I read a total of two books last year - and one of those books was half comprised of illustrations. The decade before that: none (that I can remember). I do BUY lots of books though, but never really read them.
I used to read a lot in my childhood and through my teenage years. Oh, how I looked forward to those cheap newsprint Scholastic Book order forms each month! And no matter how many books I wanted to order or what books I wanted to read, my family just handed me the $$$ - no questions asked. Any time I wanted to go to the library, I was just taken.
I don’t know if that was a deliberate choice by my family in order to encourage me to read or if it was just because I was spoiled. In any case, I’m grateful for that. I was never forced to read any books (to the detriment of my academic career), but I was never stopped from reading anything I wanted to either. I read just as much fiction as non-fiction. I swapped back and forth as my mood dictated. Because of that, reading and learning have always been considered pleasurable activities. I LOVED reading.
As I got to college I read fewer and fewer books until it trickled to a stop.
So why did I stop? I thought about WHY I used to read so much in the first place. It was because it was a source of entertainment and information for me. There weren’t many choices back then. Once a more robust internet came along I had a different source of entertainment and ways to gather information. That, coupled with the demands of academic life and work life, I just felt like I didn’t have time to read for pleasure anymore. It just wasn’t a priority for me.
After a decade of barely reading anything (short of social media posts and a couple of online articles), I finally remember that books are still a good source of entertainment and they are a great source of in-depth information too. So here I am, starting to reading again.
Oh, how I miss that feeling of getting lost in a story that I just don’t get when I watch a TV show. I miss the depth of information that a 15-minute YouTube video just doesn’t give me.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think the internet is fantastic. I can communicate with friends half a world away practically in real-time. I have access to far more information now than I ever did in the first 40 years of my life combined. It’s still a rich resource I would never want to give it up. But there’s room for books too. The more the merrier, right?
