Used to be an avid reader? How to get back into books

Summary

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Life Kit (NPR): "Used to be an avid reader? How to get back into books"

Host: Marielle Segarra
Date: June 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode of Life Kit, host Marielle Segarra explores how adults who feel disconnected from their former reading habits can rekindle their love of books. Drawing on conversations with authors, neuroscientists, and literary podcasters, Marielle breaks down actionable strategies—in a warm and practical tone—for making reading a joyful and sustainable part of everyday life again.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Let Go of the Perfect Reading Fantasy (00:19–01:29)

• Marielle shares her “daydream” of reading blissfully under a tree, only for reality to interrupt with discomfort and distractions.
• Kevin Wynn, novelist and GQ contributor, debunks the myth that reading time has to be cinematic or Instagram-worthy:
  • “We have this imagination that like, oh, reading time is like this luxurious thing. I'm in my armchair sipping scotch.” (01:01)
  • The reality: if you wait for the perfect moment, you'll barely ever finish a book.
• The message: Give yourself permission to read anytime, anywhere; romantic expectations can get in the way.

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2. The Deep Joy and Social Power of Reading (01:29–02:24)

• Dr. Marianne Wolf, cognitive neuroscientist and author, emphasizes that reading is much more than solitary leisure:
  • “An author gives us a chance to leap into the lives and thoughts and feelings of others, a chance to leap into thoughts that we've never had before, and a chance to even appreciate that in the midst of solitude, we are not alone.” (01:56)
• If you feel out of practice as a reader, you’re not alone—and it is possible to recover that skill:
  • “You have to relearn those muscles.” (02:24)

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3. Four Takeaways to Revive Your Reading Life

Takeaway 1: Read Whenever, Wherever You Can (04:29–05:38)

• Kevin Wynn: The biggest hurdle is simply starting—don’t save reading for rare, perfect conditions.
  • “The hardest part about reading a book is just like opening the book.” (04:35)
  • Use small pockets of free time: waiting in lines, commuting, during school pickups, or even laundry cycles.
• Audiobooks are a great commuting companion:
  • “Driving to work, it's audiobook time. You get on the subway, it's time to like open the book...it's really easy to have that kind of discipline.” (05:02)
• Juanita Giles (Virginia Children’s Book Festival): Scatter physical books everywhere:
  • Bedrooms, bathrooms, cars—“I have an upstairs book and a downstairs book and a car book and a bathroom book and a bathtub book.” (05:23)
  • “Put them all over the place and always have one with you.” (05:36)

Takeaway 2: Read on Paper to Minimize Distraction and Rebuild Focus (06:03–07:16)

• Digital reading breeds distraction. Marianne Wolf:
  • “Distractions are intrinsically built in to our laptops and our phones. We have our attention pulled away. We are awash in distraction.” (06:03)
• On devices, the temptation to skim is strong and undermines deep, immersive reading:
  • “Skimming is one of the greatest disruptions of deep reading.” (06:52)
• Deep reading is a generative, reflective experience:
  • “At the heart of it is the point where we, the reader, go beyond the wisdom of the author to discover our own.” (07:03)
• Wolf shares how she rebuilt her focus: reading for 20 minutes daily for two weeks helped her regain her “old reading self” (07:39).

Takeaway 3: Choose Books That Fit Your Mood, Time, and Taste (09:57–11:15)

• Kevin Wynn advises matching your book to your situation; he reads multiple genres to fit different pockets of time:
  • “When I found myself with like 20–40 minutes on a commute, that was enough time for me to get through a bit of the novel.” (10:24)
• Marianne Wolf and Marielle: Lighter books for quick reads; save poetry or dense novels for unhurried moments.
  • “Different books demand different paces. And some books can be read quite, you know, quickly.” (10:34)
• Tracy Thomas (host, The Stacks Podcast): You don’t owe any book a finish—ditch books you don’t enjoy:
  • “I can tell you usually within 10 to 20 pages if I will like a book...If you want to do anything else but read, that might be a sign that you don’t like what you’re reading.” (11:02)
  • Abandoning bad fits is “cultivating taste.”

