Reading books is one of life’s great rewards, but in today’s increasingly distractable environment, it can be difficult to find time for books. In this series of posts, I’ll share the tips and tricks I use to read at least 50 books a year without feeling like I’m reading that much at all.
First tip: get an Amazon Kindle e-reader. I’ve collected rare books since my late teens and treasure my personal library, but today most of my reading is done on a Kindle. Here’s why.
I have read 50 books so far this year, though it doesn’t feel like I’m really reading that much. I simply cut out the hours I might have scrolled through social media feeds or listened to half-baked podcasts, which freed up more time for reading books. I believe we are experiencing a golden age for reading with technologies like ebooks and digital audio, offering the ability to consume books wherever we are, whenever we want. More published works are available to us, most within seconds, than at any point in history.
Patrick O’Brian, the author of the Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels, would have been 104 years old today. Mr. O’Brian passed away in 2000 but left behind a treasure of twenty meticulously researched historical sea novels set in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The books center on the friendship and adventures of its two main characters: Jack Aubrey, a British naval officer, and Stephen Maturin, the ship’s surgeon, naturalist, and part-time intelligence agent.
As a sailor, I appreciate the technical portions of driving a tall ship on the open sea. I'll admit, even with many years of sailing experience, I don't fully understand all the jargon that describes the maneuvering of these massive ships from 300 years ago, but I do get the gist of it. I delight in sailing along with Captain Aubrey from my comfortable armchair, plowing through hurricanes and typhoons, avoiding icebergs, clawing off a lee shore in a tempest, even fleeing an erupting volcano in the middle of the ocean.
It's not always foul weather and danger: I revel in the many lovely passages depicting beautiful weather, trade winds pulling the ship along at 12 knots over an easy rolling sea that brings smiles to the officers and crew alike. And of course, there are the gruesome depictions of sea battles, frigates gliding along through thick smoke, cannons blasting huge iron balls through the hulls and rigging of their enemy, spars shattering, men dying instantly in bloody rivers on the deck, or later on the archaic operating table in the ship’s cockpit.
While reading books might be waning in today’s mobile phone obsessed, Facebook generation, the tools and technology for reading and remembering books have never been better. I’d call it a Golden Age for those lucky souls willing to invest the time to read.
This is difficult for me to admit, coming from a long history of reading real books. I have a personal library of more than 2,000 books that line the shelves of a small reading place that I consider a sanctuary.
But for the past ten years I’ve read more and more books electronically on my Kindle than I have in paper format. Other than cookbooks or art books, all my reading is now digital. And that isn’t quite true either, since I use the marvelous Paprika app to house all my recipes, with an iPad in the kitchen as I cook. If I find a recipe I like in one of my books, I can’t use it properly until I successfully track it down online to import into my cooking system.
Batman has his cave; Ironman has his lab; but for me, this place and my books provide such a great comfort - a salve from the trials of life and the boost of energy I need to keep pushing forward. I’ve read so many great books here, and dreamed up hundreds of plans, some limited few of which came to be. The dreaming was the best part. Everyone needs their special place to think and dream; I am so grateful that mine is here in my own home, among my dear bookish friends.