Used to be an avid reader? How to get back into books

Reading more requires moving away from the romanticized ideal of finding a perfect, distraction-free environment and instead integrating reading into small, available pockets of time throughout the day. Cognitive neuroscientist Marianne Wolfe and author Kevin Nguyen emphasize that deep reading is a skill that can be relearned by consistently dedicating time to it, even in short bursts. To minimize the cognitive pull of digital distractions, physical books are preferable to screens, which often trigger habitual skimming. Selecting books that match one's current capacity—whether a quick novel like *Siddhartha* or a complex classic like *Narcissus and Goldmund*—and abandoning books that fail to engage are essential strategies for maintaining momentum. Setting personalized goals, such as tracking progress in a journal, provides a reflective framework for building a sustainable reading habit without turning a leisure activity into a competitive chore.