With smartphones stealing our attention, we\u2019re picking up fewer books than ever. A novelist shares her eight-week scheme to get you back into the habit<\/p>\n
Do you feel that it\u2019s harder to read than it used to be? Not harder to read emails, texts and social media posts, of course. We\u2019re reading those all day long. Harder to sit down and lose yourself in a book? How long is it since you even sat down with a weekend newspaper and read it cover to cover? Do you feel that you used to have a life-sustaining reading habit, everything from fun popcorn novels to serious nonfiction, classic and contemporary, many genres and writers, but somehow it\u2019s gone away? It doesn\u2019t feel like a decision that you made. It just happened.<\/p>\n
I feel like that. At least more like that than I\u2019m comfortable with. I\u2019m a novelist and I present programs about thinking on the BBC, and yet even I am finding that I\u2019m reading less than I used to. It seems more of an effort and less of a consistent, persistent habit than it was. I hate this feeling. I still have the habit of acquiring books, buying them, getting them from libraries, being sent them. And I do still read. Compared with many people, I probably read an enormous amount, but I know it\u2019s not as much as I used to read. And I know where the time has gone.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/4a9d5ac79a626240bd7fd3c9d15b7f617701752b\/308_0_5160_4128\/master\/5160.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=dd83fca04405782ed28f0610b41865ba\" "\\"Could")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"