There are Many Ways to Read in a Changing World; Here are 3 of Them

How To Read
Illustration by Troy DeShano

Reading is a profound act. Consider Laura Brown in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, a repressed housewife in postwar suburban America reading the first page of Mrs. Dalloway: “Laura Brown is trying to lose herself. No, that’s not it exactly—she is trying to keep herself by gaining entry into a parallel world … Already her bedroom feels more densely inhabited, more actual, because a character named Mrs. Dalloway is on her way to buy flowers.”

Cunningham’s masterpiece—which connects characters decades apart to the same book—testifies to the way reading enriches our lives.

Now consider a sixteen-year-old kid in his high school library, for the first time in his life feeling the raw and silent dimensions of loneliness, opening a book before him the way one opens a window to see the light but also to feel it.

I can’t remember the name of that book. I do remember I turned to reading to escape what seemed then inescapable elements of life—heartbreak, alienation—but instead of escaping, I found myself expanding, strengthening, “more densely inhabited, more actual.”

It’s weird how a good book enables us to reach out of ourselves, to reach out of time, to find meaning where there was none before, as though the beauty of expression and the empowerment of knowledge could compensate for whatever ineffable sense of loss haunts our lives, as though the mental movement of words on a page could somehow save us from solitary pain.

I never stopped reading; I never stopped nourishing that feeling of fullness, of renewal, that reading had inspired. But my reading habits have undoubtedly changed with the twenty-first century. We’ve all changed. We’re more connected than ever through technology and globalization, but never has it been more important to really connect, to honor that immemorial covenant between reader and writer.

How to Read in the Age of Social Media

I see people with tens of thousands of followers on Twitter who follow just as many people. I’m not sure how they do it. I can barely keep up with the handful of people I do follow. In this age of information, we have access to an unprecedented amount of reading material via social media feeds, but transferring print reading habits—focus, reflection, depth—to the information superhighway can be tricky.

Here are some tips:

Read for quality. With infinite choices comes a sometimes painful selection process. Apply the same discernment you’d use for your living room bookcase to social media. Don’t feel obligated to follow pages because of popularity or peer pressure. Don’t worry about how many followers you have or how many pages {people? profiles?} you’d like to follow. Focusing on quantity will overload your screen and kill the pleasure of reading. Before following a page, look at its posts and determine if they’re enough to keep you interested and wanting more.

Perform quality control. There will, from time to time, be pages you follow that devolve into annoying advertising. This is a bummer and, unbeknownst to the poster, the worst way to advertise; for successful marketing requires high-quality, engaging content, not insufferable plugs. If your feed slowly becomes one big promo page distracting from other, worthier posters, it’s time to clean house.

Drink coffee. That Internet culture grew out of coffeehouse culture may indicate just how essential the caffeinated beverage is to the digital age. Whenever you feel yourself lagging, unable to keep up with rapid-fire posting, grab a cup of joe. It’s the best stimulant on the market.

How to Read in the Indie Revolution

If you’re like me, you grew up worshipping the big names of literature, the Shelleys and Whitmans, the Hemingways and Faulkners, the Sylvia Plaths of the world.

But so much has changed in the last twenty years. The literary canon hasn’t so much shifted as sheared into a thousand different canons, spurred by indie publishing, small presses, social media, and an explosion of online venues.

Here are some ways to keep up with the offerings of both big and small names:

Ignore the establishment lit snob in yourself. Large conglomerate publishers are fighting tooth-and-nail to retain market share. Remember that their imprints are inherently no better or worse than indie imprints, though they might want you to think so. The indie presses are the groundbreakers at the margins of mainstream culture, supporting important and often subversive voices that otherwise would be drowned out by commercial concerns. Open your shelves and e-readers to the undeniable creativity and diversity of the indie scene.

Support your indie favorites. The amount of alternative publishing can be overwhelming, but once you’ve found a press or author that tickles your fancy, make sure to follow them online, subscribe to their newsletter, or any other means to keep apace of new titles. Depending on hipster attitudes, indies can blow up quickly, become hot-ticket items overnight, but they exist in different media and markets than mainstreamers. Don’t miss out due to lack of awareness.

Mix it up. Going indie doesn’t mean you don’t read Big 5 books. Many classic titles (authors who might have started out as indie authors) come from big publishers. There’s no reason to strictly confine your reading to one or the other. Include self-published authors, too. Never presume a self-published author has less to offer. Make quality the ultimate criterion of your reading. If you do, your bookcase will be as eclectic and diverse and beautiful as the world we live in.

Reading like a Critic

“Eclectic” is a fun word. Good critics are eclectic; they have to be. They can’t only review subjects and styles that appeal to their personal interests. One-sidedness is anathema to the art of criticism. Good critics are necessarily open-minded, multidimensional, and well-rounded. They understand this thing called life is a fluid endeavor.

Reading like a critic can expand your aesthetic sensibilities and intellectual reach to match the bustling diversity of the new millennium. Here are a few pointers:

Embrace irony and ambiguity. The ability to read things several ways other than literally is a sign of intellectual maturity, what Keats called “negative capability,” an almost spiritual acceptance of uncertainty in life and art. Good critics possess this quality, even if their work reads with a certain tenor. To reach any new perspective, we have to untether ourselves from preconceived notions and swim in the realm of the mysterious, hoping to come ashore with new meaning. This is the heart of criticism as well as empathy. This ability is what makes for a layered reading experience.

Read books outside your comfort zone. Eclecticism doesn’t mean you give up your core beliefs or personal preferences but only that you challenge them, broaden them, through exposure to new ideas and perspectives. Critics might not go out of their way to read books outside their comfort zone, but the hallmark of a good critic is a fair review of a book he or she disagrees with on a personal level—recognition that artistic and intellectual merit doesn’t exclusively belong to one camp or school of thought. Never read YA romance? Give it a whirl. Never read Marxist political theory? Give it a try; it’s delightful! Good readers, like good critics, never limit themselves.

Celebrate the underdog. Perhaps the most important role of the critic is championing an unknown artist. As eclectic readers in the digital age, we have innumerable ways to celebrate underappreciated talent. Chances are you will stumble upon a book or blog that no one else knows about but that you’re sure is brilliant and earth-shattering. Share it, review it, shout it from the proverbial mountaintop. Let the new convergence of publishing and social media be your guide. Put into the world the things that inspire you most so others will find them, too.


Scott Neuffer
Scott Neuffer, author of Scars of the New Order, is a journalist, writer, and poet who lives in Nevada with his family. Follow him on Twitter @scottneuffer or @realpoecom.

Scott Neuffer

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