Takeaway 4: Set Gentle Goals and Track Progress (11:56–13:46)

• Mansi Khurana (NPR producer): Setting simple, achievable goals (e.g., a book a month) helped her get back in the groove.
  • “By writing down each book I read, I was able to see how easy it was to reach that goal.” (11:56)
• Vary the challenge: Track pages, genres, or set thematic goals (12:14).
• Keep a reading journal, rate books, jot down thoughts and quotes—reflect, don’t compete:
  • “It is a way for you to sort of reflect later...Think of it more as a reflection, not necessarily a competition.” (12:46)
• Reading can be social too: book clubs, author events, quiet reading nights, or simply reading in public places alongside others (13:19).

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Memorable Quotes

• Kevin Wynn: “If you wait for all those moments, you’re never going to finish a book.” (01:19)
• Marianne Wolf: “We are awash in distraction.” (06:03)
• Marianne Wolf: “Skimming is one of the greatest disruptions of deep reading.” (06:52)
• Tracy Thomas: “Your reading hobby is not a job and you don’t have to finish that book.” (11:08)
• Mansi Khurana: “It feels really good to be able to see exactly how many books you’ve read...It is not meant to be something where you are competing with others.” (12:46)

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• [01:01] – Kevin Wynn debunks the “luxurious” reading fantasy
• [01:56] – Marianne Wolf on how reading connects us, even in solitude
• [05:23] – Juanita Giles on keeping books everywhere
• [06:03] – Marianne Wolf on device-related distractions
• [07:39] – Wolf’s two-week, 20-minutes-a-day reading experiment
• [09:57] – Kevin Wynn on matching books with time and energy
• [11:02] – Tracy Thomas on how to know if a book isn’t for you
• [11:56] – Mansi Khurana describes her ‘one book per month’ goal
• [12:46] – Mansi Khurana: reading tracking as self-reflection

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Recap of Takeaways (13:31)

1. Read whenever you can, wherever you are.
2. Paper books foster deeper, less distracted reading.
3. Pick books that fit your mood and life. Don’t hesitate to quit books you dislike.
4. Set gentle personal goals, track your progress—but keep it fun, reflective, and pressure-free.

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Tone & Style

The episode is friendly, reassuring, and practical, with the experts emphasizing self-compassion, flexibility, and enjoyment over perfectionism or competition in reading.

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For more practical advice on everyday challenges, explore other Life Kit episodes. And remember: the priority is simply to read more and enjoy it.

Transcript

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[Mariel Segarra]

You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, it's Marielle. I have this daydream where I go to the park and read under a tree. The sun is shining. The temperature is not too hot, but not chilly either. The ground beneath me is comfortable. I have snacks on hand. I'm hydrated, and I am captivated by the book in front of me. It doesn't usually pan out like this. In reality, two minutes in, I'm sweating, my butt hurts from sitting on tree roots. I realize I forgot the snacks and I can't focus. So I close the book, go home, turn on the tv. A lot of us make this mistake when it comes to reading. We think it should feel romantic, like this landmark event in our day.

[Kevin Wynn]

You know, we have this imagination that like, oh, reading time is like this luxurious thing. I'm in my armchair sipping scotch.

[Mariel Segarra]

Kevin Wynn is the author of the novels My Documents and New waves. And in 2017, he wrote an article for GQ called How to Read a Whole Damn Book. Every week.

[Kevin Wynn]

You have to make it a more regular habit than that because if you just wait for all those times when you're drinking scotch, hopefully you don't drink that much scotch. Hope you read more than drink scotch. But yeah, if you wait for all those moments, you're never going to finish a book.

[Mariel Segarra]

Whether your reading daydreams involve you at the park, in an armchair, at a lakeside retreat or on the beach. What if you let those go and allowed yourself to read whenever, wherever, because you don't want to miss out? Reading is a joy. Marianne Wolf is a cognitive neuroscientist at ucla, an author of Reader Come Home. The Reading Brain. In a digital world, an author gives

[Marianne Wolf]

us a chance to leap into the lives and thoughts and feelings of others, a chance to leap into thoughts that we've never had before, and a chance to even appreciate that in the midst of solitude, we are not alone.

[Mariel Segarra]

On this episode of Life kit, we have four tips to help you read more this summer, and Marianne says if you've fallen off the wagon, you can get back on.

