#26 Serious Reading

On the practiced slowness and art of taking reading seriously

Hey,

Earlier today, I packed a book, a journal, my agenda, and a laptop into my backpack and left the house in search of a place to read or maybe get some work done on my laptop—somewhere with good coffee, maybe a large table, maybe a little sunlight. I ended up in East London, in De Beauvoir, at a café called “Batch Baby” that’s been on my radar for a while (highly recommend!). Instead of the soft armchairs near the entrance, I chose one of the long tables that are usually intended to be crowded by freelancers and remote workers. I sat down not to work but to read—though upright, deliberate, almost performatively so. I opened my book with the kind of posture we reserve for “real work,” as if to say, both to myself and to anyone watching: this matters.

And as I read—with my coffee patiently waiting on the table—the book began to unfold more clearly than when I’d first picked it up days earlier. The plot came into focus, the relationships sharpened, the writer’s intention revealed itself with more ease. I met the novel with a particular kind of seriousness, and it met me back. It asked for my attention, and I gave it. Not begrudgingly, but willingly.

The idea that reading is a leisure activity—a way to pass time—has always struck me as slightly absurd. Reading isn’t what I do when there’s nothing else. It’s what I do so that everything else can take shape. Reading, like thinking, requires submission—not passivity, but presence. It asks you to stay, to care, to engage.

I’ve always struggled with books picked up “just for fun.” Not because I don’t believe in joy, but because something about the framing—leisure reading—makes it feel optional, ambient. I have a mental picture of what that’s supposed to look like: someone curled up on a sofa, bathed in morning light, blanket over their knees, no particular agenda. It’s beautiful, yes. But it rarely looks like that for me. I often wake up with a hum of urgency. The kind that tells me I should be doing something else—something useful. So when I pick up a book, even fiction, I fight the impulse to check my phone. I fight the idea that this act of reading is indulgent.

Reading, for me, is rarely effortless. Especially at night. I fantasize often about becoming the kind of person who reads before bed, phone in another room, world tuned out. But that quiet doesn’t arrive on its own. It has to be built.

My reading “setup” at Batch Baby. (And an empty plate of delicious banana bread.)

What I’ve realized lately is that reading, like anything worthwhile, demands commitment. In a world that tells us to maximize, to skim, to save time, reading asks the opposite. I remember in architecture school how studio work always overshadowed our theory seminars. We’d cram the readings an hour before class, negotiating how best to “skim effectively.” And while we might have passed through the words, we rarely let them pass through us.

Reading well demands slowness. The kind of slowness that looks effortless but never is. It’s a practice, one that needs space carved out—not only in the day, but in the mind. And lately I’ve found it helpful to treat reading as seriously as I treat work. To sit at a table with a book and nothing else. To say to the book: I’m here. I’m ready.

A book doesn’t hand you its meaning. It stares you down and asks if you’re willing to earn it. There’s an ethics in this, a kind of moral sensibility—not because reading makes you better, but because it makes you aware. Aware of a sentence’s architecture, a metaphor’s echo, the weight of what’s left unsaid. To read with attention is to build a kind of ethical muscle memory.

That doesn’t mean I’ll never read a book on the beach or on the train again. But it does mean I won’t pretend reading happens by accident. I’ll no longer expect the moment to arrive. I’ll arrive for it instead. I’ll take it seriously—not out of duty, but because it’s one of the few things that still reminds me how to be fully present.

Take care,
Melis