This reader's brain in 2023
And a bit behind the scenes of my reading sickness
I had a very startling conversation with my parents a few years ago. I discovered that as adults they didn’t value reading for pleasure as a valuable activity over and above the pleasure. They didn’t believe - or it hadn’t occurred to them - that there might be benefits such as opening one’s mind to new ideas, furnishing one’s own creative thinking and imagination or any benefits to mental health or wellbeing.
The reason this is startling is that my parents are/were both very keen and wide readers who brought me up to value reading immensely. They were both teachers - head teachers, in fact - and I was educated in their school until I was 11. I remember reading - and reading with a wide, largely unjudged choice - being something we were encouraged to do and given time for. There was a whole-school reading time after lunch; there were reading targets in the holidays and quizzes and prizes to encourage those who are encouraged by such things. (I was!)
But it turned out that I reached the age of almost 60 without realising that they thought reading for pleasure was really only something children and teenagers needed to do.
I had forgotten to tell them that I’ve done a lot of work in this area and that I am a passionate advocate for the values in and reasons for reading for pleasure. (See here for my resources on “readaxation” and the science of reading for pleasure and how to make it happen.) I put them right soon enough!
Perhaps they were worried about this:
But, as I also mentioned in a recent post for writers wanting to be published, writers read,. We can’t be writers if we don’t read. We don’t write in a vacuum.
Where did my reading mojo go?
All that makes it all the more distressing that over recent years I have lost my reading mojo. I know I’m not alone and I am pretty sure I know the reasons, some of which may apply to you, too:
Too easy to pick up my phone instead - diving into a book is not usually easy; it requires effort and a bit of patience. Picking up a phone and finding something to occupy my brain is easy - it’s the stopping that’s more difficult.
Life is pre-occupying - there’s been Covid, distressingly dysfunctional government, cost of living crisis, climate fears. And in my personal life there has been the too-early-and-sudden loss of my sister as well as the arrival of four grandsons, each arriving amidst serious concerns, either for them or my daughters. So my brain is fractured and finds it hard to switch off or switch gear into a book. And my brain bandwidth has been over-occupied. (I’ll write about the fascinating topic of brain bandwidth soon.)
Work has been too much - too many books in quick succession and too much to do to promote them.
I’ve been writing and reading too much non-fiction - not that there is anything wrong or lesser about that, but it’s not the type of writing that feeds the bits of me that need to be fed!
I’m over 60 and that is making me feel I need to do more work, not less. I feel a running out of work time but still so much to achieve.
Those are the explanations but I’m going to stop using them as an excuse. It is within my power not to pick up my phone; it’s even within my power to say I’m not going to spend the next hour on a piece of work.
So I have been trying. Trying to be very selective about what I read. Trying to give myself the time.
And when Ben at Shepherd, the wonderful book website, asked me to give my three favourite reads of the year I realised that I hadn’t completely lost it.
Click here for my reasons for choosing these books.
And click here to see the whole list of all the authors’ choices. The great thing about that second list is that I now have a load of suggestions to feed and nurture my reading brain over the next few years.
I may have a reading sickness but I can heal myself. It’s in my power to become the reader I want to be. And I will feel and function all the better for it.
What are you reading now? I’ve gone back to John Wyndham and am currently loving (again) The Day of the Triffids. Fast action and clever writing.
Now that you can see what sort of books I like, do you have some more ideas?
If you’d like me to talk to your school staff/parents or other group of adults about the power of reading for pleasure, see my website’s speaking section and drop me a line.