A daily dose of odds and sods, some interesting, some bizarre, some funny, some thought provoking items which I have stumbled across the web. All to be taken with a grain of daily salt!!
Sorry about the delayed email, Choti. I
wrote this part way and then got occupied with my review and finishing the
chapters. Anyway, so here’s wishing you the most wonderful birthday, Choti.
I keep seeing the timehop photos and see
you growing up from that cute chubby happy girl to the lovely poised beautiful
young lady you have become. And I want to squish you till you squeak! J We are
so happy with what you have become, Choti. You have even started to cook. I had
given up hope of you making meals, but I am quite impressed, you are cooking
well. I wonder if you do that in animal kingdom? Cook? Can you?
I don’t know. Maybe when I am up in
London, you can show me how to play animal crossing and then we can have a fun
time. Shall we have mamma to help dress up my island? I can just imagine Mamma
snorting and telling me to go away as she has too much work to do.
Anyway, I think I have talked about this
before. The Dalai Lama, one of the most amazing people on this world, basically
said that my religion is kindness. That’s what I wanted to speak about. I had
shared the Emerson quote with you about what is success,
“What is success?
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the
affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure
the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in
others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden
patch Or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!”
Very late
with your special day email, it has been manic. Its so nice to see you fit into
the 6th form life smoothly. And also studying so hard. And telling
off mamma for bothering you. I am trying to ensure I can come to London, but
with the bloody flights getting cancelled, don’t know L lets see and hope the covid19 stuff doesn’t get
worse.
I hope we
can go on holiday next summer J and this time we go to Italy or Greece, ok? So
few things you will like
What’s
the opposite of Déjà vu? At the opposite of déjà vu is a slightly rarer
phenomenon — jamais vu, which translates to “never seen” in French. It takes
place when you’re in a familiar situation but suddenly feel as if you’re
experiencing it for the first time.
The second thing which I wanted to share was how to catch a
fish with your bare hands.
Its quite an interesting way to do it, I didn’t know about
the trick with the lowering the temperature of the hand by dipping in it, but
it makes sense, doesn’t it? Maybe we can try to do this on one of our trips up
in the north or in Wales where we can test this out J and then we can bbq it or
bring it home to mamma to scare her. What do you think ?
Stay safe choti, schools are one of the biggest places to
catch covid19 and other stuff. Did you take the flu vaccine?
It was so nice to speak to you so many
times yesterday and see you cutting the cake and and and. I am missing you so
much! L I posted this on FB yesterday with the photos
Its Eldest Cost Centre's birthday today. The photo is when we
brought him home the next day. 25 years old now. I was younger than him when I
had him.
Before he was born, I was a young lion, striding the world, not
giving a shit about anything and having fun.
And then, the moment the nurse gave him to me to hold him, I
experienced terror. Sheer unadulterated terror and fear.
For the first time in my life, I knew that I now have somebody
for whom I am responsible for. I knew for the first time that from that moment
on, a large part of my heart and mind will be existing outside my body,
vulnerable and I will not be able to protect him fully.
Has the terror reduced? no. still worry about that little shit.
Despite him having grown up to be a man - still worry about him. It has been
amazing how dusty the room became when he was born, when he left for his first
school trip, when he left for uni and when he got a first from Oxford. That's
it, no more crying and throat choking up. Well, for now. Meh. Becoming soppy in
my old age. And for the first time, wouldn't be there for his birthday. All
credit of course goes to
I am so happy to see you become a man that any father will give
his left arm and right eye to have as a son. Thank you son. And imagine that
now I am thinking about your kids and how we can help (if needed, we would love
to help of course!, I miss having kids around me) with baby sitting and other
things. Can you send a photo of your living room now that it’s been setup?
Where do you work when you are at your flat? On the dining table?
Do get a good ergonomic chair, beta, you don’t want to bugger up your back,
best to invest in a good chair with lumbar support. I had a bad bad time when I
worked for ABN 20 years back and had crap chairs. And that screwed up my back
now.
