Reading slumps suck, and I know because I’m in one currently. When you’re a reader, books become part of your daily life and reading part of your routine. When you can’t get a book to capture your attention and are thrown out of that routine, it can feel awful.
Right now I suspect my slump is due to the fact that this is a very busy time of year for me professionally and also because the holidays tend to depress me personally. I don’t have a good reason for that–I just seem to respond to all the holiday cheer and decorations and music the exact opposite way you’re supposed to. Right now I can’t seem to sink into a book. I’m really mentally tired after work which is part of the problem. My brain is out of juice and wants a nap. When I’m blue, it’s harder to read as well because I’m not engaging emotionally–I’m apathetic.
So what do I do?
I engage in other hobbies, for one. Right now that means a LOT of knitting. I am a knitting like nobody’s business. Need cabled arm warmers in a night? I am your girl.
Knitting works for me because it relaxes my brain and doesn’t require any emotional engagement. Plus just holding warm, woolly, squishy yarn is comforting.
I also listen to audio books, sometimes while I knit. Sometimes when I’m in a slump, relaxing and letting someone else tell me a story can be restorative. I’m currently listening to Stars of Fortune by Nora Roberts, and it has a lovely fairytale quality to it. When I was a kid I loved being read to and my mom loved reading to me. We had a ritual around sitting in a chair in her room with the lights low and reading stories before bed. Listening to someone else tell me a story while I knit or drive or take a bath brings back those comforting memories.
I also turn to fanfiction. Fanfic comes with a pre-built story. You already know the book/tv show/movie/comic world and the characters that inhabit it. Want a story where Darcy bangs the entire Marvel Universe? Cool. You already know that mythos and those characters and so you can just show up for the banging. Unless I want to read a huge 500,000 word epic, there’s usually less mental work required of me when I comes to fanfic because the groundwork has already been laid in terms of world building.
I also sometimes try to reread old favorites. I’ve read Pride and Prejudice dozens of times. Rereading it is a comfort because I already know what’s going to happen. It’s a restful experience when I’m struggling to get into a new book.
Hopefully my book blues will be over soon–they usually don’t last long. How do you get over a reading slump?
i totally agree about the audiobook option! For some reason, it feels like less “commitment” to listen to a story if I can do other things, and I take it less personally if the book isn’t great. That helps me move on more quicklyto the next one. 🙂
I have a very similar reaction to the holidays as you do, which is compounded this year by my job becoming part-time in January due to lack of funding (I’m a research scientist). I get in a book slump after reading something really great, and than nothing else compares. I’ve been at looose ends for a week or two now. Nothing is sticking. So I decided I had to go find a great book I had avoided. I’ve started Middlemarch, and I think that will do the trick. Best of luck to you this holiday season!
Hey, Jimthered and everyone else who has posted that they’re going through tough times, I’m sending my best wishes that things get better soon. Holidays are especially difficult when you have additional burdens to cope with.
I seem to have gone from one reading slump to the next this year. I have crawled out on occasion and have read–and listened to–some great stuff this year, but my list of finished books is significantly shorter than usual and full of comfort rereads. I think some of that is related to author/genre over-glomming, and some related to general life crap.
Mostly, I just have to ride it out. It’s like insomnia–the more stressed you get because you can’t sleep, the more difficult it is to sleep. Doing totally different things, reading light books (cozy mysteries or children’s books, in my case), watching silly youtube vids, listening to music and audio books, and–as mentioned–rereading old favorites is a way to cope with a slump until it passes.