One Saturday afternoon I wandered into the local bookstore to find something to read for the weekend. Naturally I migrated to the area I’d usually spend the most time in when I’d drop by. I flipped through a few books. Books about discipline and carbohydrates and the present moment. All fine when the time is right. But nothing glimmered.
Something strange happens when you pick up the right book. There's a deep feeling in your gut and sometimes even a chill that rolls up your back. It matches your logical conclusion that the words will be important. Maybe it will help you make wise decisions in the future or understand your past. Maybe it will help you see more clearly. At the very least the experience of reading it will be pleasant. But none of that was happening here.
Onto the next section. A political book with the conclusion on the cover. Books with solutions to your problems as they define them. History books with dates and times and weaponry. But none of them were the right tools. Suddenly I grew tired under the heat of my jacket. I began to feel dizzy as the titles of the books blurred under the florescent lights. What was the point in reading any of this? I left without buying anything.
On Adding Value
Though it may seem like a blasphemous question to ask what the value of reading is, I couldn’t move on from my bookstore indecision until I understood the answer. I could have pretended that I believed all of the benefits I mentioned above, but the inaction and lack of desire to read revealed the truth that benefits were not enough. So where is the value in reading? I hope by the end of this essay we will both be able to say for ourselves.
A poor way to spend our time would be to point out all these new strange book behaviors like posing with the trendy book or skimming to write the summary. Its only worth mentioning because seeing this in other people helps us understand that the explanations we tell ourselves about the value of reading might not match our actions. The reasons for each person will vary.
In the bookstore I experienced my own mismatch. I had reached the end of a non-fiction era. Especially the reading for self-help era. There seemed not to be another nugget of information that was going to be valuable in my pursuit of personal development.
This cold extraction method of reading appears common in the era of Audible and and content farms. If that’s the case, I don’t think I will be alone where that path lead. Whether its boredom or unconvincing improvement or simply, the signal indicates that its time to reassess. The stubborn double down. Though if they slowed down enough to read a page that was not illuminated or broken down into a list then they just might doze off into a nap. And maybe they should.
Reading as part of the good life
The return to fiction was what capped off my thinking about where the value of reading comes from. It was difficult to get started. Maybe I learned something from those self-help books because I made progress by starting with the shortest short stories then went to short novels.
Non-fiction can be as enjoyable as fiction, though it seems that will force us to ask whether we consuming out of quiet desperation or reading out of a genuine curiosity. Books as mere entertainment does not cover the spread. Stories that takes two weeks to read will change you differently than something you passively watch in two hours. Readers must engage or the story pauses. Even then I find value in those moments of reading that are interrupted by new thoughts that otherwise would not be possible. You can follow them into interesting territory or simply return to the book if they go awry.
Such thoughts seem to be only possible in a flow of focus. One idea at a time.
From the ability to understand the past, to an increased imagination, to better vocabulary and all of the rest, I don’t want to finish here with a utilitarian argument that reading fiction is simply more beneficial. Because that would miss the point.
The reward of reading stories is greater than the sum of the individual benefits. It is an essential experience. Like walking or playing. When it is absent, there is a desire for it’s return. Though we start back up by counting steps and calories or by searching for comfort in consumption, we soon realize that it’s just a human thing to do.
Thanks for reading.
Interesting Links
Check out Thomas J. Bevan’s recommended reading list. Every time I bought a book on this list, it has been good. In particular I enjoyed the Solzhenitsyn novel.
I will post a short story list at some point. Here are two that I like to re-read.
Short Story (Hemingway)
Short Story (Raymond Carver)
Musings from my Twitter
I aspire to write a novel where the characters do nothing other than walk around town, go to dinner, and drink coffee.
Writers who don’t read are sinners.
Surround yourself with great books and see what happens
Many of the benefits that come from reading happen because we set the intention to do nothing but read the book. Taking the time to reflect on the ideas and allowing new ones to spur. Slowly. Summaries and scrolling rob you of that.
Your net home library consists of those books which have not been photographed
I hope I can soon write as well as I can meme.