Books are dwellings

Earlier this year I joined the contraptions book club. It is my first ever book club, so I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I have. I have tried and failed over the past 10 years to properly start reading again but could never get beyond maybe 3-4 books at a stretch. Since March I think I’ve read about 3-4 books per month.

Every generation worries that ‘kids these days’ don’t read. Online, the debate cycles endlessly — are we reading less, or just reading differently? I used to be in the reading differently camp. After all, social media, blogs, emails, chats etc were all text and I was not just reading but also producing a hell of a lot of it. I have changed my mind. I used to think I was reading plenty — scrolling through blogs, threads, and chats. But that wasn’t reading; it was more like letting highway billboards flash through my mind. As a formerly heavy reader it feels super weird to say this to myself, but books are different. Books are dwellings. Books are places.

Authors take great (sometimes monumental) amounts of effort to explore a topic. No chat, forum, or social media post can ever come close to that. This is true not just because of length but more so because writing a book is a lot of effort. A post demands little effort; a book demands devotion. That difference shows.

Now that I’m reading again, it is apparent that those who read books are those that really want to read. And the act of reading, dwelling in those ideas is as refreshing as hike in the mountains. What has been especially invigorating about the book club is the shared events and cast of characters that have appeared across them. Each book becomes a room I walk through with others — and when we meet to talk, it feels like discovering a doorway between those rooms.

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Couple of changes:

1. Recently I’ve been bored of most social media. Until I feel otherwise I won’t be announcing these blog posts.
2. I have recently discovered leaflet.pub. I will be posting my shorter link posts and tweet-like posts there. Technically this is a form of social media being that it is based on ATProto and all… but it is also private and cut-off enough that it doesn’t feel like it. The best thing about this is that I am able to make a proper Terry Pratchett dedication on my own domain. Go check out clacks.aneeshsathe.com!