Somewhere along the way, a lot of us stopped reading the way we used to.
Not on purpose. We still buy the books. We still have the stack on the nightstand and the list on our phones. But the actual reading, that sinking in and losing track of an hour, got crowded out by everything else that glows. We read in scraps now. Three pages in a waiting room. Half a chapter before the phone buzzes.
I think what’s missing isn’t time. It’s ritual. When something has a place and a time and a little ceremony around it, we do it without deciding to. Coffee has a ritual. So does the evening news, for some people, and the Sunday crossword. Reading used to, and it can again.
Here are five small ways to make a reading ritual. None of them require a new chair, a bigger house, or more hours in the day. Think of it like a trade: I trade TV time for reading time, and I fall asleep faster and wake up more refreshed than I ever do after a night of TV and phone scrolling.
1. Give it a place
Find your own reading nook. It doesn’t have to be a Pinterest-worthy spot. Just find one that works for you. I need good light and a comfy place where I can recline, so my bed is my main reading nook, and I add in the patio when I have a quiet morning or a quiet evening alone. Just make it the same spot, more or less every time: one end of the couch, the chair by the window, the porch step on a warm evening. Your brain learns the cue. Sit down there and, after a few weeks, it already knows what you came for.
Keep the book in that spot, too, not on the nightstand three rooms away. Half the battle is not having to go get it. (Although in my case, since I have two spots, the book travels with me.)
2. Give it a time
The same ten minutes, most days, beats a heroic two-hour Saturday you keep meaning to have. Mine is the hour before I start making dinner, sometimes while I’m waiting for dinner to cook, and always at 8 p.m. I watch one show with my husband, then I’m off to bed to read until 9:30 or 10. It’s one of the items on my September Simple Joys List for a reason: ten pages before bed is a small thing that turns into a big thing by the end of the month.
If mornings and evenings are both spoken for, try the gap you don’t think of as a gap: the twenty minutes dinner is in the oven, the wait in the school pickup line, the front porch while the dog does her rounds. That’s when having your book on hand is helpful. You can also listen to your book. Sometimes I read and listen to the same book, depending on when and where I am. Listening counts as reading!
3. Keep a “saving it” shelf
You know the books. The ones you bought because you knew you’d love them, and then didn’t start, because you were saving them for the right moment. Put them together somewhere you can see them (a shelf, a basket, the corner of the mantel) and let that be the shelf you choose from when you finish something.
The right moment is now, by the way. The right moment is a cool September evening with nothing on the calendar. I’ve been saving all my magical realism books for this month so I can ease into fall. I’m a seasonal reader, and I love how a book puts me in the mood for the season I’m in.
4. Make a small ceremony of it
This is the part that turns reading from a task into a treat. Light a candle. Make the tea. Put the phone in another room, or at least face-down. Pull the blanket over your knees even if you’re not cold. It takes ninety seconds and it tells the rest of you that this is different from scrolling; this is the good part of the day.
There’s a reason the cozy-reading photos on Pinterest all have a candle and a mug in them. It isn’t just that they look nice. It’s that the small ceremony works. I love the time of day when I can check out of the world, have a drink, and let my mind relax and wander off to a fictional place.
5. Give yourself permission to quit
Nothing kills a reading ritual faster than a book you’re dragging yourself through out of duty. If you’re fifty pages in and you’d rather do the dishes, put it down. Give it away, take it back to the library, set it on the “someday” pile without guilt. Life is too short and the “saving it” shelf is too full.
The ritual isn’t about finishing books. It’s about the hour you spend somewhere else. If you’re not relating to the characters or the story just isn’t grabbing you, find a new book. There are so many to choose from!
The reading ritual is really a slowing-down ritual
That’s what I’ve come to think, anyway. It’s less about how many books you get through this fall and more about having one reliable place in the day where nothing is asking anything of you. A chair, a candle, a story. Ten pages. Then ten more, because you didn’t want to stop.
If you need something for the “saving it” shelf, I keep a running list of cozy small-town novels that are just right for this. And if slowing down is the whole point for you this month, my free September Simple Joys List has twenty more little ways to do it.