reading

The Ways We Read

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Picture of a young girl sitting cross-legged on a table reading a book.
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I’ve been thinking lately about the ways we read. Ways? Most of us think reading is sitting in your favorite spot, a physical book in hand, our favorite drink at our side, and under good light.

But readers are far more versatile than that. The book could be an e-reader or tablet. Or an app on our phone, used on a bus, or train, or tram, or sitting at an airplane gate.

Or we may be “reading” by listening to someone read a book. While we drive. Or walk. Or exercise. Or cook.

Of course we don’t just read books. There are magazines, newspapers, instruction books, employee and student handbooks. even cereal boxes!

But we don’t just read silently. or alone. Even when it appears we are, we really are in conversation with the author, a communion of minds and thoughts.

We read aloud. As children called on in class. When we want to hear the sound, the rhythm of words in a poem. I read aloud when I edit an article. Sometimes I read dense writing aloud, phrase by phrase, aurally unpacking closely written ideas.

We read aloud to others. In church or synagogue, reading lectionaries or sacred texts. Sometimes one reader. Sometimes responsively or antiphonally. Sometimes in unison, joining our voices together. Some of us gather in small groups to study the Bible, and often before discussing a text, it will be read aloud.

Authors give readings of their works. We sometimes read favorite passages to each other. Lovers read poetry to each other…or at least once did.

Before audiobooks, my wife and I read to each other on long car trips. And we cherished family read aloud times at our son’s bedtime, sometimes all snuggled up on a sofa, as when we read through the Little House books.

We read to those unable to read. I taped textbook readings for a sight-impaired student. I shudder to think of the hours he spent listening to my voice! I wish I had thought to throw in a few jokes!

We read to the infirm who cannot read. We read to those seriously ill, even nearing death, words of comfort from Psalms, poetry, perhaps an author favored by us both.

We read aloud on holidays, texts appropriate to the day. “I Have A Dream” on Martin Luther King Day, the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, “The Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve, the Seven Last Words on Good Friday.

All this is amazing for a learned skill, acquired with varying degrees of difficulty. As I look at all the ways we read, I’m struck with how much reading is part of the warp and woof of our lives. It’s a cultural good worth preserving, a way of preserving richness and imagination against the forces of banality and entropy that would wear away at us.

All the ways we read.

Reading and Introverts

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“Books — helping introverts avoid conversations since 1454.” (Quote from a meme, source unknown)

I’ve been thinking about the stereotype that most readers are introverts. It’s one that I think I became aware of in Susan Cain’s Quiet. In both the book and her TED talk video on the power of introverts, she talks about going off to camp with a duffle bag full of books and being surprised when that was not the idea of being at camp shared by the other girls. (Here is the video if you have not seen it.)

I can identify with Susan Cain. Even as an adult at business meetings, I find I have to squirrel away at some point and retreat to my books. Fitting the character of introverts, interacting with lots of people exhausts me and being alone with a book recharges me. It’s said that introverts don’t get ready for a party; they gather strength for a party. That would be me.

But is a love of reading exclusively an introvert characteristic? I’m not sure and I have not found any scientific studies of the matter. Anecdotally, I sense that many of the people who visit my Bob on Books Facebook page are introverts. One of the memes I posted recently that “blew up” showed a girl with glasses reading in what looks like a library with the statement “I was the kid that was actually excited when the teacher told us to read silently.” Over 54,000 have liked it with over 1.4 thousand leaving comments, all in sympathy with that idea. Typically, I’ll get ten to one hundred comments and several hundred likes. This struck a cord. There are plainly enough of us out there to justify the stereotype.

But I think part of the issue is that introverts and extroverts who read engage with reading differently, and we don’t hear about the extrovert part as much (as least as introverts).

