Read and enjoy life with less pressure and more pleasure (life’s too short to…)
Be more selective and productive, with less guilt
“Every man hath two birth-days. It is that from which all date their time and count upon what is left.”
Charles Lamb, Romantic essayist (1821) (referring to your own birthday and New Year’s Day)
How many times have you or someone you know uttered the words “Life is too short to…”?
Go ahead, fill in the blank: Life is too short to…eat cheap bread…drink lousy coffee or crap beer…work…
Let’s add this one to your list: Life is too short to waste on bad books. Or maybe not ‘bad’, but uninteresting or dull. Things that you find tough-going and tortuous.
(It’s funny, though, when you think about it: life really isn’t too short at all. All of us are selfish to a certain extent, right? Put yourself at the centre of the universe. You are the most important thing in your life. Thinking of it like that, life, from your own perspective is literally the longest thing you will experience. So in effect, your very own life as you experience it is infinite, as far as you’re concerned. Does that make you feel any better? I love waxing philosophical.)
You can consider this a resolution for 2024. I’ve covered the territory of resolutions numerous times over the years, and as recently as a few posts ago: Happy New Year and Hello Autumn
With dishing out advice, it helps to stick to what you know. At least people might follow it if it’s coming from someone who knows what they’re talking about. My learning and teaching advice is, hopefully, decent. As an avid reader and a bibliophile – some would even say a bibliomaniac – I think any reading advice I have to offer is also reasonable.
A reading resolution for 2024
The most common resolutions for people every year are almost certainly about working out and losing weight and being less of a miserable grumpy bastard (maybe that last one only applies to me). Reading more is usually high up on the list. And for non-readers, it can be daunting. Let’s face it: not everyone enjoys reading and I’ve written my own book in a way that I hope will also appeal to those who don’t enjoy reading as much (see how good I am at marketing?). Reading takes time and a certain amount of patience, depending on the type of thing you’re reading.
I have some advice that might help, not only with reading. I think some of these lessons apply to life as well.
1 Enjoy the process, not the final product
I’ve kept a list of books I’ve read since 2004. Every year my goal was to read more and more. And if I started a book, I tried my damnedest to finish it. I couldn’t give up after dedicating all that valuable time.
But then I realised I was fighting against the sunk-cost fallacy, which many economists will recognise right away:
“The tendency for people to continue an endeavor or course of action even when abandoning it would be more beneficial. Because we have invested our time, energy, or other resources, we feel that it would all have been for nothing if we quit.” (Source: sunk-cost fallacy)
Instead of aiming to get through books, spend time reading things that benefit you or that you are enjoying. Focus on quality, not quantity. It’s not a competition – there’s no need to show off. I admit, I’ve been guilty of this before: “Look at me, look how many books I read this year!”
This short ‘Books Briefing’ from the Atlantic has more: Against Counting the Books You Read
2 Don’t worry about remembering everything – or anything
We all struggle with remembering what we read, unless you spend one year reading just one book, page by page, trying to memorise it.
Often when I’m reading something that isn’t necessarily grabbing me, or is particularly heavy-going, I’ll persist because occasionally there are some valuable nuggets or pieces of wisdom I’ll pick up. The process itself is also a joy. And this is how I pick up most of my favourite quotations, the ones I use here and which feature in my book (I don’t like searching for ‘random’ quotations to fit my points).
This recent post by Oliver Burkeman, The Imperfectionist: How to forget what you read, was comforting and revealing.
“…I’m increasingly convinced that a much more relaxed approach to knowledge consumption – one that involves putting way less pressure on yourself to retain what you read, listen to, or watch – isn’t only more enjoyable, but better for your creative output, too.”
As I’ve said countless times, I’m a huge fan of Burkeman and much of what he writes is a matter of preaching to the converted. It was immensely satisfying to see that I’m already doing much of what he suggests, but I also picked up a few other insights.
3 Enjoy the beauty of the language (in whatever language)
Reiterating parts of my previous point, there are some books that are not easy to read at all, and much of it may not make total sense, but the language is so vivid and evocative that it’s worthwhile and pleasurable, like poetry. Anything by Robert Macfarlane, Patrick Leigh Fermor, WG Sebald or Jorge Luis Borges, for example, to cite just a few of my favourites.
Going back to the previous point, there have been times where I persisted with a book that I was kind of enjoying but many of the thoughts weren’t sinking in. I’m currently reading a fascinating book (Otherlands: A World in the Making, Thomas Halliday) that’s heavy in parts and it’s hard to retain much of it without rereading passages. I’ll probably need to reread it at some point, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a rich book, full of insights into the history of life on Earth. I am thoroughly enjoying it, despite not fully understanding every word (while still getting the overall meaning just fine), and a big reason is the lyrical beauty of the language. For example:
“With the sun glinting through the woody stems of the tree ferns, the surface of the water breaks into an ensorcelling fairytale rainbow, shimmering across the whole spectrum of colours.
…[It] is enough to turn the mirror-like water into a psychedelic fantasy land, a swirling soap-bubble palette striped by the shadows of lycopsids and broken only by the minute ripples of fish.”
Close your eyes and see if you can picture that scene in your mind.
At other times, the language is more straightforward and much clearer yet just as gripping and illuminating:
“Organisms are not intrinsic do-gooders, and do not make deals except through generations of haggling via natural selection.”
There’s a timeless and insightful lesson in that sentence.
4 Don’t feel guilty about guilty pleasures
This goes without saying. Anything you read is beneficial in some way. Don’t be ashamed of what you read.
