An exploration of rediscovering reading as a pleasurable act rather than a chore, encouraging readers to step outside their comfort zones and explore new genres.
Readers around the world seem to experience the same challenges in cycles — many of us struggled with brain fog in the Covid years, or plunged into escapist and The End Is Nigh post-pandemic books, according to taste. But for teenagers and adults alike, what people seem to need most today is to get back to reading as an act of pure pleasure. Instead of another worthy chore to be ticked off your endless to-do list, reading can be an indulgence, an act of discovery rather than drudgery.
In November, I wrote to a friend who’d run aground with an ambitious project to read only biographies of world leaders: “Guilty pleasures are fine! Try a fun reading goal — sometimes you need the hot chocolate with marshmallows just as much as the beetroot-and-celery juice.” For many booklovers, the challenge is to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. In 2019, reading more than 150 novels as a Booker judge, the British writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch reflected: “Like so many of us, I filter my book choices to reflect the world I already know. Reading stories that I would never have chosen, mistakenly believing them to be uninteresting or too remote from my concerns, slowly began to change me.” It’s fine to have a must-read list — the big novel or non-fiction tome — but I’m telling myself to explore more, too. I test-drove Hirsch’s approach, sampling books from genres I rarely read — philosophy, business, travelogues from unfamiliar countries — and it’s like diving into a rushing river after years of staying in the shallow end of the pool, an invigorating cold-water shock to the system. If you live in a city blessed with multiple bookstores, try advice from Paul Yamazaki, chief buyer of San Francisco’s iconic City Lights Bookstore, and author of Reading the Room: A Bookseller’s Tale (2024)
READING LITERATURE BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS PERSONAL GROWTH SELF-DISCOVERY
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