How to read more in 11 easy steps

An idiosyncratic to-do list

I’ve been writing lately about my frustration with the move to have new technology — such as large language models, aka, AI — replace the activities that make us most vibrantly human. One of the activities now being replaced is reading. Children aren’t reading anymore, students are finding ways to avoid their assigned pages, and adults are losing the habit too.

I’m always wary of generalizing from one or two studies and an anecdote (except of course when it comes to my anecdotes, my anecdotes are pure science bordering on revelation), but it does seem at this point that something serious is happening to the practice of reading. AI is only the latest temptation. It might not even be the worst one — it does seem to result in some kind of reading at least, if only of a summary. But how are books supposed to compete with YouTube, video games, social media pings, and videos timed to the attention span of an impatient hamster?

I’m drawn to this question because it’s not just an other people thing. I feel this affecting me too. As it happens, I read a lot for my job, and read more for my book reviewing and other writing. Those two structures have ensured that I do read a certain amount of literature, history, and cultural criticism. But I don’t read nearly as much as I’d like to be reading. And if I do, it’s probably nonfiction, even though disappearing into a novel is one of the most pleasurable experiences I’ve known in this life. I find it hard, in the hectic pace of everyday life, between the cooking and the teaching and the meetings and the laundry and the child’s bedtime — to stay with a novel I have chosen for my own pleasure long enough that I’m pulled through to the end.

I used to do a lot of reading in stolen minutes of time. While waiting for the bus, say, or standing in line. But since I’ve started to need reading glasses just to see the text of most books, this is no longer easy. Reading is a decision now, one for which I need equipment and decent lighting.

What I’ve come to see is that, like so many things worth doing in life, my practice of reading is about finding new ways to circle back to what I love and value. This is true for weight lifting, and dancing, and making art, and writing, and cooking new recipes, and frankly, for relationships too. I keep getting swept away by the wind, but I find ways to come back to port.

So, what follows is a list of things that work for me. Think of them as navigations — paths of return. I claim no originality. I certainly don’t claim thoroughness. I suppose what I’m most interested in is starting a conversation, and finding out what other people do when they find that the time they actually spend reading does not match the vision they have for their life.

The discount book bins outside Gibert Joseph, in Paris

How to Read More

1. Read something easier, more fun, more plot-forward than what you usually read. If you, like me, find that your identity is somehow bound up with reading capital-L Literature, it’s time to relax a bit. I’ve found older Margaret Atwood novels good for this, Tom Holt’s humorous takes on the Middle Ages, and of course, Amanda Cross. Amanda Cross was the pen name of Carolyn Heilbrun, a feminist literary scholar who was the first woman to be tenured in the Columbia English department. She writes novels in which pretentious scholars of literature are murdered. This is, obviously, an irresistible proposition.

2. Befriend the novella. Novellas are unloved by the mainstream publishing world today — I guess publishers figure people want enough pages for their buck, whereas I think people just want to be able to get through a book. The great thing about a novella is you can have that beautiful, capital-L Literary experience without having to slog through the thing for weeks. I also find novellas are often psychologically intense, since there’s little space wasted — I’m thinking for example of Patrick Süskind’s The Pigeon. This week, I fell in love with J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, and it’s all I can do not to say to people, “Do you know this book? Do you know you could read it in an afternoon?”

3. Related: if you’re very distracted, read books made up of shorter pieces. Poetry collections. Short stories. Flash fiction or nonfiction. Lots of novels these days are made up of short chapters — Alessandro Barrico’s Silk is a nice light read that’s positively micro. Beth Ann Fennelly’s Heating & Cooling is a lovely collection of micro-memoirs. On my to-read list as well are Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, and Sonya Moor’s The Comet and Other Stories.

