As we enter November, and the only tab open on your laptop is JSTOR, the weariness of reading another academic journal after another boring article is well and truly setting in. Reading becomes a laborious task, rather than an exciting delve into new worlds, new topics and new knowledge. Coupled with needing a desperate escape from the gloominess of the sun setting at six o’clock, a good book is needed more than ever. But how can we overcome reading fatigue?
When I tell people that I study English Literature and History, the first and most common response I receive from people is “Wow, that’s a lot of reading.” A very astute observation, I know, but nevertheless it is true. I had a friend in Fourth Year Business ask me the other day how to get a book out of the library, and I felt simultaneously shocked for her and slightly depressed for myself at the difference between our two college experiences.
Now, I love a good book. There is no feeling like being in a foreign country, picking which book to take with you and absorbing it in a week. But when I’m forced to read something by a syllabus, or to help flesh out my essay research, all the life, colour and joy is vacuumed out of it, leaving me looking forlorn on Ussher 2, yearning for someone to suggest a trip to the Pav. And when I find myself complaining about the amount of reading I must do, there’s a bit of shame that sneaks its way in. I chose this degree: I am not being forced against my will, hands tied behind my back in front of a copy of Hamlet. Yet it often feels like it.
When it gets to this point in the year, I find that the best books are easy to read. I don’t know many people who, on top of the regular college workload, are choosing to pick up a copy of Ulysses. You want something relatable, easily digestible, that makes you feel lighter upon reading it. Stepping out of the claustrophobia of Dublin for twenty pages can do your mind the world of good. I know how tempting it can be to use those study breaks to scroll mindlessly through your phone, and how instantly gratifying the serotonin hit is of short-form content. But the effect on our attention spans is not to be underestimated. It seldom gives your mind the break it is craving, and instead, your eyes become tired, and that headache just gets worse.
One book I come back to again and again is Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, an autobiography of a struggling journalist through her late teens and early twenties, through lost love, through career struggles, through grief. It includes anecdotal comedic tales, such as The Bad Date Diaries, as well as a recipe for scrambled eggs. It is a book I have read countless times, have bought two copies of and will recommend until I am six feet under. During my first year at Trinity, it remained in my college bag for the whole year, always on hand when I needed to be drawn away from financial concerns, or was stressed that a grown man wasn’t sending me a selfie every twenty minutes. A book that gives perspective is truly a book that can change lives. And this is the book for me. It served as a reminder that the years from the end of school until your late twenties are messy, complicated, but full of life. As someone who can get absorbed by love and romance, it drew me out of cataclysmic feelings that occurred after break-ups. Reading a chapter called Tottenham Court Road and Ordering Shit Off Amazon is an experience I think everyone needs to have. It’s a celebration of the mundanity of life, as well as the power of female friendship, and that love can be so many things, not just a romantic stereotype of someone tracing “I love you” on your back. It reminds me every time I open it that each life experience, each failure and success, can be a story that explains who you are. And it has a great ice cream recipe, as a bonus.
I am also a fan of an Instagram quote. One of my favourite quotes goes like this: “They’ll tell you that the arts and humanities aren’t practical and then read poetry at funerals and weddings, cry over films and search for meaning in ancient philosophy. Surviving is one type of practicality, knowing why we bother is another.” This was written by Joe Uili, and I go back to it anytime I feel weary of my degree, or when someone tells me I’m not studying a real subject (you know who you are).
Stepping out of the monotony of academic reading and into something raw with emotion, with truth and humour, reminds us why the written word is an essential part of human existence.
We don’t read to understand the author’s life story, the meaning behind each intricate metaphor, or to examine the poet’s use of iambic pentameter. We read because writing is an expression of everything it is to be human.
So when you wake up over the next few months, and the sky seems permanently grey, I’d recommend having a book, not necessarily one that makes you think, but one that makes you feel. College can be tough. It can be lonely, monotonous and excruciatingly tiresome. Give your mind a break, and to avoid a two-hour TikTok doom-scroll, read ten pages of something that makes you smile.