  • Introverts feel recharged when they have a long time to read. Extroverts just need a short time with an interesting book.
  • Introverts enjoy thinking about a book. Extroverts enjoy talking about a book.
  • Introverts think of a good book as a conversation with the author. Extroverts think of good books sparking conversations with others.
  • Introverts don’t like external stimuli when reading. Extroverts don’t mind the stimuli–if the book is good it keeps your attention and if not, the breaks are good.
  • Introverts don’t want to read something because “everyone is reading it.” Extroverts like a popular book because it helps start conversations.

I realize these are generalizations and may not apply to all. But this gives you the sense that the two types are wired differently in their reading habits (for more on this, visit “Are You an Introverted or Extroverted Reader?” from which these contrasts were drawn). But extroverts can be readers. Oprah Winfrey is an outstanding example, sharing her love of reading with millions.

Nevertheless, reading lends itself to introverts. Some studies indicate that introverts and extroverts experience sound differently. No wonder the quiet of reading is restorative! Introverts like to focus on the inner world of their thoughts. Reading allows us to do that, but in a quiet conversation with other minds that also draws us out of ourselves, which can be healthy. Stories allow us to step out of ourselves and see things from another perspective, which may afford us fresh insights for the situations we inhabit in real life. Sometimes, introverts struggle to put into words with others what we are experiencing in our inner worlds. Books may give us those words, those “Aha” moments where we find someone giving voice to the inchoate within us.

The differences between introverts and extroverts do suggest some important things for helping us be both better readers and better humans. One is that we need to be sure to include reflection time for introverts when they read. Writing reviews, and the reflective thought that goes into that is important to me. For extroverts, making sure there are opportunties to talk about books is important. We also need to respect the different ways we read–how long we like to read, what we like to read, and the settings in which we talk with others about what we are reading. Maybe this is why introverts sometimes have a hard time sharing their love of reading with extroverts. We come to reading looking for different things and what interests me may be a non-starter for others.

The other thing about appreciating difference? Sometimes when we understand and respect differences, our worlds are enlarged. Others see things we do not, and our reflectiveness as introverts, when shared, may enrich the world of others and not just our own. Vive la difference!

Three Kinds of Readers

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I’ve been thinking about the different kinds of readers I encounter and the different ways we read. I suppose I could come up with a dozen types if I tried but I think I’ve got it down to three kinds. I know, if I were really simplifying things, I’d get it down to two–but you know the old saw: there are two kinds of people–those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t! At least on this topic I don’t. Curious?

The Easy Chair Reader. These are basically those who are looking for books that are TV in words–the stories just wash over them and rivet their attention. And if they don’t, they put them down. Or fall asleep. Some won’t touch very well-written stories that take some focus–psychological crime fiction for example, or a philosophical argument. I suspect these readers actually buy and borrow quite a few books and account for many of our best sellers. Most booksellers could not survive without them. I always am hopeful for this reader. At least they are reading and that is better than the non-reading population that rarely, if ever, pick up a book. And I wonder if at some point, they will tire of the same fare and branch out and explore books from other parts of the bookstore or library. I hope that someday, there will be questions about our world and our place in it, that will lead them to turn to writers who have probed these matters more deeply.

The Adversarial Reader. I wonder if this is a smaller group that might include literary theorists and critics, some reviewers, and religious zealots. These readers approach books determined to find what is wrong with them, why their ideas are wrong, or badly conveyed. You can tell you are in the presence of such a reader when you ask them what was the last thing they read that they enjoyed, and they just glare at you, wondering how you could ask such a supercilious or heretical question. This approach sometimes falls under the idea of the “hermeneutic of suspicion” that studies any narrative looking for the cleverly or poorly disguised exercise of power over some less fortunate human beings. No question that human beings have a sad record of doing such things, and perhaps we are never completely exempt of such behavior. But it seems pretty bleak. In the case of the zealot, anything written by those not a part of their group is suspect, and maybe even some that is! The difficulty of this kind of reading is that it is never open to meet a book on its own terms, to allow it to challenge the terms by which it is being read.

