“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” - Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
As many of you may already know, an advocate for anything deemed ‘innovation’ I am not, but reading is to me, simply one of the most mentally nourishing things I do.
Whilst others clamor for a live led well, a full circle of friends and glorious gastronomic and hodophilic expirations of the world - I’ve come to realise that what I mostly need is a rich intellectual life.
Notably, I don’t even necessarily feel any real need to share this with anyone else - if I read one hundred books in a year and never spoke to anyone about any of them, that would be rather fine.
So, having dobbed myself in as a bibliophile, social pariah, and having clunkily reused two words that end in ‘-phile’ in the space of as many paragraphs. I reckon…
You can read more books, and here’s how
Be accountable with someone or something
For me, it’s the #edureading book chat that happens once a month, notably, we don’t all read the same books and unlike your average book club, it’s not something that is even expected. But we do expect a discussion of what we’ve been reading and being able to talk about it, or connect your reading to something someone else has said or read. It’s loose, but it’s a monthly check in that reminds me to keep reading - think of a way that something like this might work with you, who could be your reading buddy or friend? Who might be willing to keep you accountable to keep learning and exploring the ever changing world?
Join or rejoin a library
The above accountability approach can work just as easily with a library, they send you emails: ‘hey, bring back that book you borrowed’ or also ‘that audiobook you downloaded a month ago, you reading that? We’re putting it back into circulation’.
One of the true revelations of my son attending childcare has been proximity to a library, so many books, so well presented, so many clear systems nudging you to read more and to read more widely.
Read like an author
You know how to write, and you know when someone’s phoning it in. Or indeed when someone is a non-writer. If someone has great ideas but they cannot write sharply and with precision, you are allowed, neigh, encouraged to skim and skip. You’re reading like an author and you can tell when it’s being written poorly or lazily, give the writing the level of respect you feel the author has.
Skim boring bits
This is almost exclusively for non-fiction tomes, but if it’s lame, skim it. You can tell from scanning a paragraph if it’s dense or mostly filler, the presence of proper nouns, referencing, statistics and multi clausal sentences hint at the possibility of a well thought out and researched bit - the absence of this might just be recap for slower readers and bits you don’t need.
Formatting is usually the best way to know what to miss, the ‘apply this’ type of ending is a dead give away that someone is just following a proforma and padding out the end of a chapter. Anything that suggests: ‘do this exercise, or you won’t remember this stuff’ - clearly lacks confidence in their writing and their ideas memorability. So skim that shit.
Throw away crap books
Like in the bin if they’re really bad - and in an op-shop bin if they just ain’t for you.
But also, just don’t read them. I spent much of my teenage and young adolescent years reading books that were canon - including those I’d bookmarked in ‘1000 books you must read before you die’ - I was that serious about it. But then I realised I mostly liked reading rather odd books - an exploration of the Masonic lodge movement, a man who swore to only say yes for a year - things like that.
So I stopped that, and you should too - you cannot read for anyone else (I mean you can, but unless you’re getting paid to review the book, or getting a degree or similar it’s not recommended.
Book clubs suck
As I’ve already noted the way I keep myself accountable to reading (I must add I often find a strong reader within one of the classes I teach and try and keep up with how many books they read - a massive challenge as young school aged people have swathes of free time and typically parents disposable incomes to hand for books).
But book clubs suck, either using a commodification of books (Oprah’s book club) that now one really likes - except perhaps the most biege of humans. OR, once a month someone chooses a book they like, once a month? Divided by how many people are involved? That sucks! Unless you’ve got a group of friends who all like the same books it sounds like a terrible idea.
Rather like every English class I’ve ever been a part of, a book club is one person keen on a book, and the rest of the room politely acquiescing to the torture, so don’t do it - or if you do, you must leave it as soon as you look up a plot summary or study guide of the book to bluff - it’s my rules - good or bad, I reckon it’s pretty funny, but also a good rule of thumb.
Audiobooks, double speed
The most important one here, practice listening to things at increased speed, build up your tolerance and ramp it up as you go. Your brain can hear way better than it can read, so get it moving more quickly that way. I’m currently reading at 2.1 speed, which roughly halved the time it takes to read things.
Library online audiobooks for free
Libraries have joined the internet world, and it’s shocking that it’s happened. Two apps: Libby and BorrowBox both allow you to search eBooks and audiobooks and they can all be downloaded from a device of your choosing. Take your reading onto any old app, Kindled be damned.
If you really have to… pay lots
Whilst you’re thinking of different kinds of reading, download google books and the kindle app, so you can more or less buy and source any audiobook and eBook at a fee, often a considerable one. Between all of 8 and 9, you can audiobook almost anything - excluding of course, most education or teaching related books.
So read more,
or just try an idea or two from here, or let me know if there’s some of your own that are way way better!
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