I hope you'll read lots of books in 2025
and I'll love you either way.
It's bad.
The machines have our number.
Every day they and their masters figure out ways to squeeze another minute of our day into their churning mills of attention.
You won't get any of those minutes back. This is already a tragedy. But each minute you spend in the docile freeze of machine time, holding your breath in that flickering blue light, is also a minute where your mind atrophies, weakens, and shrinks.
"Is there nothing to be done? Must we surrender to an inevitable decline? Are the intellectual heights of our lives, of our very species, all in the past? Are we, in a word, fucked?"
It might seem that way.
But don't despair yet, my frail minded little fellow. We can recover it all. We can wrest our attention from the vampiric algorithms, and put it back to work. We can recover ourselves, our brightness, our curiosity, our creativity, our enthusiasm for life and the world.
How?
By reading books.
Reading books is like going to the gym for your mind. But it's also like going on a hike for your mind. And like walking through a new city. And dancing. And making out, and making love. It is to the mind what "movement" is to the body.1
We need our minds back, whole, active, and strong, in order to be able to turn towards this incredibly complex world, and create good things.
And also, it's actually just really nice to read a book. Once you've defragged your mind enough to be able to pay the requisite attention, you may just find yourself having a lovely time.
How to read lots of books in 2025
Now I will give you tips.
This is what worked for me. A couple of years ago, I wasn't reading books. I was still buying books, and continuing to own lots of them. But I was not reading them. Then I did the things described below, and now I'm reading lots more books.
Whether they'll work for you is anyone's guess. But if you're not reading as much as you'd like, try them and see.
1 . Do it for the love of the game
Forget everything I just said about "going to the gym for your mind." If you're reading for self-improvement it will turn you into a joyless worm. Read for pleasure, for company, for that good feeling of understanding slowly condensing out of not-understanding. Don't read so that you'll be a better person. And don't read so that you can say you have read.
2 . Logistics
I get most of my reading done on either an e-reader, or a physical book with little clip on book lamp, in bed before I go to sleep.
I play rain sounds and move my device out of easy reach. I'd put the device in another room but that’s what the rain sounds come from. But if you have a problem, it might be better to buy a rain sound machine and leave your device in another room.
No scrolling or youtube at bedtime. This is when the reading happens.
3 . Give yourself a minute
Your over-stimulated, wrung dry and ragged dopamine circuits will take some time to recover. Don't expect it to be easy or fun immediately. This part is, once more, quite like going to the gym. If you haven't been in a while, you're weak and it's hard and exhausting to work out. But as you get stronger, it gets easier, until eventually it actually gets fun (or so they tell me).
Reclaiming your ability to pay attention to one thing for more than 10 minutes works the same way. If you start the habit, let it be difficult for a few days before you get into the groove. Let the slight discomfort of under-stimulation mean "I AM DOING SOMETHING GOOD FOR MYSELF." You'll be having fun before you know it.
4 . Rules
i) You don't have to finish every book you start.
Somewhere we got the idea that a book is a moral test, and the proper attitude to one is as some kind of ordeal we must push through to the finish line at any cost. This is puritanical confusion.
Read while it seems there's something for you in there.
Sometimes that will be because you're having a good time, or learning. Sometimes it will be because someone you trust said "there's something for you in there."
Sometimes this will take you all the way to the end. And sometimes it won't take you past the first chapter. I probably finish one in ten books that I start.
ii) You can read more than one book at once.
Of all the books that I've started, there are only a handful that I have deliberately decided not to finish. All the rest I've just paused for the time being and I'll get back to them at some point. This makes you free.
iii) You can probably start a book in any place.
I wouldn't know because I religiously read books from the foreword forward. But while we're here, I’m betting this is another sacred cow that belongs on the pyre.
iv) Owning books is a different hobby from reading books.
Fine, chalk up one point to the scolds. But the presence of a book can be good for you even if it takes you a long time / you never get round to opening it. This happens in practical ways; it's kind of the inverse of not leaving ice cream in your freezer if you're trying to lose weight. And it happens in non-local magical ways. The preserved thoughts permeate your space. As long as you're reading some of them, it's ok to buy books.
5 . Ok Good, Goodbye
There's more I could say but let's save your eyes for a book. Thanks for reading. If anything stuck in the craw, know that I'm really directing the insults at myself.
And let me know if this makes you read a book2.
Ok good, goodbye xxx
Cloud photo by Arthur Yao
Kind of. There are things you can do with your mind that are like movement for your body OTHER than reading books. But reading books is many kinds of movement for your mind.
This doesn't count as breaking tip 1 above.
Love this Robbie. And just today I discovered there's a word for my favourite way to consume books ... A librocubicularist meaning a person who enjoys reading in bed.
I never read the foreword or introduction until after I've read the book. And then only if the book was interesting enough for me to want to know what someone else has to say about it. I don't want someone else's analysis or exegesis up front. They tell me I'm an Enneagram 8, maybe that's why.
I'm amazed by Alyssa's accounting skills! I have no idea at all how many books I read last year. But it was probably somewhere between 50 and 100, could be more. I read 3 or 4 at a time. I also find myself occasionally reading something that I realise halfway through I already read.
Right now I'm reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Jay Fowler for the second time, and discovering how little I remembered of this huge masterpiece. In print. The Annotated Turing by somebody or other. In print. That's in Kampala next to my bed, but I live most of the time in Nebbi so I read it in snatches. About 75% of it is over my head but the rest is interesting enough to keep me going. Spreading My Wings by Diana Barnato, a Second World War pilot, for the second time. In print. The Sins of the Fathers by Alan Massie, on kindle. It's a fictionalised version of the 1963 Adolf Eichmann trial in Israel. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Khalid Rashidi, in print. It's a dense book, but fascinating and horrific. Am about to start The Complete Works of Dostoyevsky on kindle, but I doubt I'll get to the end. It costs less than a dollar, amazing value, like The Complete Non-Fiction of George Orwell edited by Peter Davison. I actually read the 20 volumes from start to finish a couple of years back. Also extraordinarily cheap on kindle. Dostoyevsky is a rare exception where I'm reading the intro first. I read a few of his novels and stories 50 years ago, so I already know he's worth discussing!