The Reader as a Discerning Lover. This is the person who practices a kind of golden rule of readers–they treat the author’s work as they would wish to be treated. They appreciate the hard work it takes to write a book and they give the attention they would wish for themselves to understand what the author is trying to do. They take delight when an author does this well–whether it is clarity of expression, development of characters who become real to us, a plot that draws us along, ideas that keep us thinking after we set the book down. They grow in understanding the writerly craft, recognizing allusions, metaphors, plot devices and more. They read discerningly, questioning when they find an argument or a character’s actions implausible. Such readers look neither for flawless perfection nor delight in searching out faults. They recognize that great thinkers have both challenging ideas and mistaken ones, and they may be different from ours! They realize that even great writers don’t always succeed to the same degree–some works of Dickens or Steinbeck or Ann Patchett are better than others–and yet we may enjoy each for what they are.

Actually, while I aspire to the third kind of reading, I suspect we all do all of these at some time. In an airport, a thriller that holds our attention through the endless announcements and distractions in the terminal and on the plane may be just the thing. It asks no more of us, nor we it. I’ve never read Mein Kampf but if I did, it would likely be as a hostile reader. The havoc the author and his ideas wrought are reprehensible. I might discern, but I cannot love. The most I could do is understand, as Churchill did, the appeal of these ideas, the fundamental danger they posed to human flourishing and world order, and that they must be resisted and not appeased.

To read as a discerning lover suggests that such reading is part of a lifetime of growth as human beings. We bring our past reading and life experience and intellect and moral discrimination to each new book we read. We are changed just a bit by each book we read. As we think about, discuss, and sometimes, as I do, write about the books we’ve read, we become part of a discussion that has been going on since people first put some form of stylus to some form of writing surface. In some form we consider what is true, good, and beautiful, and how we might live more truly, with greater goodness, celebrating and creating beauty in a world desperate need of such things.

Review: Recovering the Lost Art of Reading

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Recovering the Lost Art of Reading, Leland Ryken and Glenda Faye Mathes. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021.

Summary: An invitation to artful reading, considering its decline, different kinds of literature and how we read them, and the art of reading well to discover goodness, truth, and beauty.

Much has been made over the supposed decline in reading, and contradictory statistics that show a rise in reading (especially during the pandemic). What is evident is that how and what we read has gone through changes. We read more on screens and audio and browse and scroll. There are questions about the loss of the ability to attend to longform writing.

The two authors of this book, one a literature professor, the other a professional writer, and both lovers of literature contend that what may be in decline is artful readers and have written this book to describe what it means to recover this art. They write:

“Reading a book immerses oneself into an extensive work. When this is done receptively and thoughtfully, it becomes artful reading. Some people call it “deep reading” and believe it is in deep trouble” (p. 23).

The authors believe that in our loss of artful or deep reading, we have lost leisure, self transcendence, contact with the past and with essential human experience, edification and an enlarged vision. The writers advocate for participation that both receives and responds to what the author has written, both actively listening (“obeying” in its original sense) and responding. It discerns both one’s own perspective and that of the author. In Dorothy Sayers words, there is the Book as Thought, the Book as Written, and the Book as Read.

Moving on from this introduction to artful reading, the authors consider what literature is in its different kinds. They note with sadness the shift from “literature” to “texts” in contemporary literary studies, but maintain the language of literature, distinguishing it from expository writing as concerned with the concrete rather than the abstract. The axiom of literature is to “show, not tell.” They further describe literature as experiential, concrete, universal, interpretive, and artistic. They defend the importance of literature as a portrayal of human experience, for seeing ideas rightly, and for the enjoyment of beauty. It transports us into imagined worlds, giving us renewed perspective on our own as well as refreshment.

They consider how we read different types of literature: story, poetry, novels, fantasy, children’s books, creative non-fiction and the Bible as a literary work. I so valued their simple instruction for poetry–slow down! In the reading of fantasy, they distinguish between escape and escapism, noting with C.S. Lewis that reading is always an escape, but one that ought give fresh perspective on the human condition. They address how to choose good books for children and the vital importance of reading and talking about books together.

