A new year often signals a fresh TBR (To Be Read) pile. It brims with good intentions, guilt divided evenly between Christmas gifts begging to be addressed and the books from 2023 you thought you had time to read but didn’t. But — of course — reading shouldn’t be a chore, an endless game of catch-up or a slog powered by a sense that you’re missing out on the best of the year’s crop.
In the wonderful phrase of a friend, perhaps it’s time to set an anti-resolution instead — to settle into a slow classic, and give yourself the gift of unrushed reading. Spending time in the pages of just one book for months, sometimes years, is a rarity in our hurried age.
I don’t even remember what class it was, but whoever taught me the skill of slow reading has my gratitude. Reading fast is very clearly fun, but slow reading can be equally as fun, and I wouldn’t have expected that.