Beyond the Bookshelf: Rediscovering the Magic of Reading in a Digital Age

I enjoy reading books. My earliest childhood memories are connected to them. I remember lying on the carpet in my parents’ living room, looking at the pictures in a book about the Seven Wonders of the World and the illustrations in John Seymour’s books on self-sufficiency.

There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.

The City Library

When I was a child, every Saturday, our family followed the same routine. We drove into the city, parked at my grandmother’s flat, and then visited the farmers’ market. While my parents bought meat, eggs, and vegetables, I was dropped off at the nearby city library, the Alvar Aalto Cultural Center.

Alvar Aalto, a renowned Finnish architect, emphasized the importance of even indirect light in his designs. This approach minimized distracting shadows on open books, papers, and other surfaces while preventing harsh reflections from bright lights in the viewer’s eyes.¹

Every so often, I would sit there for an hour until the whole family finished shopping in the city. The library had a special children’s section filled with comics and children’s books. It was here that I first read the adventures of Tintin, Nick Knatterton, Dick Tracy, and Prince Valiant.

I remember the main library with its beautiful lighting, the room filled with index cards for locating books, and the large, hidden library in the cellar that few visitors knew existed. There was a special room for magazines that housed expensive collector’s editions, such as The Japanese Architect, stored in designated folders.

My Grandfather and His Books

Another memory related to books is of my grandfather. In his large house, he had a dedicated room with five-meter high ceilings, huge glass windows overlooking the garden and the living room below, a fireplace, a leather massage chair, and over 4,000 books. Every day after lunch, he would retreat to his library for a “nap,” which was his way of saying, “Do not disturb me while I recharge and read.” He would close the curtains and be gone for an hour. Many of his thousands of books were about World War II, in which he fought as a young man and was wounded near Stalingrad. I think the books were his way of coping with the trauma of losing friends in the war.

Once, I found a book in his library about the secret initiations of the Illuminati. My grandfather told me he had saved it when his unit was ordered to burn all the books from a house where the owner had just died. While emptying the shelves for the National Socialist book burning, he discovered the book and hid it beneath his shirt, risking his life in the process. He couldn’t bear to watch books being burned. It must be his book-loving genes that were passed down to me.

The Joy of Reading

If you don’t enjoy reading, let me persuade you to start this habit in the following sections. You are missing out on many advantages that reading offers.

Anyone that reads, does not forget.

Everyone has their reasons for reading. Some are curious to learn about times long gone, while others seek entertainment or engagement. Reading can help people relax and reduce stress, slow down time, or explore the lives of others. As Joffrey Jans says in his short film, It’s through the stories of others that we experience ourselves.

The Importance of Reading Books

Ryan Holiday states that reading is a moral duty; to understand the present and future, you must learn about the past. To be an informed citizen, don’t just read the news—read books. Don’t settle for the basics; delve deeper. Reading is a conversation with the dead. You can learn from others without having to repeat the mistakes they made and find solutions to problems they have already solved.²

A person who does not read good books has no advantage over a person who cannot read.

Reading enhances your thinking and writing abilities. The more books you read, the more connections you create in your brain between seemingly unrelated concepts. Paul Graham states that you must be good at reading and read good things to think effectively. He emphasizes, You can’t think well without writing well, and you can’t write well without reading well.³

A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?

People who read have more topics to discuss, engage in lively conversations, think critically, and are generally more interesting.

Shallow Reading

In her article The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books in The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch discusses a new phenomenon that has emerged with the rise of social media, particularly short formats like TikTok. This has led to students struggling to read books.⁴

But not only the short attention span of videos reduces the capacity of people to read, the internet itself and its short texts encourage shallow reading by skimming the text.

Maryanne Wolf states in her article Skim Reading Is the New Normal: The Effect on Society Is Profound in The Guardian that reading is crucial for developing various skills, including concentration, attention span, patience, empathy, critical analysis, and wisdom. People who don’t read are more susceptible to misinformation and manipulation by demagogues. She mentions several scientific papers that investigate how reading paper books is significantly better for understanding and recalling the chronological order of actions. The tactile experience of paper enhances haptic memory. In contrast, reading on digital devices and skimming can lead to decreased comprehension of text complexity, emotional depth, and appreciation of beauty. Significant negative effects have been observed in children starting in grades 4 and 5.⁵

The misconception that these skills will not be needed in the future may exclude people from the benefits of upcoming developments in AI. Anjney Midha, a notable figure in the technology and venture capital sectors, recently wrote on 𝕏:

One the saddest realizations for me when we were scaling the @midjourney server at @discord in ‘22 was seeing millions of US gen z kids struggle to prompt.

They literally don’t have the words. Broken english. Pidgin lingo. Translating thought to language is insanely hard for them.

Those who are unable to use words will be excluded from the benefits of AI. I noticed this when I began using AI image generation tools like Stable Diffusion and later FLUX. Friends and coworkers I shared my work with felt disappointed with their results, even when using the same tools. They assumed I had secrets for creating good images, but my prompting skills came from using clear, descriptive language to convey the desired image.

We move closer to the dystopian predictions of the 20th century, as Neil Postman writes:⁵

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Owning Books

Even though I have embraced the digital age and read e-books, a physical library of books holds a special charm. It may impress visitors, but that’s not the main point. A library fills a room with life and warmth, capturing the eye during moments of deep thought. I have read nearly all my 700 physical books, and I love the concept of an Antilibrary.⁶

Umberto Eco owned a library with over 50,000 books. For him, the library was not a tool for ego-boosting, but a resource for research. As Dami Lee states in her video essay, books in his library had an aura. […] He mentioned that as he roamed around his library, he would often stumble across a book. When he read it, that book magically contained vital information for his research.⁷

If my living space were larger, I would build my own Antilibrary and have many more books. However, I have reached the physical limits of my current space. When I want to buy new physical books, I must remove old ones to make room, which is difficult for me. Therefore, I try to buy only beautiful and well-designed physical books, while opting for e-books for everything else.