I will leave you with a quote, “The experiences that matter are
often the ones we never wanted to do, not the ones we decide to do” by Alberto
Moravia. I found this quite interesting. And then we pay so much to get
experiences which sometimes don’t matter that much. That said, our holidays
have been good. Cant wait to go for one with you all
I miss
you so much L I want to squish you hugely and cuddle you.
Hope you had a good special day. Sorry wasn’t able to write earlier, the temperature and
pain wasn’t condusive to writing properly. I will be going to the urologist and
internal medicine doctor tomorrow so hopefully he can give me some antibiotics
for whatever infection I have picked up. Also dropped the car off for the
20,000 km service. Its amazing how much I drive here compared to London.
Anyway, they will check everything from spark plugs to the oil, brake pads to
AC. Machines need to be looked after religiously. Serviced, checked, maintained
and looked after at regular intervals. If you don’t, then they break when you
least expect it and then its trouble. I know I am sounding like sheldon with
Penny here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMhp2ShPVQw.
I also had this great image which I keep on my desktop. It’s
a great little cheatsheet for critical thinking. We have a problem these days
with social media information and pretty much fake news all over the place. So
you have two options, either you refuse to engage (which isnt possible mostly)
or you do engage but at which level? Remember the Athenians who basically put
forward the demos and democratic structures which we are still following in
some shape or form. You may not like politics or public policy but politics and
public policy is interested in you. So I always suggest engaging but you have
to engage at two levels. First recognise that most news or even history is
incomplete, disbalanced and biased (did you read the EH Carr book on “What is History?”
which we have at home?). So that’s the first element and remember that most
debates will be done at that level. People vote on that basis, people respond
on that basis, etc. etc.
But when its you, a smart intelligent and erudite girl like
you, you need to delve deeper into it. You cannot do that to all the stuff,
especially when you have constant barrage of information on twitter, snapchat,
youtube, etc. etc. but for substantive things, you have to have a filter, a
methodology, something that allows you to check major developments. This can
potentially help you, darling. Print it off and stick it on your wall in front
of you. and on your desktop.
Anyway, I am so missing you. please take photos of your 6th
form class/lounge and have a wonderful time. You are going to step over another
huge milestone in your life, going to 6th form. Much will change,
not least your uniform! Ask Dada for his advice, even though he didn’t do his 6th
form at Nower Hill, he knows what worked and what didn’t. Anyway, take selfies
and mamma will give you dahi chini before you leave.
Happy special day, son.
Hope your tummy is good. And that youre additional work gets finished soon
today so that you can get a bit of relaxation done this weekend. It is your
special day! I still remember the day Mamma and I took you to take your photos
when you were maybe 6 months? I think so but mamma will tell you exactly. You
were such a cute baby, with your teethless smile and then the photographer
would say, you are a little cheeky monkey. Adorable! Still are :) lovely.
And want to talk to you about
Thor Heyerdahl. I first came across his book on the Kon Tiki expedition when I was
a bit younger than you in Bhopal. It was a moth eaten book, hugely battered,
paperback with torn pages and faded covers. I picked it up in a second hand
book shop and it was seriously old, I think I paid 2 rupees out of my 5 rupees
allowance. And it was worth it. I devoured it completely in one day, staying
awake at night and doing the torch thing below the blanket. And got scolded by
Didu because I finished the batteries. It was published in 1948. The basic idea
behind the expedition was that people from South America could have reached
Polynesia. Till then, there was a prevalent idea that it was people from Asia
who populated the Polynesian islands of the Pacific.
So he went to Peru, a bit near
where we were in Ecuador and built a balsa wood raft with a little cabin and
sails. It was build based on what the Spanish Conquistadors documented about
the then extant boats, rafts and ships. The knotted twine or codex's literature
of the Incas and Aztecs did not store any information and in any case, the
Spanish totally destroyed the literature anyway (ok, ok, that gets me excited
and angry so best leave it). It was so fascinating to read how they built the
boat out of balsa wood. Balsa wood is a very very light airy wood, son, and it
floats beautifully and doesn’t become waterlogged easily. Building a ship is
tremendously difficult son, without modern tools, and they did that with what
they thought technology existed 6000 years before. So they built a raft. Balsa
wood logs tied together with hemp ropes, and then cross pieces to give lateral
support. Remember that when you are on the sea, you have to make your ship
flexible otherwise it will break apart (lesson to be learnt in your career and
for your companies). There was no metal in the construction at all, and they
build the masts out of mangrove wood, spars out of wood and reeds and bamboo
was used to deck the top.