[Marianne Wolf]

I'm telling you that will happen, but you have to relearn those muscles.

[Mariel Segarra]

It just takes time. That's coming up after the break.

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[Mariel Segarra]

picking up where we left off, our takeaway one is read when you can, wherever you are.

[Kevin Wynn]

The hardest part about reading a book

[Mariel Segarra]

is just like opening the book, kevin Nguyen says. Instead of waiting for that perfect distraction, free cinematic moment, look for smaller chances throughout the day. Standing on the train platform, there's a few minutes to read in a long line. For lunch, you can get a few pages in. Read when you're early to school pickup or when you're waiting for your clothes to be done at the laundromat. And if you commute to work, well, that's a gimme.

[Kevin Wynn]

Driving to work, it's audiobook time. You get on the subway, it's time to like open the book. I'm not gonna play video games on my phone or listen to a podcast. It's really easy to have that kind of discipline. Cause it's sort of like a sequestered part of your day where you decide, I'm doing this thing at this time.

[Mariel Segarra]

Now, to set yourself up for success here, you need to have books within reach.

[Marianne Wolf]

I have an upstairs book and a

[Mariel Segarra]

downstairs book and a car book and

[Marianne Wolf]

a bathroom book and a bathtub book.

[Mariel Segarra]

Juanita Giles is the executive director of the Virginia Children's Book Festival.

[Marianne Wolf]

I have books everywhere.

[Mariel Segarra]

Put them all over the place and

[Marianne Wolf]

always have one with you.

[Mariel Segarra]

And pretty soon you'll pick one up and you'll start reading and then there you go. Now you might be thinking, how can my e reader or my tablet be in five places at once? Yeah, you're gonna need good old fashioned paper and ink books for this. And you don't have to buy them all. Your local library will be happy to supply. In general, a lot of folks will download books to their laptops or their phones or tablets and read there. But Marian says that is tricky to do.

[Marianne Wolf]

Distractions are intrinsically built in to our laptops and our phones. We have our attention pulled away. We are awash in distraction.

[Mariel Segarra]

When you read on a device like your phone, you're just one moment away from a text, an email, a Slack message, a news alert. And even if you turn those off, you might still go looking for other entertainment on your browser or on Instagram, just out of habit. You may also default to your typical screen behaviors, which for a lot of us includes skimming for information.

[Marianne Wolf]

You're going to skim no matter what, because that's what we do. We want to get to the bottom and we want to scroll. We want to get to the next, the next, the next.

[Mariel Segarra]

Now, skimming can be helpful when you're reading emails or when you're trying to stay on top of the news.

[Marianne Wolf]

But the reality is that skimming is one of the greatest disruptions of deep reading.

[Mariel Segarra]

And Marianne says deep reading can be a beautiful way to slow down.

[Marianne Wolf]

At the heart of it is the point where we, the reader, go beyond the wisdom of the author to discover our own.

[Mariel Segarra]

Sounds pretty great, huh? To get there takeaway 2 try reading more paper books when you can. You'll have a better chance of minimizing distractions, especially if you're in a moment where you can't seem to get into any books. By the way, Marianne has also gone through periods where she couldn't practice deep reading. She once tried to reread a favorite of hers, the Glass Bead Game by Herman Hess.

[Marianne Wolf]

It was just painful. And what I had to do is what I'm going to tell your listener. For two weeks, I forced myself to read 20 minutes a day, only 20 minutes as if I was just going to force myself to try to be that older version of a reader. And I will admit it took me two weeks. And then it was like coming home to my old reading self.

[Mariel Segarra]

Coming up how to choose a book you can't put down.

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from Takeoff by IXL, the K through 5 core math curriculum that continuously differentiates learning everything teachers need to personalize instruction is on TakeOff's digital platform. Learn more at takeoff by IXL.com this message comes from Instacart let's talk groceries. Specifically your groceries. With Instacart, you want your groceries just the way you like them, right? Well, the Instacart app lets you do just that. They have a new preference picker that lets you pick how ripe or unripe you want your bananas. Shoppers can see your preferences upfront, helping guide their choices. Instacart get groceries just how you like.

