My last post was a book recommendation, and that got me thinking... neurodivergent people tend to be big nerds, right. I mean that in the kindest way, we're smart, and we don't think like others. But nerds read books, right? It's always bothered me that I am just not a big reader.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who says a magazine, or the internet when asked what they're favorite book is. I just find it difficult to read. Maybe one in five books I pick up I'll be able to make it through. Maybe less than that. And it'll take like a month to get through. I have never understood those people who can discuss a book that they read, that disappointed them because it wasn't very good. If I am not enjoying a book, I am not finishing it.
There are a handful of authors who I can always read, and I get quite excited when I discover one. And they show I am no slouch, Kazuo Ishiguro, Milan Kundera, Jonathan Franzen, Kurt Vonnegut. But I can't see what they have in common, that I might be able to use to find other authors I can read. My wife is the same (we both have ADHD) her readable author is Terry Pratchett. Terry Pratchett has such an indelible style that if he's your guy, it's easy to know what you like.
There's something I find very readable about non-fiction too. But as a polymath with no attention span, I have other issues with nonfiction. It's easy to read, but hard to pick up. Like am I still going to be super into the Antykithra mechanism by the time I finish this book?
My dad is a book every other day kind of guy, who devoured everything from Proust to my collection of Star Trek YA novels. And he raised me to value reading. Still, I turned out this way. It seems obvious to me that someone with ADHD would find it hard to concentrate long enough to read a whole-ass book, but I don't hear about other people experiencing this. Usually people are either readers or they're not. So, is this really something that noone else experiences?
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I’m exactly the same! I can only read a book right through if it’s an author I engage with. I’ve always done the “first chapter” test, if I’m hooked after the first then I’ll finish the book. But I just thought that’s what everyone did? And it was only very swotty studious types who would read a book a book they didn’t like. I mean why waste your time. And to that end I’ve always considered myself an avid reader. Though I do find I’ll be reading but my brain goes elsewhere and I need to sometimes back track a page but over the years I’ve got better at catching myself. Stephen King is my guy, and I rediscovered him over lockdown and caught up on a dozen of his newer books. I like a good detective or something scary or psychological thrillers. I think they help with the dopamine thing.
I’ve only just found out I’m ADHD so for me it simply explains why I do what I do.
I think your dad reading as fast as he does may be on another spectrum?, my gran would do that. A book a day almost.
Yeah, I was diagnosed late too, and suddenly found an explanation for this lifelong habit that I never understood.
And exactly "why waste your time?" When I think about reading and books, I am very aware that life is short, and these reading a book is a big commitment for me. If I let it, it gets me down that life will be too short to even read a fraction of the books that I want to. I just physically can't waste that time on something I don't like. I think if I read more like my dad, I'd persist books I don't like though. When you're experiencing art, it's best to keep your mind open, and take a risk with things you might not like; after all, even if you're not strictly speaking, entertained by it, it might be interesting, or important, or challenging, or just something you're glad to have experienced. It annoys me that I miss out on that with books.
Talking of keeping your mind open, with the way our internet history is cultivated based on our choices I can spend hours looking through my “and you might like this” suggestions online. Which is really helpful for my scattered brain and I often do find something new that grabs my attention. So not all cookies are bad I suppose. Love what you love and yes I totally agree life is far to short to waste time and effort not living it as you want!
I am no longer embarrassed to state this to people. I will proudly exclaim, “I can’t read books, I have ADHD. But I can read on the internet for hours. I can read poetry books because they can be picked up and put down at anytime, it’s not hard to focus on something short and I will never loose my place.”
Coincidently I love reading nonfiction and found it interesting that you wrote that. Nonfiction is basically all I will read. People are generally astonished when they learn I don’t read books. And along with no longer being embarrassed to inform individuals of such, my guilt has subsided.
Interestingly as well, is that during my teaching career I stressed to the children to “read read read”… and I have even written a manuscript for a children’s book—nearly 4000 words. It’s a great historical fiction (my favorite children’s book genre) work but perhaps the greater struggle is to send it out to a potential agent or publishing house. I am actually looking for a very smart and organized young adult to help me with that. All the writing, researching and creativity was the easy part, albeit a long process. I think this is where the ADHD is full blown.
I m a 64 year old woman; I diagnosed myself about twenty years ago after watching so many students with ADHD struggling and realizing I do the same things. Then I sought an official diagnosis. Then the fun started…haha
That’s funny and ironic … “first author who didn’t read”….. I am not necessarily loosing attention to the internet although perhaps I could be. It’s just reading on it is easier—but I still cannot get a book completed on it either. Unless when it’s written in internet style now book format. and I am hyper focused.
I don't think you're losing your attention span to the Internet. That was just a sarcastic joke about how everyone says that the younger generation has no attention span because of mobile phones and social media. I think there is a big issue with the internet pulling us this way and that, making us less able to focus, and social media companies doing that deliberately, so that they can get as many ads infront of us as possible, but that's not what's going on here. And besides, it's reductive to blame all attention span issues on technology.
Reading books was my special interest & hyperfocus as a kid and I am a very fast reader like your dad. I usually hyperfocus on a plot so will often finish books even if I'm not enjoying them. I want to know what the author decided to do with the characters and world they created. But ONLY fiction. I have the type of attention loss you described above when it comes to nonfiction books, regardless of the subject matter, and I prefer to listen or do internet research (which feels more active) than finish a nonfiction book in one or two sittings.