They took modern provisions but
also used sealed bamboo rods to keep water in. It worked after a fashion although
there was a problem with the water. This is a reason why coastal trade was so
vital for so long. You and Choti have read the Odyssey, there was a good reason
why the old storyteller would pull into a bay every night. That was because of
the difficulty of storing fresh water on board. They carried food like coconuts, potatoes,
fruit and caught loads of fish. They sailed over 6,900 kilometres over 101 days
and then landed on an atoll with a crash.
We haven’t been to Easter
Island but we have been to Galapagos, Thor's idea was that the monumental
statues of Easter Island more resembled the Peruvian art than local designs, and
for that they needed to have population exchange. Galapagos didn’t show any
local art but Easter Island did. Fascinating. And now the study up there
provides further evidence for that. Fascinating. But see if you can read up on
Thor. A truly fascinating character, son. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl#Books
Two more fascinating
characters. People who jump out of their skins and become larger than life and
literally, by force of their character, make a huge difference in their
surroundings! Yes, they make mistakes. They are flawed heros. They piss off
people. They engender huge loyalty and change people's thinking. Amazing.
Anyway, have a good day son,
happy special day to you again.
Happy special day. Hope you had a wonderful day. What did Dada
and Mamma do for your special day?
Mamma shared your ballet video with me, and you telling her off
twice! Loved the telling off J and of
course you looked so graceful and wonderful. I must have seen the video 100
times. But no haven’t shared it with anybody, so you can rest easy J that was really lovely,
darling. I wish I can see you in your performance. Over the current few days,
your previous history of performance videos and photos are popping up on the time
hop app and its lovely to see you grow up from a tiny little pink butterfly who
would dance so cutely in her tutu in the church to then you became like a
little colt wearing those lovely outfits like the fedora or the tramp and then
now wearing all growup outfits. I was looking forward to seeing you dance on
the proper stage in London so that I can take my friends and praise you and
bring you flowers and bask in reflected glory. Lovely dancing choti J And then your work on the
brownies and icecream! Totally gobsmacking. SO impressed that you did that from
scratch! Ice-cream from scratch and then brownies from scratch! And it was
moisty! Perfect, loved it.
I came across this rather long form essay on how to make a daily
habit of reading more books. It is long but worth reading, darling. Its just
the bestest ever thing for me but then you know it given that everybody around
you loves reading and you do too, but there’s nothing like reading somebody
else’s view on reading as well. Its all about the habit and forming the habit
to sit quietly and disappear into somebody’s words, where you find new dreams,
new emotions, different landscapes, pain, joys and excitement. It’s the quietness,
solitude but inside your mind you are in a different world completely. One
trick I learnt was to haunt bookstores, where you force yourself to walk
through the bookshelves running a finger along the spines and then listening to
that little tug inside your head which says that you have connected with a
book. And then you pull it out and see what it says and reads, flick through
the pages, read the fore and back pages and many times you will put it back
because it didn’t talk to you.
Listen to that little voice inside you, choti. That is a very
rare thing which I don’t think many people have experienced. They rely so much
on external stimuli that they forget that you are the best friend and companion
you may ever have. That voice may come when you touch an old tree, or a book,
or when you are watching a statue or are praying or whilst biking or listening
to a song. You will have to come up with your own answer, darling, but it would
be good to have it, it will really give you a glow and make you happy from
inside.
Anyway, I have banged on enough, I am sure your global crossing
island is calling you! But I wanted to share one more very interesting image
that I came across. We are all trying to be happy and it’s a biochemical
reaction inside anyway, right? So how can you hack yourself to become happy? Here
are some fantastic ways you can do that.
