haha! nah, not presumptuous at all. i'm actually a bit on the slow side, as a reader (at least compared to what readinglength.com generally estimates), but i do end up reading a decent amount anyway, and i actually sort of... had to fall back into the habit, sometime after college? (like many hedonistic youths, i uh, might've spent the year after graduation mostly partying and definitely not reading, lol)
anyway, when i got back into it, here's the stuff that helped:
* i'm pretty ruthless about ditching books the second they bore me. the problem with pushing through to the end of a boring book out of a completionist urge isn't that you're bored while doing it (though you are); it's just that if you do it too often, you start associating reading in general with boredom, which sucks! in particular, i went through a period where i just plain stopped reading anything for a while because i read four entirely awful books in a row. don't do that! just throw that shit in the garbage!
* similarly, if i do make the error of reading an awful book, i try to have some "go-tos" that i know will be delightful (rereads of old favorites, or else a new book by an author who i consistently like), and read one of those right after.
* curating a list of books that sound interesting, constantly asking trusted friends "what's your favorite book," finding books by author that your favorite authors like, etc, is very helpful, since then when you're in the mood to read something like [x] you can just look at the massive handy-dandy list you've built up. personal recommendations and recs from niche blogs are going to be much more interesting books on average, anyway—it turns out i kind of hate, uh, a lot of the stuff that's popular in mainstream sff nowadays (read: the stuff that's hyped up on the Tor front page), but, i've been pretty successful at finding the gems and avoiding the stuff i hate.
* also, once you have this list, you can occasionally glance at it, think about how wonderfully fascinating each and every one of those books sounds, do the mental math on what small percentage of them you'll actually be able to finish reading before you die if you start reading right now, and... well, i find that grimly motivating :D;;;
* i actually go back-and-forth between preferring to read on kindle vs dead-tree book every few months or so, and i just try to roll with whatever's more comfortable for me at the time. i've got a shelf of unread books and a pile of unread ebooks at any given time to choose from when the mood strikes
* i always carry whatever book i'm reading with me everywhere—a huge chunk of my reading gets done on the bus, on business trips, at the airport, waiting for a friend to pick me up, etc, and it all adds up
* even if you are a slow reader like me, you can usually finish a novel every other week by just reading an hour a day. i find this encouraging! (and if you pick the right novels, you won't be able to put the thing down, which is bad for sleep but great for getting through that list, lmao)
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Date: 2022-04-28 10:55 pm (UTC)anyway, when i got back into it, here's the stuff that helped:
* i'm pretty ruthless about ditching books the second they bore me. the problem with pushing through to the end of a boring book out of a completionist urge isn't that you're bored while doing it (though you are); it's just that if you do it too often, you start associating reading in general with boredom, which sucks! in particular, i went through a period where i just plain stopped reading anything for a while because i read four entirely awful books in a row. don't do that! just throw that shit in the garbage!
* similarly, if i do make the error of reading an awful book, i try to have some "go-tos" that i know will be delightful (rereads of old favorites, or else a new book by an author who i consistently like), and read one of those right after.
* curating a list of books that sound interesting, constantly asking trusted friends "what's your favorite book," finding books by author that your favorite authors like, etc, is very helpful, since then when you're in the mood to read something like [x] you can just look at the massive handy-dandy list you've built up. personal recommendations and recs from niche blogs are going to be much more interesting books on average, anyway—it turns out i kind of hate, uh, a lot of the stuff that's popular in mainstream sff nowadays (read: the stuff that's hyped up on the Tor front page), but, i've been pretty successful at finding the gems and avoiding the stuff i hate.
* also, once you have this list, you can occasionally glance at it, think about how wonderfully fascinating each and every one of those books sounds, do the mental math on what small percentage of them you'll actually be able to finish reading before you die if you start reading right now, and... well, i find that grimly motivating :D;;;
* i actually go back-and-forth between preferring to read on kindle vs dead-tree book every few months or so, and i just try to roll with whatever's more comfortable for me at the time. i've got a shelf of unread books and a pile of unread ebooks at any given time to choose from when the mood strikes
* i always carry whatever book i'm reading with me everywhere—a huge chunk of my reading gets done on the bus, on business trips, at the airport, waiting for a friend to pick me up, etc, and it all adds up
* even if you are a slow reader like me, you can usually finish a novel every other week by just reading an hour a day. i find this encouraging! (and if you pick the right novels, you won't be able to put the thing down, which is bad for sleep but great for getting through that list, lmao)