I might be an outlier here, but I actually like reading books. But only if it is stuff that I pick and choose to read. I struggled a lot in school with reading because it wasn't always stuff the peeked my interested. And one of the hardest things was getting started. A lot of times if I could get started reading I would enjoy it. But that might be because I don't have hyperactive ADD.
I don't have any trouble reading books, it's been my lifelong hobby since I picked up my first ABC board book. I can read just about any genre printed in English.
My parents and 2 siblings LOVE to read... The book a day type, like you mentioned.
I hate reading. Even just a long email... No Thank you. A full book... Ew. A picture book... Noooo.
I have a kiddo and have to more or less Rev myself up before bed time when we read together. I don't want him to hate reading.
I do listen to audiobooks, but I have to be in the mood and also it has to grab my attention fast and have a great reader.
Many with ADHD have trouble with reading comprehension and don’t often just sit down and read a book. I can be reading a book, but if the never ending discussion in my head takes over I can read a page 3 times and not recall any of it. That said, when I find an author or book I like and my brain does too, I’ll hyper focus and have no trouble finishing and recalling.
I have learned to love reading, I didn't used to. I also love to go to the library, it is a social thing in away but I don't have to speak to people. I just smile and move on though I keep a mask on but hopefully my eyes smile for me. I started reading in 7th or 8th grade when I joined an MS read-athon. Mostly, I enjoy fiction, mysteries and romances. It's never to late to enjoy reading, in my opinion.
All these personal experiences are so interesting and insightful! I'm so glad I found this place.
I like to, and can read but I have troubles with comprehension unfortunately. I also have troubles finishing a book. I've got an extensive library of physical and Kindle books but only a few are read right through.
I can take me forever and a day to read a book if it's above my comprehension level. At the suggestion of a friend I bought and started to read a book called Frontier Farewell by a fellow named Garret Wilson. It's a non-fiction history book that is very interesting but it's big and harder for me to read so it's a slow process.
Since I found out I had ADHD (almost a year ago and AFTER I started reading the book), I'm not worried about it though! Taking a long time to read a book, not being able to retain what I read, having to re-read paragraphs and pages because my mind was wondering is just the way it I guess.
I've tried using soundscapes or brown noise while reading but haven't noticed a big difference with that yet.
Hi, I see what you mean is not about not reading books but getting to the point when you read so many times a page and struggling to focus. For me what I noticed that works much better are aufiobooks and Audible is my friend. I slways listen to an audiobook after work, when going for a walk or shopping when doing dreaded chores, or just before going to bed. Even if it means I ho back quite a few times , this really seams to work.
I LOVE this topic. I'm a big reader but not of physical, paper books. I almost always have a book on my kindle but those take forever because sitting and reading puts me to sleep usually. It's great at bedtime though.
One thing that resonated with me that you said is if you don't like a book you won't finish it. But I know people who can't NOT finish. What makes that hard for people is if they bought the book and they see that money they spent as a reason. But I have a solution for that.
I also listen to audiobooks - but I can not just sit and listen to them in a chair or something. I will absolutely fall asleep every time or just not even notice what they are saying. I listen while I'm walking around doing things. The two together for me are perfect.
I also listen to audiobooks at 1.25 speed or faster, though usually never faster than 1.5 speed. At regular speed, it kills me. You know what I'm talking about.
Oh, also I'm not sure if it was obvious but I do this while wearing wireless earbuds with a little "tap to pause" feature so i don't have to go find my phone to pause it if someone starts talking to me.
Back to my point about buying books, is if you live in the US, you just need a library card and the Overdrive website of your library (they are all different and I actually have more than one because I'm a library card hoarder, but it will look something like sfpl.overdrive.com/ or austinlibrary.overdrive.com/), then you use an app called Libby to read or listen (you can also use the Kindle app if all you do is ebooks but Libby works for both audio and ebooks and will be recommended by your library). You can check out books for 3 weeks (different libraries have different books and you'll want to go for a big city one if you can) and you can renew them as well, if no one's waiting for it. Just like a brick and mortar library.
I left the US in 2015 to travel and couldn't take a bunch of paper books with me so I switched to the kindle (reluctantly) then and now I love it. I also now live abroad and books in English, my first language, aren't readily available here so I'm always on my library's site getting new books. When my son was little, we'd get picture books and looked at them on his tablet (the kindle is just in black and white so not as exciting for little kids).
If you aren't sure how to set it up, I was thinking of writing it up as a blog post so give me a shout if you would like to read it and I'll make sure to post when I do.
I love reading - like someone else said too much! Non fiction, fiction - and I particularly like a giant cinderblock of a book. Stephen King, Tolstoy … It’s my hyperfocus. But I don’t read poetry or short stories. And I cannot and will not watch a short video. I don’t get TikTok at all. I can force myself to watch a YouTube video if I want to fix a faucet or something but it’s painful. By the time I’m like 5 seconds in “Hi! I’m Chad the plumber and today we’re replacing the drain stopper” I’m like, Time’s a wasting, Chad!! Move it along!
People put too much pressure on reading for fun. It’s a hobby, if you like some authors, that’s perfect. Agree with BackAfter10: the Libby/overdrive app lets you read a sample before checking the book out. And what I love about the library is that if I hate the book and don’t want to finish, it’s free. And with e-books, I don’t even have to schlep them back.
I also will listen to books and podcasts at 1.25 speed 😊
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