To read or not to read

I once read something on an author’s blog that really stayed with me. He said to ask yourself what is something that you stopped doing as an adult that your younger self would be devastated to hear.

For me it would be reading. As a kid I used to read like crazy. I would stay up late at night; I would read on the school bus; I would read between classes and breaks at school; my idea of a holiday was days of uninterrupted reading time. Sometime in college my reading habit went on the back burner with so many new things happening in my life. After graduation, when I started working, I thought that I’d get back to reading especially since I had a long commute, and I was already a champion at reading on buses. Alas, this is when tragedy struck. I innocently asked people at the office for book recommendations. I was shocked by the results. Every single person recommended non-fiction books, primarily business and self-help. Prior to this, I had read a sum total of 2 non-fiction books, both of which were biographies and very enjoyable. But now, hearing these recommendations, I felt like I had some serious catching up to do in my reading life and so got started with the “best” business books out there. Sadly, I did not enjoy most of them. Looking back of course it is obvious to me that I could not relate to a lot of the advice in these books because I was just starting my career and had no context for some of these topics. I also have a huge bias for good storytelling, and as luck would have it, the ones I happened to read at that time were sadly lacking in that department. And lastly, the diet of adventure, mystery, and thriller fiction that I had grown up on would always be what I craved the most. Even so it might have been ok if I had struck a balance between fiction and non-fiction; but I was so determined not to miss out that I kept on trying to read every “must read” business book out there. And that’s how I found myself a few years later reading no books at all. My 10-year-old self would have been devastated.

So how did I get back to reading? It was a long and not very easy journey with many false starts. The first time I consciously decided to get back in the habit was in late 2015. I started small, re-reading some of my all-time favourites; the Harry Potter series and all of Jane Austen’s books. It was a big achievement at the time because my attention span wasn’t used to anything longer than news articles. Then I re-read a lot of Agatha Christie which was a great comfort to me. After that I stalled once again because I was too scared to try anything new.

Towards the end of 2016, when all those best books of the year start coming out, I came across a list that really intrigued me: “7 Best Books That Will Radically Shift the Way You See the World”. Sadly, the blog where it was published no longer exists, but I can share the list of books that I have read from it, and they really were very influential.

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
2. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
3. The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts
4. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
5. Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters by Alan S. Miller, Satoshi Kanazawa

A special mention to the first book on the list, ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ by Bill Bryson. I think I can give this book the entire credit of reigniting my love for reading. The humour with which he writes about the most complicated science facts is just amazing. It took me a long time to finish reading this book, but it was worth every minute.

Reading these books gave me some confidence so I challenged myself to go to a book fair and buy books and authors that I had never read before. And that is how I found my first Star Trek novel and went down a rabbit hole of reading all the books in that entire series. Then I got intrigued by a historical fiction series by Philippa Gregory based on the War of the Roses in England and devoured them all. Then I was lost again for a while, reading a couple of books here and there and not reading at all the rest of the time. Then we had the pandemic but sadly instead of turning to books for comfort at the end of long, tiring, stressful days, I turned instead to Netflix. Sometime in 2021, I was inspired by this blog called ‘Reading the World’ to read more translated works instead of only reading books written in English. Intriguing though this idea was, I didn’t go a good job of picking the books and so once again I felt like I “couldn’t” read anymore. I also tried to read an audiobook at this time, and it was a painful experience getting through it.

Cut to 2022, I decided that this was the year to up my game. I targeted reading 50 books. I finally curated my TBR based on reviews/ descriptions to know I would like them. So, the beginning of the year was very strong with this lineup. Then, towards the end of the year, I signed up for a book subscription from Champaca Bookstore, Library and Cafe . The theme for the year was ‘Loneliness and Connection’. It was an amazing way to read such a lot of diverse writing which were all focused on various aspects of this theme. I finished the year with 46 books completed and felt like I had arrived.

In 2023, I targeted 50 books once again. I had the book subscription for half the year and I complemented that with other recommendations that I curated carefully to my taste. This was the year I discovered Louise Penny and I had to really hold myself back from reading the entire series in one go. I ended the year having completed 60 books and felt like I was flying.

Then in 2024, I decided to see if I could go back to my childhood habits and make reading my default source of entertainment. With that in mind I started my journey to read 100 books. I did not discriminate what I read, so I returned to familiar authors (but new books) but also tried out new ones based on reviews (shoutout to the advisory section of splainer ). I had also mastered he art of listening to audio books over the last couple of years (the trick is to be doing something physical while listening: going for walks, doing household chores etc.) so almost one-third of the books I read this year were audio books. I finished my 100th book yesterday and I feel like I’m on top of the world. I think I can safely say that I’d much rather read to pass the time than do anything else at this point.

To know what I learnt from this experience, check out this interview I gave to my good friend Debjani Paul in Mid Day here.

If you have a goal that you wish you could achieve in the new year, I hope that something in my story resonates with you, and you give it a shot as well. Do share in the comments what’s the goal you’re going to go for. Cheers!