I envy voracious book
readers. They seem worldly and wise. Also, whatever is happening in their
lives, they’re never completely on their own – they always have their books. My
mother is one of these life-long devourers of literature, for whom books are a
constant companion. She recalls contracting tuberculosis as an eight-year-old
girl, before there was a vaccine, and being sent to spend six months at a
convalescent home in Margate, more than 100 miles from her family. ‘Books saved
me from what would have been unbearable, allowing me to escape from that bed to
have adventures in other places and other lives,’ she says.
Avid readers often look back on their
book-reading with fondness. ‘My first memories of reading are of my late mum
taking me to our local library, and both of us taking out as many books as we
could carry,’ says Clare Reynolds, author of the Years of Reading Selfishly blog. ‘We didn’t have a car so had to
make sure we could manage them all on the bus.’
Reynolds’s passion for reading continued through
adolescence and led her to study English literature at the University of Leeds,
but then the demands of work and family caught up with her, and for years she
found herself in what she calls the ‘reading wilderness’. Anecdotally, many of
us recognise this overwhelming sense of competing demands on our time. We
hanker for the space to read more. We buy the books, they pile up, but we never
get round to reading them – the Japanese even have a term for it, tsundoku.
Data back this up: a US survey found
that more than one-third of adults report a desire to read more books, with
book reading second only to exercise as the most wished-for activity.
Similarly, in France, 65 per cent of people aged 15 years and over said they
wished they read more books, rising to 77 per cent among those already reading
at average levels.
If you’re one of these people, opening a book
might have become something to do when you haven’t got anything else going on,
which is almost never. It’s as if you decided at some point, likely without
conscious thought, that even though you love books, book reading is effectively
the least important thing in your life – you’ll squeeze it in, if you can. And
if you are clinging to the remnants of a book reading habit, I’ll bet you save
it for the end of the day, or perhaps only for when you’re on holiday.
To read more books, you need to make it a higher
priority, which means changing your daily habits and routines to accommodate
more reading. People who are ‘super readers’ by virtue of their profession –
such as literary editors, agents and book award judges – show us just how much
reading is possible if you are willing and able to give it a high enough
priority. Consider Ed Needham, former editor at magazines such as FHM and Rolling Stone,
who in 2018 launched his own magazine, Strong Words,
which features more than 100 book reviews every month. Needham reads or listens
to every one of the reviewed books. ‘I just have to find the time, there’s no
way around it,’ he says. ‘I produce an issue of Strong Words every
six weeks, and we worked out that for five of those six weeks I read the
equivalent of War and Peace every week.’
When reading books is your livelihood or
essential to fulfil your responsibilities, then it becomes the priority around
which the rest of life must bend. You don’t need to go as far as Needham, of
course, but to read more books you do need to take a hard look at whether,
given the value you place on books, you are providing the activity with the
attention and time it deserves in your life.
‘Sometimes, you just need the slightest
encouragement to displace something that isn’t earning its keep in your routine,’
says Needham. ‘I remember [the US filmmaker and writer] John Waters saying he
found it really easy to read every night because he never watched television.
That made me realise it is really easy to stop watching television, because I
get more from books than I do from the vast majority of television programmes.’
When
there are so many options competing for our time, it’s worth reminding yourself
of the unique rewards of book reading. I read the newspaper every morning and
my day job involves reading countless essays and articles, but when I manage to
find the time to immerse myself in a quality nonfiction book, it’s a wholly
different experience – you can almost feel the presence of the author alongside
you on a personal intellectual journey. By the end, you’re somehow changed, you
see the world differently. And although TV and video games of course offer
escapism, there’s nothing quite like devouring the pages of a beautiful novel,
sitting quietly in one place while letting words transport you to another.
Screens show you what’s happening; novels, by contrast, construct those
fictions within your mind, allowing you to become anyone, and go anywhere.
What to do
It will take significant
effort for you to read more books, at least at first. To succeed long-term, you
need to develop new reading habits, so that reading is something you do without
resorting to conscious effort and willpower. But before getting into details of
how to do this, there are some preliminary steps to ease the way.
