I'm reading three books at once and there's nothing you can do to stop me

Reading has not always come as easy to me as it does today. When I was at school I enjoyed the English Literature lessons, we read A Christmas Carol and Of Mice and Men, and I collaborated on a few scripts for school plays: one a Christmas Pantomime, one a Fairytale Cinderella-type affair and to my great shame a poorly-bastardised version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was not what you would call into reading then. Our English teacher Mrs Murray made it no easier with ham-American accents for John Steinbeck.

Later, when I was sixteen or so, I discovered Terry Pratchett, on a recommendation from my step-dad. The vivid worlds and witty satire that I didn’t quite have the context for really hooked me, and I read a fair handful of them in paperback and audiobook. This didn’t last, however, as I found myself with anything other than Pratchett falling back to a classic reading hangup: that I would read the same paragraph again and again and lose track about halfway.

When I was twenty-seven or so, I needed something to listen to while I walked the dog, so why not try again with the audiobooks? This time I was very successful. Audiobooks are unique in that you can’t return to the start of the last chapter even if you want to, least of all because you have to concentrate on the small creature dragging you around the block.

I read - or listened to the reading of - more Pratchett: Monstrous Regiment, Reaper Man, then non-fiction: Atomic Habits, No Hard Feelings, Four Thousand Weeks, then biographies: Steve Martin, Bob Mortimer, Louis Theroux. Broader material: Blood Meridian, A Tale of Two Cities, The Lord of the Rings. A world of reading had opened up for me.

An idea occurred to me then: why not take the same approach to books? With the audio, if I miss something out of distraction I simply have to pick up from context (which may I say is easier with non-fiction than fiction, where you might miss something key).

These days I run about three books at once. In the evenings I read fiction, currently Dickens’ Bleak House. I listen to the audiobook as I read a paper or Kindle version, and I get through it all the quicker with both together. When I’m doing something that doesn’t require my focus - the washing up, a walk, folding clothes - I listen to non-fiction (Girls will be Girls - Emer O'Toole). And occasionally when I have five minutes I might pull out a book of poetry, short stories or essays - Tim Key is good for that, or David Sedaris.

As it turns out, I rather like reading books. I like reading before bed, on a Kindle or on paper, listening along as well. I like Dickens. I like murder-mysteries. I’ve read every Sherlock Holmes book, lots of Wodehouse and Pratchett and anything that I’m told is a bit like them. I will try basically any book that somebody on a podcast recommends. I’m glad to have discovered reading and have it as a part of my everyday. I even write about it, here, on this Substack, if you fancy that sort of thing.