How to Read More Books

I tumbled upon a fantastic documentary about how to read more books by Max Joseph. He embarks on a journey to visit beautiful book stores around Europe and Southern America and to talk to specialists to help him read more books.

The first person he spoke to was Tim Urban, an entrepreneur, TED speaker, author, and the creator of the blog Wait But Why. He first asked Max how many books he reads in a year and then tested his reading speed. Max told him he reads one book per year, which, based on his reading speed, amounts to 1.64 minutes of reading each day. This would allow him to read an estimated 55 books by the end of his life. However, if he increased his reading time to 30 minutes per day, he could reach 1,000 books.

Listening to an audiobook while making coffee in the morning would be sufficient to meet the daily goal. Reading for 2 hours on a Saturday would allow him to reach 4/7 of his week.

Max reads 20 minutes of news per day and 30 minutes of social media, which amounts to 304 hours per year, the equivalent of 30 books.

Next, Max visited Eric Barker, the author of the popular blog Barking Up The Wrong Tree. He reads 50 to 100 books a year to be able to write his blog posts. One of his secrets is to not use social media and instead redirect the urge to distract himself to the Kindle app. His approach is based on a technique from habit psychology: minimal viable effort. Take the smallest possible step toward your goal. Start by reading just one page. If you can maintain this goal, gradually increase it over time.

This is how willpower becomes a habit: by choosing a certain behavior ahead of time, and then following that routine when an inflection point arrives.

Reading is a habit. The difference between a reader of 55 books and one of 1,000 books lies in having the right habits. Consistency and minimizing bad habits enable you to read more books.

I decided to expand my reading habits. For years, I looked down on e-books until a co-worker convinced me to try a Kindle. Reading paper books had felt like a snobbish way to elevate myself, but once I moved past that mindset, I found e-books to be fantastic. E-Books make highlighting easy, and by using a service like Readwise, you can synchronize your highlights and revisit them or take notes. A few years after I started reading e-books, I developed the habit of writing literature notes in my note-taking app, Obsidian.

The same applies to audiobooks. I had always considered people who listen to audiobooks as not being authentic readers. However, if someone like Joe Rogan, who hosts the most popular podcast in the world, runs a comedy club, writes stand-up material, and comments on UFC fights can find time to read books through audiobooks, I thought I should give it a try.

In 2023, I subscribed to Audible and began listening to one additional book each month included with the subscription. I initially chose novels as audiobooks because I seldom create highlights on them, which lets me enjoy the story.

However, after discovering the Whisper sync feature in Kindle—a function that allows you to read and listen to the same book if you own both versions—I found it to be a game changer. I started reading and listening to more complex books in parallel. This feature enabled me to listen to a book while walking and then continue reading while sitting on the sofa.

Additionally, I have been using Readwise Reader more frequently because of its excellent support for e-books. It offers the best highlighting feature among all the apps. For example, you can double-tap a paragraph to highlight it, eliminating the need to drag a cursor across the words. Readwise supports fantastic AI-generated voices in many languages and can read any article or e-book. I use it to highlight and follow along with YouTube videos using its AI-supported transcript feature.

To increase my reading, I reduced my podcast consumption and became more selective about the episodes I listen to. I also cut back on streaming services, which was easy since the writers’ strike led to fewer quality TV shows being released in 2024. Many shows still promote woke ideology and have poor ratings, making them not worth my time.

Conclusion

Reading is a vital skill and an enriching habit in our digital age, offering benefits that go beyond mere entertainment. As we’ve explored, from the personal sanctuaries of home libraries to the reasons for reading and owning books, as well as techniques for reading more, books have the power to shape our minds, enhance our thinking, and connect us across generations. The challenges posed by modern technology—such as shortened attention spans and shallow reading habits—make it more important than ever to cultivate meaningful reading practices.

The path to reading more books lies not in dramatic lifestyle changes but in small, consistent habits and embracing various formats. Whether through traditional paper books, e-books, or audiobooks, the key is finding methods that work for your lifestyle while maintaining the depth and quality of engagement. By implementing strategies like minimal viable effort, reducing digital distractions, and utilizing tools like Whisper sync or Readwise, I was able to read 65 books totaling 24,005 pages in 2024. This journey demonstrates that with the right approach and tools, anyone can significantly expand their reading horizons while maintaining the deep, meaningful connection with literature that has enriched human lives for centuries.

The second part of this series will be published next Friday. It will highlight some books I read in 2024 and what I learned from them. This may serve as inspiration for your own reading journey in 2025.

Footnotes

1. Dami Lee (2022): How slow reading can change your brain. ↩

2. Ryan Holiday (2021): How To Read More Like Ryan Holiday. ↩

3. Paul Graham (2022): The Need to Read. ↩

4. Rose Horowitch (2024): The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books. ↩

5. Maryanne Wolf (2018): Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound. ↩ ↩²

6. Colin Marshall (2022): The Virtue of Owning Books You Haven’t Read: Why Umberto Eco Kept an “Antilibrary”. ↩

7. Dami Lee (2022): This makes everything special (Aura). ↩