Putting it into practice: my approach, and the role of chance and economics
I can hardly stress how liberating it was to start giving up on books more easily. Life really is too short to put up with books that just aren’t doing it for you.
The hardest books to give up on are the ones I paid good money for, an example being paperbacks from the New York Review of Books series. They have lovely covers and beautiful fonts and I want to read them from start to finish, but…
I’ve made three attempts to get through this one:
But I just can’t. One day, perhaps, I’ll give it another go.
In the meantime…let it go. Don’t fight it. Move on to the next one.
If you’re having trouble fighting the sunk-cost feeling and don’t want to risk spending money on a book you’re unsure of, consider these options:
Get free samples from Amazon. This is a game-changer. Read the first chapter or two and see if it grabs you.
Project Gutenberg: a library of free, out of copyright books. Here is where you find all the old classics (Dickens, Austen, Stendhal, Chaucer, Aristotle, Gunther the Neanderthal, Cecilia the Coelacanth, etc).
Naturally, many of us enjoy reading in print as opposed to e-books. If you’re not a fan of e-books, then try the free samples or read the first chapter or two of a classic from Project Gutenberg, and if you like it, stop reading and get the hard copy.
Like many people, I have a ridiculously long wish list on Amazon (currently well over 100 books). I regularly peruse my list to see if anything has been reduced in price. Very often a book in my shopping cart will suddenly be 85% cheaper and then I buy it.
You might have heard of the Japanese term Tsundoku: the art of buying books and not reading them. I have loads of unread books on my Kindle. One day, eventually, I will get to them. I never know what I might be in the mood for (I usually read 5-6 different books at a time). So it’s good to have a bank of books for when the mood strikes.
I never have an issue with what to read next, but I always welcome recommendations. I’m happy to be overwhelmed with books to read. But I love the idea of letting chance and economics dictate my reading choices. A book on my list for $4? Terrific, I’ll buy it.
5 Skim, dip in and out, and let your thoughts drift
You don’t always need to read deeply and intensively. Especially if I’ve bought a book for a lower price (see previous point) and especially if it’s non-fiction, like a collection of essays or a book like Thinking, Fast and Slow, The Psychology of Money or anything business-related, you can skim and jump around and not feel the pressure of having to read to ‘get your money’s worth’ (which is how many people feel).
By dipping in and out, you can grab 5-10 minutes of reading here and there if you don’t have the time to dedicate to deeper, more intensive reading.
Some of my most productive and creative moments come when I let my thoughts drift (see point 3 about Otherlands). My mind wanders and I daydream a bit, but these are when I have some of my biggest insights and creative sparks (once again, as Burkeman says, it’s “better for your creative output, too”). This is something that can apply to all types of reading, fiction included. Some of my most productive spells (including lesson planning) come when I least expect it, in the middle of reading something completely unrelated. I don’t try to control my thoughts and if am worried about missing an important point, I can always go back and reread the page or paragraph.
My reading rule: I’ll give a book around 10-20% or about 50 pages or so before deciding on whether to move on.
I’m not the only one with this rule: My father told me to always give a book 50 pages before deciding to put it down. It’s a good rule of thumb for life, too (Guardian)
And it’s not just me who says all this ‘life is too short’ nonsense:
There you go, happy reading.
My books of the year roundup
In the past I’ve rattled off my list of books I’ve read in my end-of-year posts. Not so this year. A few of the highlights from the past year or so can be found in the photo at the start of the post. Otherwise, stay tuned for my book to hear about all of my favourite books (don’t worry, it’s not a big feature, I tucked it away near the end).
Pronunciation advice
How do you say years? Some are very clear:
1984: nineteen eighty-four
2005: two thousand five
What about this year, 2024?
You have two choices: two thousand twenty-four; twenty twenty-four
I say twenty twenty-four and I don’t know why people say two thousand twenty-four. It’s such a mouthful. Keep it short and simple.
One final resolution: some very important reading
If you want to be a more conscientious global citizen, no matter where you’re from, please read Timothy Snyder’s post On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. You may know him from his popular ‘Making of Modern Ukraine’ lectures from Yale University, and he’s one of the most influential and powerful voices in Ukraine’s corner.
(I think number 11 is so, so important and I struggle with number 12.)
And lastly, you didn’t think I forgot (did you)?
How did you do in the grammar mistake challenge from a few posts ago (and repeated in my last post)? Were you able to spot the 10 or 11 mistakes?
The original:
Although, I’m prety confidant, but Im also absolutly teriffied that I had made a tons of miskates in me book.
The corrected version:
Although, I’m pretty confident, but I’m also absolutely terrified that I had made a tons of mistakes in my book.
Although I’m pretty confident, I’m also absolutely terrified that I made tons/made a ton of mistakes in my book.
Some speakers in parts of the UK and Ireland would use ‘me’ in place of ‘my’, which is why there are either 10 or 11 mistakes, depending on where you’re from:
“That’s me bike, get away from it!”
“Welcome to me home, would you like a cuppa or a wee dram?”
One thing missing from my book, that I hint at (I’m such a tease): a list of the most common mistakes. I mention a few (variants, for example) but I could’ve done a whole chapter on the most common. We’ll save that for the future. In the example above, pay careful attention to that comma after Although and the use of but. These are some of the more typical mistakes I see in students’ writing. You can’t use although and but together.
As always, thanks for reading and please share and subscribe, if you haven’t done so already. My next post will feature some nice idioms, along with some overused ones that you need to banish from your vocabulary!
A far more modest, easy to achieve resolution, from one of the pioneers of Britpop:
“I put my trousers on, have a cup of tea and I think about leaving me house.”
Blur, ‘Parklife’