The first is to reflect on why you want to read more books. Benjamin
Gardner is a social psychologist at King’s College, London and an expert on the
psychology of habits. His theory of habit formation begins with the need for
sufficient motivation. ‘Think about why is it exactly you want to do it? What
would the benefits be? Answering these kinds of questions can make you more
motivated,’ he says.
There’s little doubt that you will benefit from
reading more books. People who read literary fiction in particular tend to be
better at reading others’ emotions and
have greater moral
sensitivity, possibly due to their simulation of
the lives of complex characters; and reading nonfiction will increase your
knowledge and broaden your mind. In fact, reading books is considered a
cognitive ‘reserve
building’ activity that could help to protect you from Alzheimer’s and
related illnesses. However, also relevant here is the distinction between
intrinsic motivation, which means you find reward in doing something for its
own sake, and extrinsic motivation, which is when you’re motivated by the promise
of some kind of external pay-off. Note that, especially when starting out, you
are more likely to prevail if you choose books to read that are inherently
enjoyable for you, be that because you find them entertaining, calming, moving
or intellectually stimulating and fascinating. This might require some trial
and error until you find a genre and/or author that matches your tastes and
priorities.
James Clear, the author of Atomic
Habits (2018), agrees. He recalls the approach of the
Indian-American entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant:
[Ravikant]
says something along the lines of ‘Read whatever the hell you want to read in
the beginning’ because the real thing that you’re focused on is building the
habit of reading, not necessarily the knowledge. Like if you just want to read
romance novels. Awesome. Read that. If you just want to read fantasy, read
that. Read whatever helps you fall in love with the act of being a reader or
the habit of reading. And once you fall in love with the habit, then it’s easy
… Now you’ve got a lot of options because it’s part of your life.
A related point is giving yourself permission to
quit books that you’re not enjoying. ‘I had spent so many years picking up
books that people had told me I “should” read,’ says Reynolds. ‘I diligently
ploughed my way through literature prize longlists and shortlists. I would try
to push on until the end of every one, even when I really didn’t enjoy them.
Then one day, I just put a book down I didn’t love, and picked up another one
which I did. It was then the idea for my Reading Selfishly blog and ethos was
born.’
‘A lot of people feel locked in from the start,’
adds Clear. ‘But the little phrase I try to keep in mind is start more books, quit most of them, read the great ones twice.
I think that a lot of readers would be well-served if they did that.’
A next preliminary step is to look at your
surroundings. How easy is it for you to grab a book – paper or digital – and
start reading? ‘The more frictionless [a habit] is, the easier it is to pick it
up,’ says Clear. He recommends making changes to your digital and physical
environments so that reading is easy and effortless – including making reading
apps especially prominent on your phone, and placing books in the physical
places that you most often frequent. ‘Being around books makes it very easy to
pick them up and check them out. If you want something to be a big part of your
life, make it a big part of your environment.’ Of course, if you are prone to tsundoku, this is a lifestyle tip that you have
already mastered – just try to remember to actually pick up those books.
A final preliminary step is to consider your
goals. Clear recommends having modest goals for your new reading habit
initially. If you try to achieve too much, too quickly, you’re more likely to
fail. ‘I would say giving yourself the permission to just read one page per day
or something like that,’ he says. Clear calls this ‘the two-minute rule’. By
getting into the routine of just ‘showing up’, even for just 120 seconds, the
new activity is more likely to become an entrenched part of your daily routine.
‘There is a deep truth about habits in general that people overlook,’ Clear
says, ‘which is a habit must be established before it can be improved.’
Now, having laid the foundations for your new
reading habit, then according to Gardner’s model, the next stage involves
creating new ‘action associations’, which in the context of books means reading
often enough in the same situation enough times until a strong, learned
association is formed between being in that situation (or that time of day) and
reading.
Gardner says that, the more specific you can be,
the more likely you are to succeed. So, think about the specifics of when and
where you are going to do the extra book reading, such as with your breakfast,
on the train to work, with your midmorning coffee, when you’ve finished getting
the kids ready for bed, or after dinner. This cue to read could be a set time,
an event or a particular situation – Gardner says it doesn’t matter which, as
long as this specific opportunity for reading happens consistently in your life.
