If you ask me in early 2022 how many books I would have read within 12 months, I would probably say…1 or 2? Eventually, I finished with 6, and at the moment, I’m currently on the 18th book (!!!) of 2023.
When I was younger, I used to claim that reading was my hobby. I guess that was true all the way until I finished elementary school or when I first entered middle school because I did read quite a lot. I remember being introduced to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code when I was a 5th grader (lol) and was just hooked by the storytelling and the number of (conspiracy) theories. I ended up finishing all of Dan Brown’s books within a few years.
For some reason, I just lost interest in books afterward. I guess for me personally, Facebook, PointBlank, and FIFA Online were to blame for that hahaha. It was 2010–2011 when all the “fun” stuff just showed up one after the other. Everybody was on their Blackberry (though I wasn’t, didn’t see the fun in it), and suddenly it was the era of smartphones. Just like everybody else, I was so drawn to the internet and social media.
I realized, though, sometime around 2018–2019, that social media is not a thing for me. I realized more and more that people (me included) do spend so much time scrolling content on their phones, not necessarily getting anything out of it. Also, for some reason, I realized that people tend to have some kind of an alter-ego (or an artificial personality?) on social media. People are not necessarily showing their true selves, and I just can’t take that for myself. Not to mention that I don’t like the idea of people having their phones “chained” to their hands and having their eyes locked to the screens 24/7.
It was not until mid-2022 that I finally made a comeback to books. I think originally it was because I found myself spending so much time commuting to stadiums for my freelance job, but then because there was hardly anything to do, I was either staring out the window or at my phone. I’ve always enjoyed looking out the window, especially on trains, but then I thought, “What on earth am I doing? That was 90 mins spent for hardly anything.”
At the same time, I needed to start writing my thesis to graduate from my master’s program. Writing hasn’t been my forte, I realized, and I was kind of anxious that what I write wouldn’t be either cohesive or even make sense. For that, I thought reading more books, especially novels, would help to improve how I put together some words.
At first, I picked up the book Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, which has been sitting in the closet for some time. I absolutely LOVED IT!! The plot was about the lives (and the struggles) of Korean migrants in Japan before, during, and after World War II. I found the storytelling so compelling, and as most of the story was based in Osaka (and I’ve been to some of the places), I can picture the story quite easily.
Since then, I’ve been reading so much to the point that I once thought of stopping my subscription to OTT services like Netflix and Disney+. I started to pick up books authored by people I have heard all my life, e.g., JK Rowling, Murakami, Jules Verne, etc. I also did try to read non-fiction books on football, business, negotiation, and some self-help stuff as well.
One turning point in my reading journey has been the decision to get myself a Kindle. In the beginning, I really enjoyed grabbing the books physically and feeling my fingers sliding through the page. Yet, it is quite a hassle to go to a bookstore or wait for days on end for the books to arrive. Not to mention some books can be quite heavy as well.
I had my doubt about whether getting an e-Reader will be of any value, but then when I look up reviews on Youtube and others, everyone mentions how it has been one of the best purchases of their lives and that their reading speed has increased significantly using Kindle. Apparently, this is pretty accurate.
So yeah, here I am going through Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time as my 18th book of the year, and God knows how many more to come until the end of the year.
Oh, btw, of all the books that I have had so far, I managed to finish all of them except for one. For some reason, I’m quite proud of it haha. Some books can be a bit too long, and some may not be as compelling as others, but I tend to believe that we need to finish the entire package to really grasp what is intended to be told. I think this is true even for non-fiction books. Whether we agree with the ending or the conclusion, or whether we like the story in general, was another issue.
Finally, if you’re reading this right now and don’t think that reading is for you, I think you should give it another chance. Try reading something that interests you or simply read books that you know people like, e.g., Harry Potter. Once you find what you like, drop your phone, and immerse yourself into the story. Trust me, you’re gonna have fun.
