The Sunday Salon – On the Meaning of Making Time to Read

When a non-reader asks you just how many books you usually read in a year or month, do you ever become evasive, or even mask the truth? Recently it hit me that I seem to have acquired the habit of doing this. I have become a closet bookworm. The reason is the fact that in the past, conversations about reading with people who are not quite as obsessive about it as I am have taken slightly uncomfortable turns.

I so wish we could talk about reading without the conversation becoming about measuring different life priorities or goals against each other. But sadly, this seems difficult to avoid: talking about reading will often make people who don’t read feel patronised. And the problem isn’t necessarily that they’re being mean-spirited; it’s more about how reading is socially constructed. I’ve noticed that if I’m truthful about my reading, people will sometimes react defensively, or even downright aggressively. A typical example is my interlocutor saying that they have “better things to do than read all day”; that “thankfully they have other interests”; that “unlike me, they have a social or a family life”; or bringing up their job, their significant other, their children, their responsibilities, or their social commitments.

All of the above are perfectly valid reasons for not reading, or for reading fewer books than I do. But the defensive tone with which people sometimes mention these things makes me think that they automatically assume that I am going to judge them for not reading as much as I do. And so, under the belief that the best defence is a good attack, they judge readers instead. They assume that the fact that we read means there must be something lacking in our lives.

Monthly or yearly reading totals don’t mean much to me, and I don’t like comparing mine to those of other readers. We all have different reading speeds, after all, as well as different life circumstances. There are many, many factors that influence how much each of us gets to read. But between readers and non-readers, the difference isn’t really in how much leisure time we have available: it’s in the fact that readers make reading a priority, while non-readers will perhaps turn on the TV, go out, see a movie, and so on. It’s not that readers never do these things, of course – but the habit of setting aside time to read on a daily basis, even if it’s just fifteen minutes, is very much ingrained in our lives. However, if I tell people that the difference is not in having time but in making time, it’s almost inevitable that they’ll feel judged. As I said before, I think this is a sign of a deeper problem, one that often worries me: how reading is socially constructed.

Reading is generally thought of as an intelligent and highbrow activity; as something that is Good For You; as inherently superior to watching TV or seeing a movie; as better than listening to music, playing a videogame, and so on. As a result, it’s unlikely that in one of these conversations someone will plainly tell you, “I don’t read because reading is not that much of a priority for me right now. I’d rather do other things.” Unfortunately, most people feel that to say this is to implicitly admit than they’re not as smart, sophisticated or cultured as readers are.

Personally I prefer reading to the above activities (though perhaps not to listening to music), but my own preference doesn’t mean that I think that objectively speaking, reading is better, more sophisticated, or more worthy of my time than any of those other experiences or art forms. Movies, TV series, songs, and yes, videogames, can be as artistically accomplished, intelligent, enriching and rewarding as the best that literature has to offer. Often they do the very same things that books do – unsettle us, challenge us, move us, open us up to different experiences, new ideas, and new ways of thinking – only in different ways. However, for the most part they don’t have the same aura of inherent respectability that reading does.

The reason why this worries me is because I think it might make people unconsciously resent the act of reading, or feel intimidated by books and reject them as too “highbrow” for them. Making people feel that they “should” read, or that they ought to read more, is often problematic. Obviously I WANT people to read – I’m very passionate about literature, and I want more people to experience the many, many splendid things books have to offer. I want to share this thing that I love so much, but I worry that the prescriptive approaches I sometimes see, particularly in educational contexts, will backfire.

(And then there’s the gender angle – why do girls and women are said to read more fiction than boys and men? It this true at all? Even if not, is the belief that it’s true so prevalent because the social construct of reading I’m talking about includes, among others, the attribute “feminine”? Obviously there are male readers, both old and young, but the ideal of masculinity most boys are expected to live up to doesn’t seem to include being a bookworm. But I’ll leave this aside for now, as I could write a whole other post on this topic.)

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought recently because I suspect it’s something I’ll have to confront as a future librarian. I’ve noticed, though, that most recent literacy campaigns seem to focus more on the appeal of books than on their supposed benefits, and I have no doubt that this is an issue which has been widely studied and debated before. Are these attitudes something you have encountered as well, either in your private or in your professional life? Are you a closet bookworm? Have you ever noticed that people who aren’t avid readers get defensive when you talk about your reading? Do you worry that elevating reading above other activities may be counterproductive, or do you believe that reading should be placed above them?