What’s reading for anyway?
Poet, writer and freelance creative Leanne Moden takes a look at the very personal, and often varied, reasons why we read – drawing on the real experiences of our I Am A Reader participants.
Reading is often seen as a passive act, but it requires imagination, empathy, and open-mindedness, as well as the ability to reflect on the thoughts and feelings of characters. In this way, reading stories is just as creative as writing them.
As part of the I Am A Reader Project, we asked six writers to work with diverse groups of readers across Nottinghamshire, to explore why and how we read. One of the first things we asked the groups was ‘What brought you to reading?’
Some of our readers talked about their formative experiences, reading as children:
“I moved around a lot as a child. Libraries are where I felt at home.”
“I struggled making friends, so I would read books and I read characters that I wanted to be like.”
Other readers talked about the escapism and comfort of reading:
“Reading is an escape from my own thoughts, so having a story read to me [by listening to audiobooks] is a way to drown out my own thoughts.”
“If I’ve had a bad day, I’ll go and read a book, and I’ll forget about work.”
Another word that came up a lot was ‘freedom’ – for those with busy, stressful lives, books provided a much-needed break:
“I read a lot in the bath. I lock the kids out and sit there with a book and just top up the hot water when needed and I can read a whole book in one go.”
There was also a lot of talk about books as a resource for finding stuff out:
“I read because of a thirst for knowledge and answers. My family always called me the sponge!”
And books are great for helping us to empathise with other people:
“One person couldn’t live all the lives that you read about, so if you read you can’t help but become more rounded and you are aware of more people and how they cope… because you have a wider knowledge of all the things that could happen. You’ve widened your experience of the world because you have experienced it through them.”
It’s easy to get emotionally invested in well-told stories, and find ourselves connecting with characters whose lives feel real to us. It’s also great for developing a deeper understand of how people act in real life:
“I learn to be a person through books. I learn by observing how the characters behave. I absorb characters/stories into myself. I find myself thinking like the characters and using words like the characters.”
But, the most poignant conversations around reading came about when groups shared the ways in which reading had helped them overcome difficult personal circumstances:
“After my wife died, I found myself retreating to books I know and rereading books we read as a pair. The one thing I could do was curl up with a book and a cup of tea. The comfort of an old friend was just brilliant.”
And new technologies, like audiobooks and e-books, have opened up reading to people who might otherwise find it difficult. One of our group members has dyslexia and also uses a wheelchair, so is not able to read physical books. During one conversation, they said:
“If it wasn’t for audiobooks, I wouldn’t be able to read.”
Reading is so important to so many people, for many different reasons; it’s an escape, a comfort, a source of knowledge, a joyful experience, a way to cope.
“Books changed my life, almost saved my life in a way."
If you’d like to share your insights into your personal reading experience, you can complete the reading survey on our website. We’d love to hear your thoughts!