How To Read?

As a result of beginning to think about how to reconfigure my life as an empty nester, I've been thinking about how and what I read. In thinking about how to reduce/reorganize both my physical objects and time commitments in order to free up time for new activities to pursue - see this post for more about that - it's become clear to me that my books and my reading, as currently configured, are an impediment and a weight holding me down. I need to change some things. I'm only in the earliest stages of thinking about this, but I can see some places where I may need to make some changes in order to pursue my themes of Adventure and Creativity/Self-Expression.

I've always been a compulsive reader - I'll read anything put in front of me, even cereal boxes if there's nothing else. I have used reading as an escape and as a source of identity - I was a Reader. I increasingly think that I have used it in a somewhat mindless way, particularly lately - it's almost just a way to fill time so I don't have to think about what else I could be doing - which is challenging and a bit threatening. I've always felt I had to read, and read a lot - lists of books to read, buying lots of books, and great stacks of them everywhere waiting to be read. At this point in my life, the books themselves and the feeling that I have to read them all, seems like a bit of a problem. I also remember very little of what I've read, which means that a lot of my reading has been pretty mindless.

So I've been thinking. What if I were to prune my library? (Husband of course would have to be part of this process, since it's his library, too.) What if I were to identify the books in my library that are important to me, and have those organized and available? - right now I couldn't find them if I tried. What if I were to get most books from the library, one or a few at a time, and look closely at them to decide if I really wanted to spend time on them - fiction is holding less interest for me right now, for some reason - I do the page one and page 50 test - if I'm not captured by the book by reading those pages maybe I don't have to spend time reading it despite its reviews or prize-winning status. Our library has an excellent inter-library loan program which means I can get many things that they don't have. I'm in the process of identifying a few areas where I do want to continue to build my book collection - nature/ecology writing, some other science writing, and some history, for example. I need to give myself permission not to read every book and not to finish every book I start - I used to be a compulsive book-finisher but lately I've just not been getting through things even though I feel I ought to. If I want to read a junky book for pleasure, I can - it's entertainment and that's OK. I need to experiment with audiobooks - I've never done those.

And I need to experiment, with new areas and new things. I do a bit of that now - I browse the new books shelves at our library, particularly the non-fiction, to pick out some things that are interesting, and look through them for fun. I need to do more of that. And for my birthday this year, I'm getting a subscription to Open Letter - a publisher of books in translation - the subscription means I'll get 10 books over the year (yes, more books, but I'll pass them around to others and on if they're not keepers) that will surely broaden my horizons. Same rules for movies and other entertainment - it's OK to watch junk for fun or as a way to have some time out with a family member or friends - but it's also important to me to experiment. My husband loves foreign films, so we'll be watching more of those.

And in the reading I do, I need to be more selective - I'm still identifying focus areas - and I want to figure out some ways to pursue themes and more intensively read and study - as long as I'm not just imposing a new "must-do" along the lines of my usual compulsive reading.

I think this is going to be fun!