Is our schools and society have a way of killing our desire to do so.
The books we read in school eventually turn into study pieces, which are dissected and analyzed to the point where we create classrooms full of fake-readers. Pleasure reading is relegated to the side for those who still have that innate spark to get lost in a text, even though it may not be “real” literature.
It’s no secret, or surprise, I find issue with this approach and have been doing my best to mitigate it in my own classroom.
Could you imagine if we treated watching movies, or tv shows, the same way?
“We’re going to watch the first five minutes of the movie, then do a quiz with some questions to make sure you were paying attention. Tomorrow we’ll do another five minutes and another quiz.”
“You’re going to select one of the following shows and write an essay on one of the following topics…”
“Pay attention as you’re going to build a diorama of your favourite scene.”
Actually, it might not be a bad way to get people off their addiction to binge watching. Just make them write “chapter” questions and over analyze every move the director and actors made.
Then we age and for those who still read after their schooling, there is a pressure to read something pragmatic or recommended. Reading that cozy mystery for the sake of “just cause” seems out of the question.
Reading challenges that are meant to encourage people to pick up some books have a flaw built into them: they encourage volume over pleasure.
Even those who select a modest amount, say 12 (one per month), are consumed by getting to that number more than just enjoying the book in front of them. As someone who has used these challenges to encourage a higher volume of reading, I felt myself moving away from thicker books I would be interested in, which would take longer, to shorter books that would keep me on track to hit my target.
At its heart, the real problem with reading for pleasure is too many people are trying to tell you how to do it.
We need to revert back to our childhood instincts:
Ignore the latest bestseller, the hottest buzz, the recommended lists, the “you have to read this” crowd and the “that’s not real literature” crowd.
You can even ignore my book reviews as those are just my opinions based on my personal tastes–just like every other book reviewer. Nothing more.
Pick up a book.
Dive into it.
If you like it, keep reading.
If you don’t, put it down and grab another.
If you liked it, don’t feel ashamed.
If you hated it, don’t feel ashamed.
Grab another.