Stop Scrolling, Start Reading

Put down your phone, pick up a book, and get happy.

Doesn’t this look better than doomscrolling? Photo by Kamala Bright on Unsplash

Friends, I have a simple thought for summer, for shaking off the increasing sads being blared to us from all types of media, for a return to analog delights or for using tech at its best. The thought is simple:

Stop scrolling, start reading.

I’m talking about reading BOOKS, my friends. Paperbacks, hardcovers, e-books. Nonfiction, novels, memoir, graphic novels, graphic memoir, Young Adult, mature adult, spicy romance, salty truths… Whatever your flavor, in whatever form works for you.

I recently rediscovered a magical place full of books: it’s called the public library. These nice people are willing to lend me books for free. All I have to do is get a card. I knew about this place when I was a child; one day, our TV went on the fritz, and my wise Mom said, “We can’t afford a new TV. Go to the library.”

Go to the library. A life-changing directive if ever there was one. I didn’t read books so much as devour them. Anyone who was ever a kid toting a new book home knows this unique type of excited joy. That feeling doesn’t fade with age.

Reading books instead of watching TV made me smarter, more curious about life and other people and places, made me ask questions, opened my mind, even determined the course of my life: eventually, I would write my own books.

When I worked at O, the Oprah Magazine as a writer and editor, reading books at our desks wasn’t just allowed, it was part of our job. Because of Oprah’s Book Club, we got tons of books at the office. I had a 45-minute commute each way, and I’d read on the way to work and on the way home. I went through a lot of books back then.

I still love books, though as a writer forced into unwilling retirement due to AI, I’ve been buying fewer books over the years. Recently, I remembered my mother’s edict: Go to the library. I did. I experienced that new-book thrill, same as when I was a kid.

Then, savvy friends introduced me to something relatively new: library apps. Hoopla, Libby, and others allow you to sign in with your library card and sign out e-books. What a time to be alive!

And what a time to stop scrolling. I’m not suggesting we turn a blind eye to all the things going on in the world, or to be uninformed. I’m suggesting we stop doomscrolling. Get your fact-based, unbiased news; do what you can to change the world, or your corner of it; and then, get off social media and get a book. Go to the library.

To jumpstart your Stop Scrolling, Start Reading summer, here’s a great list from Sari Botton of Oldster Magazine (which itself is full of great reads) to get you started.

Oldster Bookshelf #3

Friends, here’s to a summer of great reads—and beyond.

What are you reading now? What’s your favorite type of book—memoir, nonfiction, graphic novels, cozy mysteries featuring cats?

Or, if you’d like to buy me a coffee, click here. Thank you!