4. Actually take a digital break. I know, I know, it’s annoying that Cal Newport keeps telling people to do this, and that he’s obviously right, even though by his own account he lives a life that’s unreachable for most human beings. But it does work. Every now and then I deactivate all my social media (not log out of, deactivate). For a few days, my brain is agitated, but eventually it calms down. This process can take one week, or it can take three. But the power of my concentration afterwards is usually far, far beyond what I have when I can log into five different websites for hits of dopamine, distraction, and recognition.

5. Rest. I hate to say this, but sometimes the best thing for my reading is finding some way to rest and recover my nervous system. It clicked for me at one point that I never had problems concentrating while on vacation, at least after I’d been away for a few days and had calmed down. So yes, it’s good to turn off social media and other digital distractions, but there’s an extent to which they are the natural recourse of the exhausted brain. When I’ve been very tired, I’ve recognized that even deactivating all the online distractions doesn’t actually help me read. Only rest does.

6. Keep books in the bathroom. Yeah, I know, I know. But honestly, isn’t it better than taking your phone in there? I knew a man once who had a whole bookcase in his bathroom. I still think of this as a personal goal.

7. Deliberately create tech-free spaces and take a book (or five) to them. I like to select a pile of books for my bath, because this is where I can combine rest + distance from tech + beloved bathroom reading. But it can be an hour out at a coffee shop, or a mealtime, or a plane ride. I read much of Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh in planes, though sadly I’m stuck in the middle, perhaps because I took a break from traveling.

8. Decide you're going to be a finisher. Yeah, just like that. I find this a strangely powerful thing, just deciding you are going to finish things. I tend to start a lot of books and leave them around the house in various states of disarray — laid flat, piled up, any old garbage as a bookmark. Then I feel guilty about being 1/3 of the way through so many books. So every now and then, I focus a bit on finishing some of the books I started, sometimes telling myself I can’t begin another one until I’ve finished at least one or two. I’m not sure why, but when I finish a book in this way it almost seems to remind me of who I really am — a person who loves books — and strangely almost seems to improve my concentration.

9. Keep a list of books you read. I never did before this year, but I started to track 2025 and let me tell you, it is motivating.

10. Think of your reading as a treat, not as something virtuous. If you’re a type-A kind of person, you might be familiar with the ways that pleasurable activities become duties to be undertaken in a dour spirit of discipline and self-flagellation. You like music? Why not hate yourself for not practicing the piano enough. You like dancing? Maybe you could focus on all the ways you’re not improving. Cool hobby? Well, maybe you could monetize it and make it into a side hustle and suck all the joy out of it. Warm bubble bath? It’s not joyful relaxation, it’s pointed self-care so you can be more competitive the next day. Anyway, you get the idea. I think sometimes we do better by feeling like we’re rebelling against the world’s demands and doing something purely for ourselves. (I do realise this goes against the spirit of 9, but I’m not after consistency here, just effectiveness.)

11. Read with other people. Part of the reason why a class has traditionally been a great way to read lots of books is that it offers a structure, a schedule, and a community to discuss those books with. I tend to think that any other way of reading in community is good too. A reading group, perhaps. But also: following recommendations from friends, with the pleasurable anticipation of talking to them about the book. Or: sitting next to someone else who is reading, and reading together. Or, if you want to be really old school: read out loud to others, or have them read to you. I held a party last year in which the cost of entry was one poem, and the guest had to read it out loud to the others. That kind of thing can make you feel alive again.

Dear friends, strangers, new and old subscribers, bored people on the internet — how do you keep yourself reading, or get yourself reading again? And also, do those eye exercises really work? Talk to me.

Irina

Updates

• I have two poems in the brand new issue of Cōnfingō Magazine, currently at press. These are inspired by the Old English epic Beowulf, and by Laura Varnam’s incredible creative-critical work with that poem.

• In my latest column at the Times Literary Supplement, I wrote about great women artists who signed their works.

• I’m continuing to dip my toes into art criticism — this time I visited the Louvre Couture exhibition three times and wrote about it for Apollo Magazine. Definitely my sweatiest review yet.