Reading Lulls are No More

As of late, I have been thinking about how my patterns of reading have changed, and not changed, over the years. Reading is my lifelong hobby. I have almost always been consistent reader. Yet there have been times where I must admit that I have gone into lulls. Despite what I label as “lulls,” there have never really been very long stretches of time when I did not read.

However, there were times that, like most readers, I would go into shorter slumps. These have been stretches of a few months, during which I did not read much. Of course, during periods when my education preoccupied my time, my reading would slow to a crawl and sometimes stop altogether. I will admit, however, that at other times I neglected my studies in lieu of doing some reading for pleasure.

There have been reasons other than education for these short reading slumps.  I recall that when I first discovered the Internet, I did not read books for a couple of months. It was during this time when I wondered if I would ever begin heavy reading again. Ultimately, the allure of the digital world was, in the end, no match for my persistent desire to delve into the intricate details and ideas contained in real books. After a few months, I returned to my lifetime hobby.

These days, with reading time as a premium, these non-reading lulls have entirely disappeared from my life. Due to this scarcity of reading time I have not gone into a slump for years. Instead, I hunger for more hours to read.

The other thing that I do now that I never did in previous years is read two books simultaneously. I recall that when I attempted this years ago, I would invariably neglect one book for the other. The more interesting tome would get the most attention, and the less interesting one would be so neglected. Thus, it became impossible to maintain a coherent train of thought on the neglected book’s contents. Once again, that problem has disappeared, and I find that I can easily apportion my time between almost any pair of books. If I am going a little slower on one, as opposed to the other, I will usually just speed up on the one, after I complete the more interesting work. Though my ongoing plan is to read one fiction and one non-fiction book simultaneously, it does not always work out that way. I often find myself reading two fiction or two non-fiction books together.

My reading patterns have changed quite a lot over the years. Obviously, external factors have played a good part in this. I wonder how they will be changed when I look back again in twenty to thirty years. I think however, that it is likely that I will still be reading as much as time permits, which will not be enough.