The last part of the book returns to the recovery of the art of reading. Fundamentally, we recover by discovering good books and the good, the true, and the beautiful within them. We discern and assess the truth-claims in a book. We consider the moral perspective of the book–does it make the good or the evil attractive and who is valorized? We notice the use of language to point toward beauty, and the beautiful God. They describe excellence in beginnings, middles and ends.

All of this only makes sense in the context of our reading choices. They encourage us to embrace our freedom to read and observe in very practical terms the time thieves that rob us of precious hours. They consider how we choose good books and the role good literature plays in creativity and in one’s spiritual life.

I think one of the most valuable aspects of this book is the encouragement of leisurely, slow, and reflective engagement with good works, whatever their genre. They help us attend to plot, character, setting, and behind all this, the perspective of the author and the insights we gain into our common human condition. Their invitation to be participants in the work with the author while continuing to discern strikes a good balance.

I would have liked to see some book recommendations for those wanting to recover the art. Certainly, the authors mention books throughout, and the ones mentioned are worthwhile, but some bibliographies might have helped. Also while the authors discuss goodness and evil in literature, they don’t discuss beauty and ugliness, only beauty. The ugliness of the post-nuclear world in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a crucial offset to the beauty of the love of father and son. Sometimes, Christian literature seems too beautiful, in ways trite and artificial. The beauty and the healing comfort of Lothlorien gains its power from the horrors of Moria and the loss of Gandalf.

Those who practice any art always have a sense they could be better at their art. Reading is also an art. This book reminded me of ways I may be ever-improving at that art. I can work to remove the distractions to attentive reading. I may slow down, especially to savor a poem. I may re-read great works. I may attend to the story and the questions it opens up about the universal human condition. I may allow the book to enlarge my perspective if I give myself to it both attentively and discerningly, both open and observant. Ryken and Mathes invite us, whether the neophyte or the seasoned reader, to an ever-growing practice of the art of reading. After all, it is not how much, but how well we read.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Why I Read

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Last week I wrote about reading and religion, which I could also have titled “reading as religion,” which I believe it to be for some people. Some may think that is so for me. While I would maintain that is not so, I’ll leave that judgment up to God and others. I’m too close to the subject. Quite simply, I do love reading.

In searching through the nearly eight years of posts on this blog, I’ve never directly talked about why I read. I’ve certainly touched on it or talked around it, but never directly spoken of why I read. Maybe it is like trying to answer why we love a person. We can give reasons, but then we realize we love someone apart from all those reasons. At our best, we love just because….

If you pressed me though, I could express some of the reasons why I read. I suspect there is more to it than what I write, as other bibliophiles will probably agree.

I love stories. I suspect for most of us, reading started with a love for stories, and that reading was a way to take in a story when there was no one to whom we could say, “tell me a story.” As we grow older, we think of our lives as a story, and perhaps a part of a larger story. Sometimes, reading serves to help me understand the story within which I live, and maybe how I might live within that story. I find that when I read the Bible, but also when I read fiction like Lord of the Rings or All the Light We Cannot See.

I read to understand the world. I love science writing that helps me understand the wonderful world I live in. Even gardening or home repair books can be interesting when I am trying to figure out how best to grow something or fix something. History helps me understand how we got here. Sometimes it is more indirect. It could be the history that led to a particular part of the world being the way it is today. History helps me understand the news–to set it in a bigger context.

Reading stretches and changes the way I view the world. I have a certain way of seeing things. All of us do. And because we are limited, so is my way of seeing the world. I will never be omniscient. The most I can hope for is to cultivate the mental flexibility and empathy to grasp how another might see the world differently, or even imagine a world unlike our own.

Reading also makes sense of my inner world. Perhaps it is a spiritual work that gives words to longings or perplexities. Sometimes a biography reveals a character of courage or grace I want to be more like. Sometimes a work of psychological insight reveals why I can be my own worst enemy.

I read to keep company with great thinkers, some who I’ll never have a chance to meet because they were dead before I was ever born. What a wonder that before recording technology, people wrote down their ideas, sometimes refining them in the process, and preserving them in books. Then there are some I’ve met or heard speak and was so intrigued by their ideas that I want to take a deep dive into them, deeper than a lecture or casual discussion.

