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Last year I managed to do more reading than I have in several years, long time followers may have noticed this since all but one of the book reviews I’ve ever written were published last year. Part of the reason that I was able to read more is that I made it a bigger priority; another reason was because I decided I’d start writing book reviews (although I didn’t get around to writing one for every book I read). But the biggest reason I was able to read more books was because I started carrying them with me whenever possible.
I have a lot more down time at my job than the average person does so I can easily slip a book in my backpack and find time to read a chapter or two fairly regularly, but you don’t need to have a job like mine to get some reading in while out and about. There are plenty of times in your normal life where you are sat waiting somewhere with nothing better to do than read. I get a chapter in every time I go to the doctor. If you get your oil changed at someplace you have to sit out and wait that’s another great time to read. If you have kids you pick up from school regularly you probably have five or ten minutes a day when you are sat waiting and could be reading if only you had thought to bring a book.
Unfortunately books are big and heavy, they take up a lot of space in a bag; they’re also fragile, their cover could get ripped or they could get ruined if water spills on it. Having a physical book with you at all times is impractical, so don’t, carry an old Kindle with you instead.
Near the end of last year I bought an old Kindle on Ebay for thirty bucks and it might have been the best thirty bucks I spent last year. E-book readers have not had any significant hardware advances since the invention of the touch screen E-ink display over ten years ago. The one I bought is a Kindle Paperwhite from around 2016 and the only significant difference between it and a new Kindle is that the new ones charge via USB-C. Sure the new ones have more storage and faster processors, but this is a device for reading text files so the extra speed and storage is not worth another hundred bucks.
Some of you may be hesitant to get a Kindle because it is made by Amazon, and there are good reasons to be angry at Amazon especially in the realm of literature. At the time of writing a lot of reading focused social media influencers are making videos warning people that within the week you will no longer be able to download E-books purchased on Amazon to your computer, you can only access them through Amazon’s software. You don’t own your E-books from Amazon. But you don’t need to worry about Amazon.
If you buy a used Kindle you have given no money to Amazon. I have never and will never connect my Kindle to the internet so Amazon can never spy on me (although I probably should have done a software update). I get my E-books from sites that don’t start with the letter A so I have no need to ever worry about Amazon’s DRM and other policies. Sure if you really hate Amazon you could buy an E-reader from a different company but used Kindles are cheap and plentiful on E-bay so there is no reason not to buy one.
Originally I intended my Kindle just to be used exclusively while on the go, because it is thin an light it is perfect to slip into a backpack or even a jacket pocket. But soon I found myself doing all of my reading with the Kindle. Reading a physical book in the dark requires more light than I like to have on at night, plus holding a book open can get tiring over time, especially when you have to reposition yourself to switch pages. You don’t have those problems with a backlit Kindle, I can now read by candlelight only needing to reposition myself when I become uncomfortable.
On the go use is great as well, the battery lasts a long time so assuming I remember to charge it once every week or two it won’t die on me. Next time I go backpacking I’ll defiantly bring it along because it is actually quite durable. A lot of people buy cases for their Kindles but I don’t think a case is necessary, as long as you don’t drop it onto hard concrete it should be fine. The privacy it offers in public is another good benefit, I’m currently reading Abigail Schrier’s book Irreversible Damage which is quite unpopular among the woke crowd for being critical of current transgender medical practices. While the situation is unlikely, I’m glad I don’t have to worry about some blue haired individual harassing me for reading that interesting book.
But I should stop trying to sell you a Kindle and get back to the bigger point. Having the means to read a book at all the time lets you spend more of your time reading, and less of it gets wasted on meaningless things.
All of us should be spending more time reading than we are. I tried something new today and asked AI what the benefits of reading are and it told me, “reading provides numerous benefits, from improving cognitive and mental health to fostering empathy and expanding knowledge, making it a valuable and enjoyable activity for people of all ages.”
But we need to be reading the right things. Over the past few years reading has become more popular on social media, specifically Tik Tok; but I don’t think this is really a good thing because most of the books being promoted there are smut. I shouldn’t have to tell you not to read that pornographic garbage, instead you should be reading good books.
These days I enjoy reading non-fiction books over fiction. I grew up reading fantasy and science-fiction but as I grew older I lost the patience fiction because reading it didn’t feel productive to me, there were years when I’d try to read but I just couldn’t get over the idea that what I was reading wasn’t valuable enough. When I started reading non-fiction reading felt more rewarding because I was learning a lot more things. If you, like me, grew up reading a lot but eventually became disenchanted with the hobby I recommend trying non-fiction; The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter is a great book to start with.
Reading books makes you more interesting, especially non-fiction. I love being able to reference things I’ve read in normal conversation. It’s one thing to state an opinion that you think doing hard things is important, but it is a whole other thing to be able to say you read a whole book on the topic.
Having either a Kindle or an actual book with you at all times gives you the ability to read anytime and almost anywhere. Before smartphones came about you’d see a lot more people reading in public, I remember going to the doctor’s office as a kid and almost everyone in the waiting room had a book or magazine to entertain them. Nowadays everyone just stares at their phone in waiting rooms, sure a phone is more stimulating but it is not as valuable as a book. I look forward to time I can spend reading a book, I’ve never looked forward to looking at my phone.
Unfortunately there are less public spaces where reading is possible now than there were even just five years ago. I saw a post on X the other day saying that Southwest Airlines has added an instruction to passengers not to play their music or videos on speakerphone as part of their preflight presentation. You would think people would understand wearing headphones to listen to things in public was a common courtesy but they don’t anymore. If you are out in public enough you will see someone somewhere watching Tic Toks without headphones so that everyone around them can hear their brain rot.
But it isn’t just the random people around us who can be an impolite disruption with their phones, many businesses have forgotten that they should provide their customers with a quiet waiting room. The place my work sends us to get oil changes plays compilations of puppy videos with annoying computer generated music playing in the background. Last summer I found myself in a doctor’s office that played terrible hip-hop so loud that I don’t understand how the receptionists were able to get any work done. I left both of those places with a headache and a desire never to go back.
Reading in public needs to be renormalized so that we can have more peaceful public places. But more importantly so that we can live in a more educated society. And even more importantly so that you can reap the rewards of reading more books. Since I’ve started carrying a Kindle with me everywhere and reading whenever I have the time my desire to read has increased, I get home and want to read rather than spend time on my computer. I’ve gone from taking a month or two to finish a book to being able to finish one in a week. I like writing book reviews for you guys but I’m three or four books behind right now and I probably won’t catch up. But that’s okay, if you want my opinions on the last few books I’ve read you can shoot me an email, otherwise I’ll probably just be reading, and so should you.