My favorite line: Literary taste is an aspect of your personality.
I’ve come to think of my library—which contains many art books one doesn’t actually ‘read’ while also hosting plenty of literature I aspire to read—as my Legacy. When people visit my studio and house after I am gone, there will lie my work; there will lie my music and reading collections; there will remain the house and land I turned into a conservancy. They will be the visible aspects left, the tangible story, though I may be dust.
We know they last. No digital collections for me! All is tactile. Manual. Observe the craft, observe the workmanship, listen to the human breaths between notes, then walk the grounds and know I was there.
While I realize not everyone has the scope of what I cultivate—and mind you am not well off, I just collect over time—I know one thing: I do not want a U-Haul rented to be loaded and take my life to the dump. No Salvation Army truck shall pull up. At the same time, no one will know what was on my mind, whether I read it or not.
They will know what it meant to me.
Read on, Adam! Your work in all its forms is an inspiration and no doubt, will well outlive you 💫♾️
I am of the opinion that you don’t even need to read to reap the benefits we attain by reading. I think it’s more broad than that, as I’ve known many people who are thorough digesters of content, perhaps more than many readers I know. Some people watch excellent shows like Breaking Bad or movies like A Silent Voice and take away so much more from it than readers I know after reading a classic. This also applies to albums too, great albums like anything from Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead, or Bob Dylan, I’ve known people who extract worlds out of these compact art forms.
It’s important to not think reading is the only source of wisdom and knowledge, but whatever medium of art we choose to admire and digest, must be thoroughly chewed and digested, and most importantly lived. It would be pointless to read all of Shakespeare, and never leave the house, you haven’t lived to understand what you digested. Like eating a meal and digesting it, you also need to walk it off and exercise afterwards.
Reading is only seen as more serious because of scholars and academia, but it’s important to notice that other forms of the humanities have far outlived the medium of symbols on a surface. Theatre, music and poetry and carvings have been used throughout history to teach and inspire for millenniums before reading and writing. It’s most important that you fully chew, digest and live a little with ANY form of art you choose to find compelling. They may be missing out on Shakespeare and Plato, but we’re also missing out on the excellent musicians and directors of today, it is indeed a river that one must pick out of.
I do want to acquiesce on a point though, that reading does do a little more forcing on the consumer side, it does make it harder to not digest it. You can probably watch a movie/show or listen to an album passively, more easily than read a book passively. Nonetheless, it will always require you to sow effort if you wish to reap rewards, regardless of your pursuit.
I hope we can all improve our day to day with excellently curating art and thoughtfully digesting it, to live our lives more consciously and with more intentionality. ❤️
Thank you for sharing this! I am a 23 year old who read avidly all her life until the smartphone was introduced to me, and I've since spent years trying to find balance. My family has recently started a habit of "reading club" after dinner, where we each read our own independent books for half an hour before any entertainment comes in. Here's to reclaiming time!
I greatly benefited from all Cal Newport's books, but especially Digital Minimalism. He has thoughts, encouragement, and approaches to taming smartphones and digital habits. One of his recommendations to taming smart phones is to develop analogue hobbies, which sounds like your reading club. The other suggestion is, broadly, to get rid of almost all your smartphone apps. :-) Easy right - but he has ways to 'quit' that are better than cold turkey.
I believe we should all be cautious when typing 'entertainment' versus 'reading'. I know we all mean digital entertainment or screens. But for me reading is entertainment! I get most of my reading done because I don't watch much TV or streaming. That's not a moral decision, I'm just really fatigued by screens at the end of a workday spent on a laptop. I also have a small house, so TV is sometimes loud and keeps the kids up. If I had a more tactile job or a bigger house, I'd probably watch more of the amazing shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Community that I missed. But as Adam points out, art is limitless, human life is not.
I'm 77 now, 25 years ago, I ended up in Honduras, for me, a much less psychologically distracting place for me,
Immediately, i began reading the many books I'd been wanting to read since sophomore literature in college. I did other things, but it was C ondic that I very much enjoyed reading. WarcandcPeace, Augustine’s City of God, all the ones that several of you are diving into. I've never stopped. I'm a retired internist not a scholar. Now that I've found several people, I enjoy re-reading and hearing the commentary.
Very interesting discussion, thanks Adam. When I undertook a full time 3 year BA degree as a mature student I realized how privileged I was to be able to immerse myself in reading English literature for a consolidated period of time. That has never happened since. But I make a concerted effort to carve out time weekly to read. I think we need to be cautious about being purist and competitive about what type of literature people read as we all have different literary interests and classical literature is only part of it, and not for every reader.
I definitely fall into Burkeman's second camp. This said I interact with a lot of people and try to talk about literature and it seems that although I'm trying to read and talk about concepts, philosphy, and themes everyone else seems to fall into two categories, they just dont read anything at all, or they read a ton of smut novels. The women I know who read them are not keen on talking about the contents. I have yet to meet any men, although I know they are out there, who have read fourth wing or Morning Glory Milking Farm. Interestingly enough though when I attempt to talk about the Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe or Dugin's Fourth political Theory most people think I'm talking about Fourth Wing until I explain otherwise.