When I read, I can travel the world without leaving home, a great advantage during a pandemic! If nothing else, I can appreciate how many different ways people approach this thing of making a life.

Then there are the times when I simply want to lose myself in a book. The detective fiction of Louise Penny has gotten me through the pandemic. Instead of all the fears a pandemic could summon, I could imagine for a few hours what it would be like to live in Three Pines. Or in Thomas Hardy’s Wessex. Or Lothlorien.

Ever since I learned to read, I’ve loved to read. If nothing else, it is a habit. At this point asking me why I read is like asking why I breathe or eat or sleep. It is that much a part of life. There are a number of other associated delightful habits–reading reviews, browsing book sites, wandering around bookstores and book sales, visiting libraries, or even just organizing my TBR pile.

I love that reading is both solitary and social. There are the quiet moments along with a great story or a new insight. Then there are book discussions with others who love the same things, and sometimes help me understand what still perplexes me.

Books and reading are a cultural good worth preserving (one of the objects of this blog!). Like other readers, the one thing that most baffles me is, why people don’t read. But why do I read? It’s all of the above, and yet there’s something beyond that I can’t fully explain. I guess I read just because…

Reading and Religion

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Have you ever noticed how some of the great libraries are not unlike the great cathedrals or other religious structures? The quest for knowledge and the quest for ultimate meaning are at least akin to each other, and I sense for some, are one and the same.

It may be a controversial idea, but in hanging out with many readers, I can’t help but wonder, if for some, reading is their religion. Oxford Languages includes this definition of religion: a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. Consider these quotes for example:

  • “We lose ourselves in books, we find ourselves there too.”
  • “Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines–it’s hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.” –Robin Sloan
  • “I didn’t choose the book life, the book life chose me.”
  • “Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on.” -Nora Ephron
  • “Reading was a way of trying to get control over a world that was out of control. I liked doing it. It’s your source of power.” -George Anders
  • “Books wash away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

Certainly it is a risk to take these too seriously. They are memes and quotes that express the love of reading so many of us share. Yet the idea of losing oneself in books and finding ourselves there sounds much like Jesus’ words: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25). “I didn’t choose the book life, the book life chose me” sounds eerily like Jesus statement: “You did not choose me, but I chose you…” (John 15:16).

“Reading is everything…” sounds like an interest of supreme importance. Touching the spines of books and feeling the presence of sleeping spirits sounds like a religious experience. Books washing away dust from the soul sounds like baptism or other ritual ablutions in various religions.

These may be only figures of speech, or even hyperbole for the pleasure and enrichment we derive from books. I say “we” because I include myself in such experiences. It is part of why I am a reader and one who enjoys inviting others into the joy of reading. But can it become a religion? I think for some, it can be. I don’t want to pass any judgments here but simply invite some honesty among my reading friends.

If books and the reading life and the enrichment, insight, and joy this offers are indeed what we deem of supreme importance, to live that way is simply consistent with what one believes. I respectfully see things differently. I ascribe these joys of reading to the One who created in humans the love of story, the capacities of language to write and enjoy what is written, who in fact directed prophets to write down in books the stories and pronouncements that articulate how humans and the divine may engage each other. Books are one of the material artifacts, along with works of art, majestic buildings, music and song, and so much more that reflect the gifts of the Maker who made us to make. For me, the gifts point back to the Giver. To make reading everything is to shrink a much larger universe to something too small.

The question of whether reading is my religion is one I therefore need to ask of myself. It is possible to give it a place that is too large in my life, that de-centers not only God but human relationships and the enjoyment of other good things in life. My own conviction is that only when God is at the center do all these other things find their proper and good place for me. I think that is a too-tall order for reading. For me that actually saves reading from becoming an obsession or addiction to merely being a very good gift of enriching knowledge and delighting stories. Not a religion. Just a very good thing.