You might even find it useful to keep a detailed
diary for a week, of what you do and when, to see the patterns that currently
exist in your daily routines. ‘Most of us are creatures of habit already,’ says
Gardner. ‘Many of us commute to work. We’ll catch the same train. Or our
evening and bedtime routines will be the same. So, in that respect, you can
kind of piggyback your new habit onto what you already do habitually. It can be
easy if you know what you’re aiming to do, and when and where you’re going to
do it.’
Once you’ve found the moments in your daily life
when you could conceivably begin a new book-reading habit, then keep reading in
that same context as consistently as you can. ‘Action association is at the
heart of a habit,’ says Gardner. ‘If you keep doing it, you keep reinforcing
that association. And as that association is reinforced, so control over the
behaviour passes from a kind of effortful reflective processing system to a
much more automatic system. It becomes impulse driven. You go into the
situation that triggers the association and you start doing it, without even
thinking about what you’re going to be doing.’
As
you build your new reading habit, be realistic about the challenge ahead, and
try not to fret too much about any lapses. ‘I think people are often put off by
the fact that they think it’s going to be really easy to do and then they can’t
maintain it, so they just disengage,’ says Gardner. ‘But if you say to them,
actually it is going to be difficult, but it will become easier. That can give
some people the motivation to keep going, even if they do experience, you know,
initial barriers on the way.’
Key points
Spend time thinking about why you want to read more
books. The more motivation you have, the more likely you are to succeed.
Start out reading books you enjoy, and don’t be afraid to quit books you
don’t like.
Lay the groundwork for your new reading habit by making
books salient in the physical and digital environments you encounter every
day.
Set modest goals, at least at first. Aim to read just a
little each day.
Look at your daily routines and your existing habits.
Consider where you could build in a new habit of book reading, in effect
piggybacking on your existing habits. The more specific you can be, the
more likely you are to succeed.
Try as hard as you can to always read whenever you are in
that situation, time or place. Eventually, you will form a new effortless
reading habit.
Track your progress by recognising every day that you
managed to read, rather than by ticking off completed books. After two
weeks, you should start to feel that your new habit is deepening.
Consider whether your social world supports book reading.
You could try joining a book group (see the Links and Books section below)
to chat with like-minded readers.
Cultivate your identity as an avid reader of books. Write
a sentence outlining the kind of person you want to be, and think about
how book reading will serve that aim.
Learn more
As you work hard to find the
time and space in your life to read more books, you might be wondering how long
until it gets easier. In his own research, focused on building healthy eating
and exercise habits, Gardner has asked people to begin performing a new
behaviour once each day, and then report how it feels. ‘We find after a couple
of weeks, they tend to say, yeah, this is starting to become part of my routine
… they start to feel like it’s an ingrained part of what they do. So I would
put the figure at around two weeks to start seeing a noticeable difference,’ he
says.
You might also be thinking about what you’re
going to have to give up to make space for more reading in your life. Unless
you currently spend time each day sitting around doing nothing, it’s inevitable
that, as you increase your book reading, other activities will have to fall by
the wayside. You could confront this head-on by revisiting the audit of your
everyday routines and identifying unwanted habits that you could give up. And
just as it’s helpful to establish new cues to associate with reading, you could
look to remove the cues to your unwanted habits, such as keeping the TV remote
out of sight in a drawer, or setting a rule not to take your phone upstairs.
‘Recognising that [acquiring a new habit] it is a substitution process is quite
useful,’ says Gardner. ‘But then you have to come up with your own strategies
based on what the old behaviour is and what the cues are to think about how you
can disrupt that old habit.’
Clear recommends a less direct approach to habit
substitution. ‘I don’t know that it’s that productive to focus on what you’re
giving up or what you’re sacrificing,’ he says. Build your new book-reading
habit, he says, and other unimportant things will naturally fall away. ‘The act
of building good habits is like a plant. One plant crowding out another. If you
just focus on cultivating this new plant, a lot of bad habits kind of fall by
the wayside anyway.’