As a full time surgeon with two young kids I never get as much time as I want to read and yes, I sacrifice digital entertainment to do it. I have introduced a Sunday afternoon quiet time where the kids only do quiet activities so I can have a bit of time to read but it is hard as there are so many things competing for my attention. I always read before bed though, whether I'm on a normal day, on call, or on nights. If I am working nights I take a book to my on call room if I actually get there, and still read in the morning before going to bed.
Very empathetic post on how reading is not necessarily an act that one can just will themselves to do :) I admire your the way you do not try and universalise the relationship people have with reading. Also, thank you for the little quote from Burkeman about TBRs being rivers, not buckets! Loved that analogy. As a literature student, I feel pressured to read as much of the canon as I can to be a "real" lit student, but of course there is so much that I have to read there is no way to read everything.
Making time to read (or to run or to relax) involves the same thing: start with yourself, not someone else. If you want to read more (or better), start by going apart, alone, in a room without a TV, no phone. Then read a physical book, slowly, even if it's just for ten minutes.
This is something I can especially relate to, as well as many of my friends. Sometimes it feels there's so little time to pursue the works everyone else recommends. I think you summed it up perfectly with this single sentence from the article: "It is a matter of time, permission, circumstance, and often privilege."
Today, my life is a gentle pace, a soft place, and the world is a very different experience through this toned down lens. I love Professor Walker's book list and I am in no hurry to race through this or reach a finish line. Instead, I savor it - page by page, book by book. Although I have a strange habit of reading a few books at once - with Emily Dickinson on my kitchen table, Sylvia Plath living in my guest room, Virgina Woolf inhabiting my bedroom, and on my little island, coffee bar, Sense and Sensibility- class reading - not caring about a finish line brings me great joy in reading, in living.
I usually read a few books at a time. Like you, most people (including me!) describe that as funny or strange, but I don' think anyone would every say: 'it's really weird that you're watching Yellowstone and Succession at the same time'. Somehow the expectation is different for books than movies, shows, or albums.
Yes, it might not be that weird, hee hee. And it is cool that you do this too, it is like having French pastries scattered all over the house and we can select the one that suits our mood for beauty at any given moment. Have a lovely day!
My favorite line: Literary taste is an aspect of your personality.
I’ve come to think of my library—which contains many art books one doesn’t actually ‘read’ while also hosting plenty of literature I aspire to read—as my Legacy. When people visit my studio and house after I am gone, there will lie my work; there will lie my music and reading collections; there will remain the house and land I turned into a conservancy. They will be the visible aspects left, the tangible story, though I may be dust.
We know they last. No digital collections for me! All is tactile. Manual. Observe the craft, observe the workmanship, listen to the human breaths between notes, then walk the grounds and know I was there.
While I realize not everyone has the scope of what I cultivate—and mind you am not well off, I just collect over time—I know one thing: I do not want a U-Haul rented to be loaded and take my life to the dump. No Salvation Army truck shall pull up. At the same time, no one will know what was on my mind, whether I read it or not.
They will know what it meant to me.
Read on, Adam! Your work in all its forms is an inspiration and no doubt, will well outlive you 💫♾️
I am of the opinion that you don’t even need to read to reap the benefits we attain by reading. I think it’s more broad than that, as I’ve known many people who are thorough digesters of content, perhaps more than many readers I know. Some people watch excellent shows like Breaking Bad or movies like A Silent Voice and take away so much more from it than readers I know after reading a classic. This also applies to albums too, great albums like anything from Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead, or Bob Dylan, I’ve known people who extract worlds out of these compact art forms.
It’s important to not think reading is the only source of wisdom and knowledge, but whatever medium of art we choose to admire and digest, must be thoroughly chewed and digested, and most importantly lived. It would be pointless to read all of Shakespeare, and never leave the house, you haven’t lived to understand what you digested. Like eating a meal and digesting it, you also need to walk it off and exercise afterwards.
Reading is only seen as more serious because of scholars and academia, but it’s important to notice that other forms of the humanities have far outlived the medium of symbols on a surface. Theatre, music and poetry and carvings have been used throughout history to teach and inspire for millenniums before reading and writing. It’s most important that you fully chew, digest and live a little with ANY form of art you choose to find compelling. They may be missing out on Shakespeare and Plato, but we’re also missing out on the excellent musicians and directors of today, it is indeed a river that one must pick out of.
I do want to acquiesce on a point though, that reading does do a little more forcing on the consumer side, it does make it harder to not digest it. You can probably watch a movie/show or listen to an album passively, more easily than read a book passively. Nonetheless, it will always require you to sow effort if you wish to reap rewards, regardless of your pursuit.
