tales of Suchita

I was reading a post on Instagram where authors were giving advice on how to read more. There were the usual suspects of read in the morning or before bed and read when you commute.

One of my favourite advice was to try different forms of platforms like audiobooks and graphic novels. And even though I process words better when they’re written, there is a certain charm to audiobooks that I cannot deny.

But one point that stood out to me was instead of reading something you’re supposed to read, read what you want to read. It reminded me how when I was 18, an innocent remark from a friend, that I wasn’t a serious reader because I read romance novels, made me reject an entire genre for the longest time.

I grew up of course and now I read romance with a vengeance but it made me think. That perhaps the problem isn’t in reading more but in choosing what to read.

The way any of us discovers books anymore is through bookstagram or a Google search. These searches then usually unleash its little spiders or bots or whatever, training the algorithm and we start seeing the same books over and over again.

When we see the same book recommended on different platforms and under different lists, it tricks our brain into thinking that this book is famous, ergo it must be good, ergo I must read it.

We pick up that book and if we’re lucky, it actually turns out good. More often than not, the book ends up disappointing us and it reduces our motivation to go back to reading or giving another book a chance.

Add to this the way books are marketed these days: stunning covers that don’t do justice to the written material, blurbs that are meant to titillate but rarely capture what the book is about, random movie comparisons to make choosing easy and it’s no wonder finding a book to read has become a minefield.

It made me think about how I discover books or why I was able to pick up reading after having given up on it in my 20s. And the answer was quite simple – I had a library. I would go to this library every week, browse the books, pick them up, read their blurb, sit there and read a few pages before deciding that yes, I want to spend some time reading the book.

We have stopped discovering books organically. We rely too much on an algorithm that is trained and tries really hard to anticipate our needs. The problem with this system is, it is a system after all and it cannot predict if you’ll enjoy a book simply because the vast majority seem to enjoy it.

So, the next time, if you want to read a book, go to a bookstore or a library. Go when you have some time to spare. Use your senses to let a book attract you. Spend some time looking at the cover, what the title says, who the author is and the blurb. If the book passes muster, open the first page and read.

• Do you like how the author has written?
• Do you find yourself intrigued and pulled in by the first page?

As a writer, I can tell you, we spend a colossal amount of time crafting our first lines. If the first page doesn’t pull you in, it’s okay to let the book go and pick something else up. Books are expensive these days so it’s okay to read only those that you like.

Instead of an algorithm, let your senses choose a book for you. It may still fail but equally, it may surprise you.

PS: if you’re reading on the Kindle or a tablet, you can still do a similar kind of browsing. As a sole Kindle reader, it’s one of my favouritest things to do.

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This is written as part of #BlogchatterHalfMarathon