If you’ve been putting the advice in this Guide
into practice but you’re finding it difficult to keep going, an effective tool
you could use to sustain your motivation is to monitor your progress. At least
at first, Clear advises against ticking off each book you read or aiming for an
overly ambitious goal, such as reading a certain number of books per month or
per year. Far better, he says, is to apply his ‘two-minute rule’ and track a
more modest attainment, such as recording each day that you manage to read just
a page or just for five minutes. You can adjust according to your own levels
(such as each time you finish a chapter or read for half an hour), the
important thing is to choose a realistic, easily obtainable target in the early
stages and track your success reaching that.
‘Visualising your progress is a powerful and
fruitful thing to do,’ says Clear. ‘The feeling of progress is very motivating
to the human brain. You want to feel like you’re moving forward, if possible,
in that moment. That’s why tracking your daily reading is more productive than
tracking when the book is finished, because the book might take you three
weeks, but by tracking your reading every day, you get a little signal [of
progress and success] along the way.’
A further idea to help you grow your reading
habit is to think about your social world. Just as making books prominent in
your physical and digital environments will help to lay the foundations for
more reading, your social environment is also important, especially for
deepening and sustaining the habit. Sharing a pleasure multiplies it. If none
of your close family or friends reads books, then reading will only ever be a
private activity, separate from your personal relationships and to be squeezed
in around them. If this is your situation, I’m not suggesting you ditch all
your buddies, but I’d recommend seeking out one or more friends who read, for
instance by joining a book group – physical or virtual (see Links and Books
below). ‘Reading was, and still is, a way for me to connect with people,’ says
Reynolds.
Related to the notion of connecting with other
readers is to think about cultivating your own sense of self and identity as a
reader. For avid readers, their love of books is often central to who they are,
and this shapes their attitude to reading and the priority they give it in
life. ‘I say this a lot with habits and identity in general,’ says Clear. ‘Like
the real goal is not to run a marathon. The goal is to become a runner. Right?
The goal is not to do a silent meditation retreat, but to become a meditator.
And that’s definitely true here. The real goal is not to read 30 books, it’s to
become a reader.’
Clear
recommends spending some time thinking about the kind of person you want to be
and how reading more books will help you fulfil that aim. It might not be for
everyone to make this too explicit, but if you think it might help, you could
try writing out a sentence like ‘I am the type of person who loves reading
books’ or ‘I am the type of person who loves reading about other cultures’ and
reminding yourself of that identity frequently. This then provides a frame for
the actions that you choose to take each day. Is switching on the TV straight
after work something a book-lover does? No. Is picking up a book and reading
for a few minutes? Yes. ‘What it does, like every action you take, is a vote
for the type of person you want to become,’ says Clear. ‘And now suddenly you
see reading in this more powerful light. It’s like every time I pick up a book
and read a page, it becomes a vote for this, a new identity that I’m trying to
build.’
Links & books
The online reading community Goodreads features hundreds
of book groups and clubs. You’ll need to register (it’s free) and then
click the ‘community’ tab.
The
Rebel Book Club is one of the most popular non-fiction book clubs
in the world, and features live physical and virtual events for members.
Many newspapers and other organisations also offer virtual book clubs,
such as The
Guardian’s reading group (the writer Sam Jordison
hosts online discussions on Tuesdays). There are also numerous celebrity
book clubs you could try, if that’s to your taste. Popular ones include Oprah
Winfrey’s book club and Reese
Witherspoon’s book group, which is hosted on Instagram.
Five
Books invites experts to recommend five books in their specialist
area. To get a meta-take on your growing reading habit, you could check
out their selection of
five books on the history of reading.
In this article,
Goodreads ‘super readers’, who read hundreds of books a year, share their
top tips for reading more books.
If you’re constantly on the go, consider trying Amazon’s Whispersync
for Voice – the company offers more than 30,000 titles that you
can read as ebooks in parallel as you listen to them as audio books, with
your progress tracked seamlessly between the two formats.
Finally, if you want to read more about reading, Reader
Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World (2018)
by Maryanne Wolf takes a look at the psychology and neuroscience of deep
reading in the age of so much digital distraction.
