We (obviously I) love books here at The Simple Pastor and there are probably thousands of links on this site to reading, writing, publishing and anything at all to do with one of humanities greatest inventions: the book! So here are some more for your encouragement, your edification and a nudge to pick up a book and read!

Reading For Fun Is Plummeting in The US, And Experts Are Concerned. Down 40% over 20 years apparently.

Ian Harber on reading:

In a world experiencing cognitive and emotional decay because of immersive digital technology, it’s absolutely imperative for us to cultivate both our intellect and our imagination, and there is simply no better way of doing that than reading books.

I’m a big fan of audiobooks over podcasts so amen to this, ‘being read to is a pleasure’: In praise of listening

Audio books are fantastic. Download them to your phone, or borrow them from your local library. I’ve audited several hundred books so far, all while driving. I listen to all kinds, light and heavy, fiction and non-fiction, short and long. More and more this is where I get my serious reading done. If at all possible I listen to the unabridged version. If fact my most memorable audible experiences are listening to long deep audio books. The longer the better.

A Man Read 3,599 Books Over 60 Years, and Now His Family Has Shared the Entire List Online. I love two things about this, firstly the paper list (although my own list is digital) and secondly that he used the library. What an amazing invention – reading thousands of books for free!

So if you want to know How To Read More read this (*some swearing):

Stop reading a book you aren’t enjoying or don’t feel like reading. Again: no test! Again: you probably do this with streaming all the time! It’s the same idea! It’s entertainment!

Which is similar advice to that from Doris Lessing in 1962!

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty — and vice versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.

Which is similar to the advice that Alan Jacobs gives

Never ever apologize for re-reading. Read the same thing three times in a row if that gives you pleasure. One of the most wonderful moments you can have as a reader is to reach the final page, sigh, stare off into space for a few moments … and then return to page one. (I do this with movies sometimes too: “Watch from beginning.”)

Reading as rebellion by Trevin Wax

Reading, especially when it’s challenging, is one way you rebel against all the corporations and influencers and platforms trampling the walls around the garden of your consciousness. Reading is setting a sentry at the gate, on guard against the horde of distracters intent on invading your mind space. Reading is clawing back your powers of attention so you can give yourself fully to the people in your life, so you can carefully weigh proposals and debates in society from multiple angles, so you can see today’s news through the lens of history and philosophy, so you can grow in wisdom and compassion, so you can savor the world’s greatest works of literature without the help of AI chatbot summaries.