How I Rediscovered Reading

On the things that get in the way of reading, and some possible methods of clearing those obstacles.

I’m a sucker for the charm of New Year’s resolutions (new chapter, new me, new start, all the old clichés), and among mine is always an improvement in reading habits, which perennially deteriorate in the coldest, darkest days of winter. Last December, as I prepared to hop the calendric stile over the fence separating the worn-out previous year from the greener grass and brighter skies of a new year, I wondered about the best way to inaugurate this recommitment to reading.

I had spent all of last autumn mired in the bog of a depression that destroyed my ability to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. As a result, it had taken me all of December to read two short novels, of which I recall frighteningly little. Emboldened by the emergence from this mental fog into the clear skies of sanity, I decided that I would begin the new year reading a Big Book. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen was published in 2001, which means that it has spent two decades glaring at m…