Adventures in Reading (Or, a brief digression about changes in reading habits as they relate to age and technology, and a personal anecdote that makes me look very bad)

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I began reading early, at age four or five.

I give most of the credit to my parents, who were both readers. My dad had some paperbacks in his duffel bag that looked a lot more interesting than those that my mom read.

Richard S. Prather, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald . . . with lurid covers usually depicting a voluptuous woman in various stages of undress. That’s what I wanted to read. Who cares what Dick, Spot and Jane were up to? I want to see if that man in silhouette, holding a gun, is a good guy or a bad guy.

Whatever credit is left over belongs to me. I learned how to read early because I was driven by some internal mechanism to gain knowledge on every subject I knew little about. At age four or five, there was a lot I didn’t know, and I knew that I didn’t know it. I had friends and playmates my age—or even older—who didn’t share my thirst for knowledge. They weren’t, in fact, aware that they needed to learn anything.

That pursuit of knowledge was my defining characteristic for many years. Perhaps it still is. When you can’t read, it feels like a big part of the human experience is denied to you. In those pre-personal computer days, all of that knowledge was accessed primarily through the printed page. Newspapers, magazines and books. And these were kept at the library.

With the aid of my mom, I took to reading like a duck takes to oranges. I was reading adult books while I was in grammar school. I learned a lot, from both fiction and nonfiction. I was a reader. And I read a lot.

Years later, I was on a first date with a nice young lady. The date went well—and honestly we went on a couple of additional dates after the first—but I knew our relationship was doomed when she asked me how many books I had read.

Not how many I’d read that month or year. How many books I had read during my lifetime.

There was no way I could answer that question truthfully. In the beginning, I didn’t keep track of what I read. Honestly, I don’t think I could have much in common with someone who could answer that question.

Also, I knew that my date wouldn’t be impressed that my number was unknowably high. It was that whole looking-like-a-nerd thing.

I mumbled something noncommittal and asked her if she was doing something different with her hair in order to change the subject. It worked.

We went on a couple of additional dates, until I made her cry in a shopping mall without even trying. In a Belk department store in Shelby, North Carolina, to be exact. You see, she had stopped to look at china patterns. I was young and stupid in the ways of romance, so I saw no red flags in this at all. She told me that her husband was going to have to like this certain pattern, something floral and colorful that I’d hesitate to cover with food.

All I said was, “I hope you two are happy together.”

It was a kneejerk, smartass response that would have gone over well with my friends. A wisecrack.

It was our third date, man.

When she began to cry softly, her face transformed into an ugly mask, I did my best to make it up to her. It was a stupid, insensitive thing for me to say. I mean it was only our third date and she was picking out china patterns with me, but, still, that’s no reason for me to callously play with some sweet girl’s feelings.

I knew that I wasn’t meant to be with someone that sensitive. That emotional. If I could make her cry without trying, what was going to happen when I got really mean. I mean, it happens in any relationship. In my experience, I should add. I’m sure your relationship is the exception.

Like the coward I was, after I got home the night of our third date, I wrote her a letter pulling the plug on our couplehood. I was supposed to meet her parents the following weekend, and I decided to spare everyone involved. Better that her parents hated me before they met me.

Yes, I know how this makes me look.

I admit that I was self-centered and sometimes lacking in empathy. I think I’ve gotten better. Depends upon who you ask, I warrant.

You have to remember that this was in the days before emails and texts were a real thing. An honest, handwritten letter may seem too formal and fancy to some of you these days, but, trust me, it was pure cowardice.

I did follow it up with a phone call.

No, that’s a lie.

She called me, crying again, when she received the “Dear Jane” letter. We spoke over the phone for far too long, while what I had hoped would be a quick pulling-off of the Band-Aid turned into a tortuously slow, agonizing process. I hardened my heart even while I blamed our incompatibility on myself. She was too good for me.

I’m not a total cad. I didn’t mention her looking at china patterns when we’d never even told each other we loved each other.

I also never mentioned how I felt about her knowing exactly how many books she’d read in her lifetime. It wasn’t a very big number.

So, I’ve read a lot, in most of the Dewey Decimal classes. But the truth is, I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older that I’m reading less. It’s not because my thirst for knowledge has been slaked. I’ve gained some wisdom over the years, in the way that Socrates interpreted wisdom. The more I read, and the more I learned, the more I became certain that I know nothing.

I’m still a reader. During the twelve months between October 2022 and October 2023, I’ve read only twenty-three books. Not even two books per month. With considerable shame, I’ll even admit that a healthy percentage of these were comic book collections. If you’re not a reader, this may seem like a lot to you. Most of you real readers out there, you heavy-hitters you, you turn your nose up at such a paltry sum. You’re reading that many books each month.

I get it. That used to be me. I went through books like the Cookie Monster goes through cookies.

I understand some of what’s happened. Technology has finally begun to catch up to me. I invest more time watching television series and movies, even on my iPhone, than I do reading. Also, video games on my Playstation 4.

Like most of us, I learn best through stories and anecdotes. I’ve always joked that story is my drug of choice. A lot of that is fictional stories. But the best documentaries purposefully tell stories as well. Just as when I was a child, I can learn from fiction and nonfiction. Using the various streaming services to watch videos is like mainlining stories. An almost utterly passive activity. Just as in reading, though, I can pause a story wherever I decide, placing a virtual bookmark in my place and closing the covers.

I write a little bit as well. That takes some time away from reading.

It turns out that this isn’t really an uncommon experience. Lawrence Block, one of my all-time favorite crime and mystery authors, once wrote an article for Writer’s Digest magazine about his own reading habits slowing as he got older. So that’s at least one other person who has experienced this phenomenon.

Of course, Block doesn’t blame streaming videos or the PS4 for slowing down his reading. He just spends more time writing his own original stuff.

I can’t really use that excuse.