Return to Reading

A few years back, when I discovered that there was (at the time) a pretty good alternative to iTunes in emusic, I started buying and listening to music more than I had been in a long, long time. Every month I would buy a few albums, which was something that hadn't happened since I was in college (the first time). I have since moved on from emusic (and haven't found a good replacement yet--any suggestions?), but I have mountains of music to listen to now, so that should keep me good for a while.

I was also fascinated by the fact that making it easier for me to buy something (music, in this case) changed how my day-to-day life went. My life was filled with music in a way it hadn't been in a while, simply because it was really, really easy to buy the stuff.

A similar thing happened with books a few years back--when I discovered that I could buy used books online really cheaply and easily. But that seemed to translate to the buying of more books without actually getting me to read more. I ended up with a bookshelf full of books I haven't read. Now, that's not such a bad problem to have, really, but I began to think about why I didn't read more often. There are lots of reasons--partly, I think I was just burned out after so many years of being in college, reading philosophy. I also had a waning interest in fiction, which, I see now, was partly caused by the ease with which I could get access to other media. Put simply, the more torrents I found of TV shows, the less I read. I never stopped reading--in fact, I probably still read more than average, but I wasn't the voracious reader that I had been for so many years, even after I started buying used books online.

Now I'm finding myself interested in reading more and more, and it is partly fueled by how easily I can access ebooks. A few months back I read my first book on my phone for a book club that I joined. I was skeptical about reading on my phone, but the book was free that way, and I thought I'd try it. It is surprisingly easy to adjust to, and now I am just not sure which way I prefer to read. Sure, I love the feel of a book, the smell of books, and books and I have a long, long history together, so it's sorta romantic. But I also love having a library on my phone, reading what I'm in the mood for wherever I happen to be, being able to look up words without even reaching for a dictionary. And I like the feel of the phone in my hands in a way that is surprisingly similar to my liking the feel of a book in my hands. The feeling is different, but the feeling of the feeling is similar, if that makes sense. I do worry that there are ways in which I'm losing something by reading on my phone, or my computer (perhaps turning pages and looking over a page helps put stuff in long-term memory...heck, even the smell of books could be a memory aid, since our memory centers are so tied to our sense of smell), but I'm enjoying what I perceive as gains.

And the biggest gain? I'm reading so much more. Sure, not everything I'm reading is high art, but a lot of it is fantastic. It could just be a pendulum swing that has more to do with my age than the method of delivery of the words, but whatever the reasons, I'm really enjoying it.