How to Love Reading Again

I never saw my parents read a book. Both had left their homes in Nova Scotia to come to the states when they turned 18, and neither had gone to college. Reading a book was not something they were accustomed to doing. I remember them reading only our newspaper, The Daily News.

As for me, I learned to love to read as a kid, when a cousin introduced me to Nancy Drew. After that, I read almost anything I could get my hands on. Give me a book and I was happy. But I was allowed to read only at night, except for what I was required to read for school. My mother considered reading-for-pleasure during the day as being lazy. And so it wasn’t until I left home and was on my own that I enjoyed the freedom of reading whatever and whenever I wanted to, which I continued to do so for the next 65 years. Until last year…when Richard became seriously ill. Suddenly, I stopped reading altogether.

Since them, I’ve picked up many a book to start to read, but haven’t finished any of them. Probably just a lack of focus, following Richard’s death, I thought.

I was reminded of a New Yorker cartoon: a driver is stuck in traffic and a road sign says “10 miles ahead; traffic inexplicably speeds up! That’s what I thought would happen with me and my reading. One day soon, my interest would perk up again without reason or explanation. Surely, spending the month of August in New Hampshire would help to reinstate my love for reading.

But, no. Even in New Hampshire, I never read the book I brought with me. I watched the daily news and binged on Netflix, which I also did at home and both of which I have no trouble focusing on, but the book remained untouched.

It’s not that I don’t have anything to read; on the contrary, I have a pile of books by some of my favorite authors that I’ve begun to read but have not finished: Alexandra Fuller, Elizabeth Strout, Anita Brookner, Donna Leon, Louise Penny, David Lodge, Ann Tyler, Marilynn Robinson, Sue Miller and Mary Roach.

Then there are another 6 books on my bedstand that, after having read a few pages, no longer held my interest, as well as a pile of magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Vanity Fair.

So, what’s going on? What’s happened to my love of reading? Am I depressed? Am I growing too old to focus? Have I gotten too used to “word bites” from reading the online New York Times? Or from watching “sound bites” from watching CNN?

As I was pondering these questions, an article appeared in the Times entitled, “There’s a Good Reason You Can’t Concentrate,” by Cal Newport, professor of computer science at Georgetown University. Gee, I thought, how timely.

Prof. Newport believes that digital technology is having a negative impact on our ability to focus for an extended period of time. Emailing and texting are diminishing our ability to concentrate for more than a few minutes at once. He fears that as we age, we will lose the ability to focus at all. He suggests those of us approaching “a certain age” consider reading as cardio for the brain. Reading several chapters of a good book that requires focus and concentration, he says, should become as routine as doing 10,000 steps daily, or the a workout at the gym, or 20 laps in the pool.

That hit home with me. I swim three times a week and eagerly look forward to it. It frees me, temporarily, from whatever stress I’m under and lets my mind wander wherever it pleases to go. I used to consider reading with as much pleasure as I do swimming. I made room for reading every day. I planned for it and looked forward to it, instead of just picking up a book when I had 15 minutes to spare.

Then, around the same time, the Times published an article by Jeff Giles, a former editor of Vanity Fair, entitled How I Began to Love Reading Again. Gee, I thought, I’m not the only one.

Jeff Giles wrote how he hadn’t read a good book in almost a year. The ability to enjoy books, any book, had deserted him. Once upon a recent time, books had calmed him, comforted him. Now they annoyed him. Was it bad luck in what he was selecting? Was he depressed over a personal matter, or where the country was heading?

He finally figured out it had to do with a sense of entitlement he’d developed over many years as a reader. He had unrealistic expectations from the author, an expectation to be fully involved and satisfied…before he even picked up the book. He had to remind himself to give the book a chance and that if he ended up disliking it, it was no reason to not try another.

I, too, had unrealistic expectations about reading. I wanted whatever book I picked up to take me away—far, far away—from the duties of being a caretaker, from the daily tasks that were needed to take care of Richard at home in the last year of his life. During that long year, whenever I picked up a book to read, I did it on the run. If it didn’t bring me into its own world immediately, I cast the book aside.

It wasn’t grief or depression that kept me from loving to read, but not allowing myself the time to treat reading as something I wanted to do, instead of having to do. I needed to read— not so I could check it off my list—but to allow myself time to anticipate and appreciate the luxury of reading, and not get deterred by a phone call, a text or an email.

Last week, I decided to try a fresh start. I went to the library and allowed myself the time and pleasure of going up and down the fiction aisle, pulling out titles by authors that I admired. When I got to the “S’s” and saw a selection of Elizabeth Strout’s novels, I saw there was one I had not yet read, Lucy By the Sea. “That’s it,” I said to myself. I grabbed it off the shelf and brought it to the check-out desk. I hadn’t been to the library in so long that my card had expired!

When I got home, I turned off my laptop and phone, made myself a cup of tea, and relaxed in the recliner with book in hand. I read 40 pages of Lucy By the Sea. The next day I read another 40. I am totally immersed in the story and now look forward to reading every afternoon.

Time will tell, but I hope my reading drought is over.