In the not so distant past the goal regularly was - fifty books a year. It was a goal that was never achieved but the high thirties low forties were not an unfamiliar place.
Having always been an avid reader, a twenty minute train ride to and from a job where I didn’t want to speak to anyone on my hour long lunch break made for a good environment to get through tome after tome but cut to 2016, with a new job only a ten minute walk away, a meagre thirty minutes for lunch and a world rapidly falling to pieces I was reading less and less. Well, that’s not entirely true…
I was actually reading plenty. Plenty of live news feeds, plenty of articles about Brexit, about Trump, about the continuing woes of the Labour party, plenty of tweets!
I could tell you in great detail how the polls were looking in Wisconsin, I could give you an in depth account of exactly the problems exiting the European Union would cause, I couldn’t just give a lecture on why Jeremy Corbyn would never be Prime Minister I could provide a whole university course on it!
Could I share my thoughts on Zadie Smith’s newest novel Swing Time though? No. I had bought it but not read it. In fact I still haven’t read it. I did read The Underground Railroad by Colson Whithead though, stunning, you should pick it up if you haven’t already.
Trump had his great political upset and then began to upset us all on a seemingly daily basis, Corbyn stumbled from crisis to crisis losing not one but two general elections, the world was experiencing forest fires, flash floods and other extreme weather at a rapidly increasing rate and just when it seemed like things couldn’t possibly get any worse…
Surprise! Who had a pandemic down as the next big bad we’d be battered with?
As the catastrophes increased my ability to even start a book decreased. The advent of the 24 hour news (along with social media) having a detrimental effect on our concentration span is nothing new and this is not a ‘woe is me I can’t even enjoy a novel’ whine, we’ve all had to deal with much worse this past few years! But as we begin to come to the end of another awful year and a ray of light from a syringe shines down on us, it’s time to address the reading problem. Because after all, reading is fundamental.
Not only does reading help keep us informed but it can also broaden our horizons, expand our experiences, empower us to empathise with other people, increase our vocabulary and comprehension, and reduce our stress.
Reading is just as much of a boon for our mental health as exercise is, perhaps a little of the energy that went into campaigning to keep gyms open during national lockdowns should be transferred to keeping public libraries open!
We all know a new year is an excellent time to start a project or change old habits, and while the goal in 2021 won’t be to read fifty books, I will certainly be making an effort to shut the world out more often and enjoy a few pages of escapism.
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett seems like an apt place to start, I (shamefully for a Northerner) haven’t actually ever read any Bennett and at only 128 pages it’s not a daunting task. It’s a task that will have to wait until January though, let’s get Christmas out of the way with first!
-M