Four Dalmatian Puppy

Contributor

other

People visit the site of the Nova festival, in Reim

Fake Electors Indictment Arizona

The Washington Post

For The Washington Post

Israel Palestinians Campus Protests

US-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-EDUCATION-CONFLICT

**ONE TIME USE ONLY FOR OP-SMITH-HIGHER-ED

Former U.S. President Trump's criminal trial on charges of falsifying business records continues in New York

POOL

Westminster Dog Show

ONE TIME USE ILLUSTRATION FOR OP-RIEVES-HUBRIS

(Chloe Cushman for The Washington Post)

US-POLLUTION-PLASTIC-CHEMICAL-RECYCLING

(Getty Images)

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

<i>Stephanie Shapiro is a Baltimore writer and a former journalist.</i>

A friend once lamented that her spouse spent Saturdays reading instead of doing household chores. How daring, I thought, to let the weeds grow and dust accumulate, to skip the carwash, all for the sake of a good book. Instead of giving in to responsibility and its discontents, he did as he pleased — and harmed no one. Nevertheless, his wife disapproved.

Why is the act of reading in the daytime considered so disruptive to life’s predictable, often unnecessary routines? It’s almost as though people would rather write than read. Millions of books, including self-published titles, are issued every year. But, <a href="https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/48239-54-percent-of-americans-read-a-book-this-year" target=_blank>according to an Economist/YouGov poll</a>, 46 percent of Americans did not read a book last year. There are any number of explanations for this statistic, but one in particular stands out based on my experience.

Although I am retired, I find it hard to allow myself an afternoon with a book or a long magazine article. Just the thought of settling onto the sofa in daylight hours, especially on weekdays, smacks of laziness and stirs up guilt. If I must sit at all, it should be at a desk or a countertop to do something “useful”— answer an email, write a grocery list, look up a recipe, what have you.

Even procrastination is more socially acceptable than reading, as long as you eventually complete the day’s to-do list. Perhaps that’s because the act of putting off unpleasant tasks, unlike reading, is recognized as a fact of life. Reading, on the other hand, is what you do before you drift off to sleep, glad to have polished off another chapter as book club looms later in the week. Or reading is what you do on vacation, on a train or a plane. It’s not something woven into the daily regime, like brushing your teeth or making dinner. Instead, reading is treated as a luxury to indulge in only after work and all other activities are complete.

This quandary isn’t limited to the average person caught up in the daily hustle. On Story Club, his Substack newsletter, <a href="https://georgesaunders.substack.com/p/office-hours-eeb" target=_blank>celebrated author George Saunders admits</a>, “I’m seldom able to dedicate a couple of hours during the day to reading; most of my reading is done right before bed.”

Reading, to borrow the name of a children’s literacy group, is fundamental. But it’s not considered fundamental to everyday life. Untold resources flow into programs, research and campaigns for motivating readers young and old — but to little avail. Homework is a given, but it isn’t the same as reading just to, well, read. In a society that favors production over reflection, just reading loses out. Forsake all mundane obligations and spend the day reading and, the fear is, you have nothing tangible to show for it.

The good news is that some book lovers are wresting back time to read by adding it to their calendars along with piano lessons and therapy. In 2009, Christopher Frizzelle, then editor in chief of Seattle’s alternative weekly the Stranger, pioneered the first “silent reading party” at the city’s Hotel Sorrento. Accompanied by live piano music, the in-person and virtual reading series fosters “healthy peer pressure” and a sense of community, according to <a href="https://www.silentreadingparty.com/" target=_blank>the Silent Reading Party website</a>.

Silent Reading Party offshoots are proliferating worldwide. <a href="https://silentbook.club/" target=_blank>The Silent Book Club</a>, founded in San Francisco in 2012, has more than 500 chapters in 50 countries, according to its website. In New York, <a href="https://readingrhythms.co/" target=_blank>Reading Rhythms</a> hosts live “reading parties” in bars, restaurants, bookstores and other venues, where guests gather to read, listen to curated music and discuss books at scheduled intervals. The $20 events take place at night and typically sell out weeks ahead of time.

Curious to explore the power of healthy peer pressure, I paid $10 to attend a recent late-night Silent Reading Party on Zoom, combed my hair and waited for my iPad screen to fill with images of people bent over a book at home. Instead, it was just me, someone named Amy who had turned off her camera and the sold-out Sorrento crowd. For two hours, a pianist accompanied readers with dreamy New Age music, occasionally interrupted by the icy clink of a bartender’s cocktail shaker.

I read my book, occasionally forgetting I was not alone. Then I’d peer at the hotel scene, where participants read in silence, took notes and sipped their drinks. No one, as far as I could tell, scrolled on their cellphone. My book finished, my eyes drooping in a different time zone, I left the party a few minutes early.

Although I appreciate the significance the event conferred on the act of reading, I don’t think I’ll join another one. Reading after hours is rarely a problem for me. I just have to say no to what’s cool and streaming. So there’s no reason to open a novel in the company of others after the sun goes down.

Daytime reading, though, still has the allure of a forbidden treat to be resisted at all costs. How to get over this mental block? I could sign up for an afternoon get-together; the Silent Reading Party offers a few, as do a number of Silent Book Club chapters.

But I won’t, for the same reason I have a difficult time reading in daylight. Why tune in to a distant reading party when there are errands to run and friends to walk with?

Ultimately, I have to get over this hang-up on my own, page by page, book by book. With practice, I’ll learn to ignore the insistent call of the everyday, and chores and other obligations will give way to the stillness and joy of reading while the sun moves across the sky.

Stephanie Shapiro

washpost

Why does daylight reading seem so wrong? 

the-washington-post

Michelle Kondrich

(Michelle Kondrich/The Washington Post)

**ONE TIME USE ONLY ILLUSTRATION. MANDATORY CREDIT. For op-shapiro-reading0311 about making time to read in the afternoon.

Editorials

Columns

Guest opinions

Cartoons

Submit a guest opinion

Today's Opinions newsletter

Opinions

Sign up for the Prompt 2024 newsletter for opinions on the biggest questions in politics

Washington Post Opinions

The Washington Post Opinions section features opinion articles, op-eds, editorials by the Editorial Board, global opinions and letters to the editor on the issues of the day. Offerings include columns by Washington Post opinion writers, political cartoons by editorial cartoonists Ann Telnaes and Michael de Adder and podcasts by Jonathan Capehart.

Opinion I’m retired, and I still won’t let myself read in the daytime. Why not?

About guest opinion submissions