I hope we can all improve our day to day with excellently curating art and thoughtfully digesting it, to live our lives more consciously and with more intentionality. ❤️
Thank you for sharing this! I am a 23 year old who read avidly all her life until the smartphone was introduced to me, and I've since spent years trying to find balance. My family has recently started a habit of "reading club" after dinner, where we each read our own independent books for half an hour before any entertainment comes in. Here's to reclaiming time!
I greatly benefited from all Cal Newport's books, but especially Digital Minimalism. He has thoughts, encouragement, and approaches to taming smartphones and digital habits. One of his recommendations to taming smart phones is to develop analogue hobbies, which sounds like your reading club. The other suggestion is, broadly, to get rid of almost all your smartphone apps. :-) Easy right - but he has ways to 'quit' that are better than cold turkey.
I believe we should all be cautious when typing 'entertainment' versus 'reading'. I know we all mean digital entertainment or screens. But for me reading is entertainment! I get most of my reading done because I don't watch much TV or streaming. That's not a moral decision, I'm just really fatigued by screens at the end of a workday spent on a laptop. I also have a small house, so TV is sometimes loud and keeps the kids up. If I had a more tactile job or a bigger house, I'd probably watch more of the amazing shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Community that I missed. But as Adam points out, art is limitless, human life is not.
I'm 77 now, 25 years ago, I ended up in Honduras, for me, a much less psychologically distracting place for me,
Immediately, i began reading the many books I'd been wanting to read since sophomore literature in college. I did other things, but it was C ondic that I very much enjoyed reading. WarcandcPeace, Augustine’s City of God, all the ones that several of you are diving into. I've never stopped. I'm a retired internist not a scholar. Now that I've found several people, I enjoy re-reading and hearing the commentary.
Very interesting discussion, thanks Adam. When I undertook a full time 3 year BA degree as a mature student I realized how privileged I was to be able to immerse myself in reading English literature for a consolidated period of time. That has never happened since. But I make a concerted effort to carve out time weekly to read. I think we need to be cautious about being purist and competitive about what type of literature people read as we all have different literary interests and classical literature is only part of it, and not for every reader.
I definitely fall into Burkeman's second camp. This said I interact with a lot of people and try to talk about literature and it seems that although I'm trying to read and talk about concepts, philosphy, and themes everyone else seems to fall into two categories, they just dont read anything at all, or they read a ton of smut novels. The women I know who read them are not keen on talking about the contents. I have yet to meet any men, although I know they are out there, who have read fourth wing or Morning Glory Milking Farm. Interestingly enough though when I attempt to talk about the Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe or Dugin's Fourth political Theory most people think I'm talking about Fourth Wing until I explain otherwise.
As a full time surgeon with two young kids I never get as much time as I want to read and yes, I sacrifice digital entertainment to do it. I have introduced a Sunday afternoon quiet time where the kids only do quiet activities so I can have a bit of time to read but it is hard as there are so many things competing for my attention. I always read before bed though, whether I'm on a normal day, on call, or on nights. If I am working nights I take a book to my on call room if I actually get there, and still read in the morning before going to bed.
How about a close reading and discussion of Sordello?
Too bad there aren’t articles titled “Finding Time to Look at Your Cellphone.”
Very empathetic post on how reading is not necessarily an act that one can just will themselves to do :) I admire your the way you do not try and universalise the relationship people have with reading. Also, thank you for the little quote from Burkeman about TBRs being rivers, not buckets! Loved that analogy. As a literature student, I feel pressured to read as much of the canon as I can to be a "real" lit student, but of course there is so much that I have to read there is no way to read everything.
Making time to read (or to run or to relax) involves the same thing: start with yourself, not someone else. If you want to read more (or better), start by going apart, alone, in a room without a TV, no phone. Then read a physical book, slowly, even if it's just for ten minutes.
This is so well-researched, accessible, and practical. Well done!
This is something I can especially relate to, as well as many of my friends. Sometimes it feels there's so little time to pursue the works everyone else recommends. I think you summed it up perfectly with this single sentence from the article: "It is a matter of time, permission, circumstance, and often privilege."
Today, my life is a gentle pace, a soft place, and the world is a very different experience through this toned down lens. I love Professor Walker's book list and I am in no hurry to race through this or reach a finish line. Instead, I savor it - page by page, book by book. Although I have a strange habit of reading a few books at once - with Emily Dickinson on my kitchen table, Sylvia Plath living in my guest room, Virgina Woolf inhabiting my bedroom, and on my little island, coffee bar, Sense and Sensibility- class reading - not caring about a finish line brings me great joy in reading, in living.
I usually read a few books at a time. Like you, most people (including me!) describe that as funny or strange, but I don' think anyone would every say: 'it's really weird that you're watching Yellowstone and Succession at the same time'. Somehow the expectation is different for books than movies, shows, or albums.
Yes, it might not be that weird, hee hee. And it is cool that you do this too, it is like having French pastries scattered all over the house and we can select the one that suits our mood for beauty at any given moment. Have a lovely day!
Had a great day but then the internet man in my phone told me I *will* die