[Mariel Segarra]

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[Mariel Segarra]

All right, takeaway three. If you want to read more, you've got to pick the right books, right for you and right for the moment. Kevin Wynn tries to match the books he reads to the amount of time

[Kevin Wynn]

he has available, usually reading a couple novels at a time, a nonfiction book and then maybe a comic book. They just feel so different. And then like when I found myself with like, you know, 20 to 40 minutes on a commute, that was enough time for me to get through a bit of the novel.

[Mariel Segarra]

Because books have different textures and they demand different kinds of attention. It's smart to adjust accordingly. Like, you might want to read something lighter when you're at the dmv.

[Marianne Wolf]

Different books demand different paces. And some books can be read quite, you know, quickly. The fact is Sid Hartik can be read a lot faster than Narcissus and Goldman or Glass Bead Game or. Or poetry. Poetry requires a different pace too.

[Mariel Segarra]

Now, if you're trying to read a book and you've been struggling to get into it, ask yourself, do I even like this? Tracy Thomas is the host of the literary podcast the Stacks. For my work, I have to read books and finish books that I do not always like. I can tell you usually within 10 to 20 pages if I will like a book. But your reading hobby is not a job and you don't have to finish that book. I think if you're falling asleep while you're reading it, that's a good sign that maybe you don't like it. I think that if you are constantly checking your phone while you're reading, that that might be a sign that you don't like it. I think that if you want to do anything else but read, that might be a sign that you don't like what you're reading. And Tracy says, putting down a book you don't like, that's called cultivating taste. Alright, last up takeaway four. You're back in the habit of deep reading books that you actually like, and you want to keep that momentum going. Why not try setting some goals? When NPR producer Mansi Khurana was a kid, she loved reading. But as an adult, she got away from it.

[Mansi Khurana]

I made a really simple read a book a month, 12 books a year. And by writing down each book I read, I was able to see how easy it was to reach that goal. I increase that goal a little bit every year to make it so that it's something that I'm working towards.

[Mariel Segarra]

You can also set goals based on the types of books you read.

[Mansi Khurana]

For example, if you're a big fan of long War and Peace type classics, it might be more interesting for you to read only three books a year and actually just count the number of pages you're reading. Or if you're someone who wants to read more science fiction, maybe you notice you gravitate more towards nonfiction and you really want to change that. You can make a goal to read two new books from two new science fiction writers.

[Mariel Segarra]

While you're at it, why not start a reading journal or a spreadsheet to track your progress. You can rate each book, add notes and favorite quotes.

[Mansi Khurana]

It feels really good to be able to see exactly how many books you've read. Oh, this is the one that I really liked this year. This is the one that I gave five stars to. This is the one that I rated the highest. It is a way for you to sort of reflect later. It is not meant to be something where you are competing with others or you are trying to prove something to other people. Think of it more as a reflection, not necessarily a competition.

[Mariel Segarra]

Though Manzi says reading does not have to be entirely solitary. You could join a book club.

[Mansi Khurana]

I love going to authors talks at local libraries. There's also a huge trend of quiet reading nights at certain places where you can just go sit and read and you don't even have to interact with anyone.

[Mariel Segarra]

You can also just read in a public space where other people also happen to be reading. Going back to our first tip, don't wait for that perfect moment. Just get started. Okay, time for a recap. Takeaway 1 read when you can, wherever you are. Takeaway 2 you'll do your best deep reading on paper, not on a device. Takeaway 3 if you want to read more, you gotta pick the right books. Try matching the books you read to the time you have available. And if you don't like a book, put it down. There are so many other options. And Takeaway four To keep the momentum going, try setting some goals, maybe starting a reading journal. But if that feels overwhelming or like it's going to stop you from opening a book at all, skip it. Remember, the priority is simply to read more and experience the joy that comes with it. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We have one on how to make a small home feel bigger and another on whether you should buy gold right now. Also, we love hearing from you, so if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, email [e-mail] this episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglas. Our digital editor is Malika Garib and our Visuals editor is CJ Ricolon. Megan Kane is our senior Supervising Editor and Beth Donovan is our Executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Taegel, Claire Marie Schneider and Margaret Serino. Engineering support comes from Sina Lofredo. Fact Checking by Tyler Jones Special thanks to Barclay Walsh. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening.

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