about vanity or buying every title you see, but about thoughtfully choosing books you know you will need to read.
How I read
How do I read? In a phrase, slightly chaotically. I prefer to have three titles going at once, usually one or two physical books and another on the Kindle app on my tablet. I detail what I look for in a digital book vs paper here. I aim for two solid hours each afternoon, in addition to what I can fit into my mornings. I bring my current selections out to the dining room table, or I sit in my study, and read for an extended period. This does not always happen perfectly, of course, but I can usually find at least a thirty minute stretch to start with and work more time in.
Is there anything more irritating than sitting down to read and continually getting back up, up, down and up, only to realize you’ve been “reading” for twenty minutes and haven’t made it past the first page? It’s a common refrain from people who say they want to read more, and it occasionally happens to me. When I need to get something done, and am having trouble sitting down to do it, including reading, the best solution I’ve found is simply to set a timer and get started. It remains my top productivity “app”. Blocking the time off means I know I can totally focus on reading and will be able to take care of whatever else needs doing after the timer goes off. (It also becomes easier to focus on your reading as the habit becomes more ingrained.)
Each week I plan out what I need to write and what I need to read. I aim for the simple pattern Stephen King uses which is “Write in the mornings, read in the afternoons”. I read a lot the same way anyone else maintains a habit; by putting aside time for it. It’s the same way with working out or to cooking meals at home or whatever positive habit one wants to keep up. A lot of the reading I do is for work, so I make time for it during work hours. Further, I also legitimately enjoy reading, so I read before bed and first thing in the mornings and as other pockets of time present themselves.
We often travel, and when we do I read on planes and buses. I don’t connect my phone to Wi-fi or even bother with the phone, really. I pull out a book and enjoy the quiet. All said, I aim to read two uninterrupted hours each day, in addition to my morning reading and fiction reading before bed. As with many things, it may be more illuminating to list the things I do not do.
What I don’t do
Every yes choosing to do something, means saying “No” to dozens of other potential options. Blocking off hours to read each day means there are things I don’t do.
I don’t go out most nights. Beyond taking language classes, I am home most nights. We eat most of our meals at home. On the two evenings a week I take German class, I rearrange the rest of the day to fit reading into my shorter afternoon. When I get back home, I typically read after class and dinner because it’s too late to do anything else. I also go to bed around ten.
I cook dinner, but during the week I only cook meals that take under an hour to prepare. Risotto and hearty sauces must wait for the weekend!
I don’t watch much television, and the few things I do watch are old, meaning there is no “must see t.v” in our house. For example, my husband and I are enjoying slowly making our way through Star Trek, the original series. Considering there are around 150 episodes, this will take us years! I don’t have much interest in streaming these days. (Our spotty Internet has squelched any enthusiasm I had for streaming shows.) If I want to watch something, I put in a DVD of a movie or a series. Mostly though, I read.
I don’t use social media much. I find most of what I see there frustrating, and would simply rather not deal with it most of the time. Regardless, I keep strong guardrails around social media to ensure I don’t waste time there. For social in particular, I have one account and I limit myself to a half-hour on weekdays. Some days I hit the limit, some days I don’t. I don’t get on social media at all on the weekends – more time to read! Further, I aim to keep my Sundays tech-free, which means I read and maybe listen to music on a cd. (I know!)
“This far you may come, but no further”
I don’t spend much time on my phone. I make it a point to have best practices around tech because, when something is potentially wasteful – and the smartphone is an unparalleled time-wasting device – we create “best practices” around using that substance. To be clear, I don’t fear phones, I simply loathe 1the implication that having a phone means I should available at the drop of a hat – or the ding of a notification. I keep my phone in grey-scale and on silent. I have notifications turned off for everything and check it daily at lunch and sometimes after dinner. I check email on the computer. I maintain strict time limits set on the single social media app I check. The phone ultimately spends about twenty-two hours a day on the same table in the living room where it charges overnight. I don’t bring it into the bedroom, and I wake up with an actual alarm clock.
Lastly, I avoid reading on my phone. The screen is too small, there are often ads covering still more of said tiny screen, and frankly, there is not a deep-level of concentration happening there. Instead, I read on the web on my computer, and I read books on paper or on a tablet not connected to the Internet.
As we saw above, the key to reading is often defending against anything which is not reading; your phone, the laundry, random emails, that loud noise outside, and the vague, nagging question of, “Should I be doing something?” I read a lot by making time to read, protecting that time, and doing it regularly, so it remains a habit I can count on.
Photo by Olga Tutunaru on Unsplash
- This stems from my years working in real estate and having telephone calls dictate my entire day, every day. Never again! ↩︎
