The Long Weekend Edition: Permission To Read More Books

Look, I'm a doctor. No, not that kind. But I'm still issuing this as a prescription. Put the phone down and go spend time with your To Read pile.

Photo by Lilly Rum on Unsplash

God help me, I’m the sort of person who benefits from a good prompt. A gentle nudge. We often take for granted that something is obvious, but the disconnect between what’s apparent and what we do is real, and costly. Consider this post an invitation and permission slip to step away from the screen (not yet!) and grab a book. Doctor’s orders (don’t fact check this). But do go read a book. You’ll feel better. We all will.

That said, before proceeding, I should declare an interest. I’m a book editor for McClelland & Stewart. My job is premised on people reading books. My entire industry is. But I’m also a writer, a citizen of a democracy, and a human being. My interest in people reading is just as strong in each membership category.

Books are a personal and public good, however you read them. Physical books, ebooks, audiobooks all count. We don’t do book snobbery here.

Words on a page separated from the breaking news bulletin, the attention economy of social media, or the market imperative to be a producer and consumer form a sacred space unlike most others. In this space, we decode, encode, and share a language and a world, one that persists through time, even if interpretations of it will vary over the years. We bring that world to life in our minds and we inhabit it with others who do the same. That’s beautiful.

Writers and readers alike have long waxed poetic about the magic of the book, with its power to initiate a kind of transubstantiation of ink and paper or sounds or ones and zeros into life and movement. Stephen King called books “a uniquely portable magic” and Margaret Atwood said that “a word after a word is power.” Books shape and alter realities inside and outside your mind. They’ve inspired movements and schools of thought; they’ve raised and fell states and empires. More often than not, they’re simply a delight. And more often than not, that’s enough. But there’s more to the magic nonetheless.

The world a book creates, whether it’s fictional or real, is an oasis in which we spend long stretches of time, even if we dip in and out during shorter sessions. Beyond creating worlds, books model or communicate behaviours in fiction and reality, drawing reactions, approbations, judgments, and support while serving as a guide for navigating realities. In that sense, they’re pro-social, community-building tools. The good kind of community, for the most part.

Today, in the era of ever-present social media, digital connections and “connections,” and “multi-tasking” (a skill that doesn’t exist because it’s impossible to accomplish), books offer us a chance to centre ourselves beyond the growing intrusions we face. Time spent reading helps us break away from the attention economy driven by social media companies and proprietary algorithms designed to steal, keep, and sell our attention. Reading, in contrast, focuses the mind, invites us to reflect, and supports rebuilding our atrophied capacity to focus. In the same spirit, books allow us to connect with the characters on the page and then to further connect beyond those pages with those in our lives who also take part in the liturgy of the written word.

Distractions aren’t impossible to avoid, you might get a call or a notification while reading, but at least with physical books and ebooks, it’s hard to do much else while you’re turning the page. You can’t really double-screen and read a book. You can’t stream The Office yet again while you read. You can’t play your 6,000th hour of Civilization 6 while you read. You must be more or less present and focused.

On top of the benefits enumerated, book reading has health benefits and could help you live longer (time you can use to read more books). I hasten to add that because unlike so many other practices that extend lifespans and support good health, book reading is enjoyable.

You might try to sing praises similar to those I’ve raised here about magazines, websites, video games, or your preferred streaming service. Sometimes, you’ll find overlap or similarities — or benefits unique to each of those undertakings. That’s fine.

I’m a big fan of balance and variety, of each thing in its place and in moderation. So, please do read magazines, browse websites, play video games, and enjoy some good couch-binge time. But remember that books exist as a class of their own, long-form, permanent, and magical, with their own particular, extraordinary effects that we ought to recognize and treasure.