This is how to become a lifelong reader (even if you’ve never enjoyed books before)

If you don’t enjoy reading, you’re doing it wrong…

I adore books in all formats and absolutely love reading. It is informative and incredibly fun. Consequently, I find it a bit sad when people say they don’t enjoy reading and based on purely anecdotal evidence, it usually stems from someone not growing up reading and then being given the wrong book. The right book can open a new world.

What actively annoys me is reading articles about techniques for condensing or speeding up the whole experience.

Pieces that explain how to read a couple of hundred pages in a few hours are missing the point of reading. If it is literature or popular fiction, you will miss the amazing writing and read a less enjoyable version of the story. If it is non-fiction, you’ll miss a lot of information and not take in much.

Similarly, sites or tools that provide book summaries skip the beautiful prose of a talented author and only allow for superficial learning.

This is clearly highly subjective, but my main point stands – if you don’t ever enjoy reading, you are doing it wrong.

Obviously, this is not always the case

There are also clearly some exceptions, but they are usually related more to getting information than enjoyment:

• The book is poorly written and full of filler, with the odd nugget of insight.
• It is non-fiction, and some content can be unimportant or express opinions that have nothing to do with the facts you seek.
• If fiction, then it is something you dislike but have to read and have run out of time — for example, a school report or to impress someone that you’ve read James Joyce.
• Something is too complicated or lexically dense, and you just want an overview.
• It is part of a series, and you read the previous one a year or two ago and just need a recap.

So, I admit there are times when you want only the briefest versions of the book. But for all other circumstances: read the book. It is so much better. And I will now conclusively prove why.

Reading the book at a comfortable pace is how it is designed to be read

When you read, be it fiction or factual, it is meant to be absorbed that way and at that speed.

Non-fiction

With non-fiction, the author will have led up to the key points with details, backgrounds, anecdotes, examples and analogies. You understand the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of the points they are making, or indeed, the ‘what’, ‘when’ or ‘who’ they are trying to explain, in much greater depth than could ever be achieved with just reading the bullet-point conclusions alone. There is a reason why, for example, school classes are structured the way they are and not just a teacher handing out lists of facts and figures.

Fiction

For fiction, the case for reading at a comfortable speed is even stronger. Stories aren’t just a list of events that happened to the characters. The act of reading is also part of the journey. Consuming the story at the pace it was intended is how tension and excitement rise. The story arcs and their conclusions are made more satisfying if you were there for the whole ride.

There is also the simple enjoyment of a well-written phrase, sentence or scene. I have a degree in literature, so I may obsess over this sort of thing more than most. But excellent writing is a joy in itself, and if you summarise it, that is lost, as are most of the allegories, analogies, metaphors and so on.

How to get more into reading and even achieve bookworm status

I have had numerous friends over the years who ‘just aren’t that into reading’. I’ve found it has been possible to change many of their minds and, in quite a few cases, turn them into voracious readers.

Why some people don’t enjoy reading

I am going to generalise a lot here, but the following seems to be true in quite a few cases.

Nearly everyone has the capacity to love reading. The problem frequently begins at a younger age when kids are first introduced to the activity. People frequently start reading things (or have them read to them) that they don’t enjoy. This continues and eventually results in books being seen as something you must get through and endure to extract the information.

For some jobs or people, reading is still necessary, but it is a chore. For most working adults, this means nonfiction, and for them, a summary of the information is fine, even if a lot of the understanding is lost. This is a shame, but understandable.

How to become a lover of the written word

I can confidently predict that there is a book and a genre of books that you will love.

My parents love to read and instilled that in me from a young age. (It was partly to shut me up.) When I was a child of single digits, I was a big Enid Blyton fan. When I turned 9 or 10, my dad gave me a Conan the Barbarian book and The Hobbit. I was immediately hooked on Fantasy.

Six months later, he gave me The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Stainless Steel Rat. I was then a huge science fiction fan. At 12, I started to read James Bond and Wilbur Smith. At 14, I got into Historical Fiction thanks to Bernard Cornwell. That got me into History. And so on.

Of my friends who grew up hating reading, it was generally because they hadn’t read what they enjoyed up until that point. Reading should be a joy, yet the idea of curling up on the couch to read a good book was anathema to them. With friends, you can guess what they would like, and it is often similar to TV or movie tastes.

A couple of examples: I gave one action-loving friend a Wilbur Smith and a Clive Cussler. To a more philosophical and artistic friend, I gave Philip K. Dick and J.G. Ballard. Both friends were surprised at how much they liked them. Reading for pleasure wasn’t something they had ever really done before.

After that, my friends and I gradually expanded their reading repertoire with other suggestions. As they read more, they found more that they liked.

I guess this is fairly obvious, yet it is surprising how often you will come across someone who isn’t really into reading and, after a bit of prodding, find that they just occasionally read a bit of non-fiction, but that’s all. They aren’t reading for enjoyment – it’s all about getting the bare facts. Reading has become fixed in their psyche as a chore, and that can be hard to budge.

They just haven’t read the right books.

Talk to friends who read and have similar interests to you. If they read for pleasure, they will be excited to share recommendations.

Alternatively, think about your go-to genre on Netflix and then find that section at the bookstore. Look at the bestsellers. Look up the ‘must reads’ from that genre. And enjoy.

Final thoughts

The more you read, the more you will like it. It’s possible that as your interests diversify, you may even find yourself enjoying things you previously found dull.

In these current times, where everyone is increasingly staying inside yet has access to millions of books, reading is an accessible hobby that is not only educational but also a lot of fun. Give it a go.