Why I Read Books

Reading books is a vague activity. As Maarten Heijmans put it in a podcast , books are just letters arranged in a certain order by someone else, through which the reader can learn something or experience something new. Heijmans calls it the ultimate trip. Ever since I heard that, I’ve been thinking more about reading — and appreciating it more. Taking the time for a book, but also taking a critical look at what reading actually is and what it does for me. I don’t want to come across as someone who wants to ban all technology because things were better in the old days. But were they? Or should we at least take a small step back?

I read books to train my concentration muscle

It’s been shown in countless studies and covered in even more books, but it’s worth repeating: new technology — the internet, smartphones, social media — has taken a toll on our attention spans. And it’s time to fight back. The way I do it is by shutting my computer, putting my phone away, and picking up a book. I’ve recently stopped keeping my phone on my nightstand. When I wake up I can stare at the ceiling, which isn’t bad either, but more often I reach for my e-reader. Before the day really starts, I’ve usually already spent half an hour to an hour reading with full focus. Before this change I would sometimes fry my brain by switching between apps at lightning speed, never giving most of what I encountered even a minute of attention. These days I sometimes leave the house without my phone entirely and don’t pick it up again until after I’ve dropped the kids at school.

While I manage to keep this morning routine fairly well, I’ll be honest: during the day it’s harder to reach for a book in a spare moment. That usually only happens again in the evening, right before bed.

I read books to set a good example

“Children have never been good at listening to their parents, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

Kids are these little clones of yourself, following you around all day and sometimes holding up a confronting mirror. That’s why I’d rather have them see me on the couch with a book than catch me with my phone in the bathroom. When I’m with my kids I leave my phone in a fixed spot and only pick it up occasionally to look something up or add oatmeal to the shopping list.

So far the effect has been positive. Both my kids love to read. Sometimes a little too much — our house occasionally echoes with “Put that book down!” or “Don’t read on the stairs!”

I read books to learn things

As a teenager I was, like most teenagers, pretty awkward around the opposite sex. I assumed that confidence and talking to strangers were things you either had or you didn’t. Until I read ‘Double Your Dating’ by David DeAngelo . It was a revelation: even this kind of thing could be learned from a book.

That said, books aren’t always the answer. Despite consuming a mountain of literature on getting rich quickly, I’m still not a millionaire. And that’s also the downside of self-help books: at some point you’ve seen it all before. I don’t know how many more times I need to read about the marshmallow experiment . In some books I can already predict which studies are coming because so many draw from the same pool. So now I mix it up more — self-help, biographies and autobiographies, and fiction.

I read books to empathize with others

As I said, I’ve grown a bit tired of self-help books — though I’ll secretly admit I still give in to that addiction sometimes — and I’ve moved more toward the empathy side of things. Good examples are Tonio by A.F.Th. van der Heijden and De Kleine Astronaut (a graphic novel), both of which I read with a lump in my throat. But I can also enjoy stories about famous people and how they get swallowed up by fame and usually spat back out by the public. Think Famesick by Lena Dunham or It’s So Easy by Duff McKagan.

A book is the ideal empathy machine. When the author opens up completely, it becomes easy to step into someone else’s shoes. No other medium comes close.

Why do you read?