Making reading for pleasure pleasurable
"After being a bit too optimistic with my 2023 Goodreads Challenge, 2024 is going to be the year where I repair my relationship with books."
The revival of the print book
I think there’s just something special about holding a book in your hands, something unique and timeless that isn’t replicated in a e-book.
Dystopian fiction: comforting or terrifying?
In the cultural moment of the pandemic it may be an attractive idea to compare present society to fictional dystopias. The sense of fear, the limits imposed on people’s rights, the ubiquity of screens, widespread surveillance, the spin tactics of the press, and the hypocrisy of leading political figures are all features of a dystopia.
Reading for pleasure: Finding what you enjoy
"Reading for fun is not the same as reading a book to study it. This may be obvious to some people, but it took a while for me to realise that my love of Jane Austen books didn’t necessarily mean I would enjoy studying one of them."
Reading for pleasure: Unrealistic expectations
There used to be three main reasons as to why I would read: firstly, for educational purposes, and as a historian, I can’t avoid this. I didn’t feel like I was even keeping up with the bare minimum of reading for my degree, and I was crossing off hardly any books on those ludicrously long reading lists. How could I allow myself the luxury of reading something for fun?
