Reading Glasses Ep 432 - Hot Tips for Focusing on Reading + Adam Sokol!

Date: October 9, 2025
Hosts: Brea Grant & Mallory O’Meara
Special Guest: Adam Sokol

Episode Overview

In this episode, Brea and Mallory dive into strategies and practical tips for improving reading focus in an era of constant distraction, with a special emphasis on phone habits and self-compassion when reading feels hard. They test out the Focus Friend app (created by Hank Green) and interview returning guest Adam Sokol—longtime Reading Glasses fan favorite and now debut novelist—about his new book The Ballad of Bonaventure Palmier, parenting, and maintaining a reading life through major life changes.

Main Discussion: How to Focus on Reading (16:14–30:06)

The Challenge of Focus in 2025

• Mallory candidly discusses new struggles with focus, possibly due to hormonal changes or evolving ADHD symptoms:

  "Some days it's really bad and just like sitting down to read at all can be a real struggle for me…I’m having a lot of trouble sitting down and just like sitting down and reading in the afternoon just seems like impossible to Me." (16:38)

• Brea shares that quitting social media has been transformative for her ability to focus:

  "That's around the exact same time where I got off social media…Turns out it's great. It really helps." (17:30)
  "I hate to say it, but it's true. Being off your phone is good." (17:34)

Notable Quote:

"No one's strong enough. It's designed to us up guys. Even because we can't throw our phones into the ocean."
—Mallory (19:28)

Top Reader Focus Tips

• Remove Phone Distractions:

  • Put your phone on Do Not Disturb or physically out of reach.
  • Limit notifications to only truly important contacts.
  • Mallory: "If I just go put the phone, like, slightly out of reach...I don't know when that happened, but if I just scoot that phone slightly forward...out of reach..." (20:24)

• Honor Your Brain’s Cravings—Unless It’s Your Phone:

  • Brea lets herself binge a show, play a video game, or take a break from reading when needed, without guilt:

    "I don't want reading to feel like a chore..." (21:23)

  • After indulging in the distraction, the desire to read often returns.

• Use Timed Reading Sprints:

  • Set a short, manageable goal—20 minutes, or a certain page/percentage.
  • Reward yourself after with a break.
  • Mallory: "I give myself a goal and it's short these days. It's short. It's 20 minutes..." (22:49)
  • Brea: "If you keep it up even a little bit, you will have an easier time when you are in the mood to read." (24:45)

• Consider the Book, Not Just Yourself:

  • Mallory urges listeners not to blame themselves if they can’t focus:

    “Maybe it is the book, maybe it's not you. So like, don't internalize all the blame. Like, blame the book. Maybe it's a shitty fucking book. Get it out of here.” (27:19)

• Creative Timers:

  • Use ambiance videos timed for Pomodoro (25 minutes) or a record player to define a reading session (one side = one reading sprint).
  • Brea: “…I use my record player because one side of a record is only like 10 to 20 minutes. So I'll be like, all right, just focus on reading until you get it. Have to get up to flip the record.” (27:55)

• Special Focus for Readers with ADHD

  • Bria welcomes listeners with ADHD to send in their tips (29:55), acknowledging that brain differences require alternative approaches.

Listener Feedback & Reading Community (05:56–13:27)

Libby App—Hot Tips:

• Utilize Libby’s tag feature to organize TBR lists by mood/season; then sort by "Available Now" to prioritize instant reads. (06:00–07:11)

Encouraging Motivation & International Access:

• Listener "Charles/Sarah" shares a story about returning to reading thanks to recommendations and goal episodes; emphasizes support from the show's advice. (07:27–08:23)
• International listeners are crowd-sourced for practical solutions to accessing English-language ebooks/audiobooks (notably US library cards for Libby) in light of recent policy changes. (09:10–10:52)

Wheelhouse Highlight:

Sarah's Wheelhouse:
"Compentence point, especially when kindness is beside competence. Animal sidekicks who are main characters in the story. Dense space operas that get all political. Satire that is mocking human behavior, but with kindness." (10:52)

Author Interview: Adam Sokol (31:32–57:47)

Adam's Reading & Parenting Journey

• Adam shares current reads and notes what his baby daughter, Ren, is loving—especially Anti-Racist Baby and Sesame Street’s "Monster at the End of This Book." (32:52)
• His reading pile includes big buzzers like V.E. Schwab's Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil and Fredrik Backman’s My Friends, and the reflective The Swimmers and When the Cranes Fly South. (33:59–39:12)
  • “Frederik Backman writes these lines and these little things that make me want to stop listening and go start writing.” (35:44)

On The Ballad of Bonaventure Palmier

• Adam’s debut blends magical realism and found family with vignettes and fables, inspired by his own transformative life changes at the end of the pandemic.
• It’s “the story of an older man who...reflects back on his life," featuring circus magic and fairy-tale interludes, with strong “Glasser Nip” appeal. (40:11–42:35)

Focus Strategies for Readers & Parents

• Audiobooks are a Lifeline: Adam listens while caring for his baby, finding it easier to focus this way than with physical books. (44:10)

• Reading One-Handed:

  “I have steered away from hardcover books because they're too heavy... If I'm reading an ebook, I can...swipe through a book on one hand.” (45:08)

• Airplane Mode for Digital Reading:

  “If you're reading anything virtually on your phone...disconnect from the Internet because the book's already there. It's already downloaded.” (48:06–49:52)

• Carving New Schedules:

  • Adam and his partner Alex discovered new reading windows after baby bedtime, and intentionally put away phones for book time.

• Creative Life with Kids:

  “The things that you love doing, keep doing them. With Wren, she came into our life, not the other way around.” (50:01)

Notable quote:

“This is gonna sound like tough love, but just figure it out. Like, find time to do things. Because kids are amazing and they're a lot, but also, like, they're really malleable...” (53:58)

Adam's Updated Wheelhouse (54:10)

• “Small stories about big emotions,” family/interpersonal tales, pastoral settings, Gothic horror, magical realism, nature nonfiction, and reflective elderly protagonists.

“I still love what I call small stories about big emotions. That's gonna be the way I describe books that I love, I think, until I'm no longer.” (54:46)

Book Tech Review: Focus Friend App (57:59–62:59)

What is Focus Friend?

• A free app (by Hank Green) that gives you a cute “bean” who can only knit when you stay off your phone.
• Set a timer (5 minutes–2 hours); if you use your phone, the bean drops their knitting.
• Socks earned during focus mode unlock decorative items for your bean’s “house.”

Hosts' Reactions

• Mallory:
  "I love this little bean. He's so cute. He is so cute." (58:52)

  "It made me go, well, I'm not gonna...there was like, oh, I should send this one text. And I picked up my phone and it was like, well, you have seven minutes left. And I was like, well, I can wait seven minutes to send a text. Yeah, there's no. It does help." (60:46)

• Brea:
  Loves naming her bean, using the lock screen display as a deterrent, and gamifying her focus:

  “Please consider me part of Bean Nation...It's very cute. It's very easy to use. It's completely free. It does not track your data.” (61:08)

• Both rate the app a flawless 5/5 for readers looking to minimize phone distractions.

Notable Quote:

"Our brains are all rotted on there...But am I gonna bother this little bean? Like, it really externalizes it, which helps a lot. You know, let him knit."
—Brea (62:06)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• "No, I don't want reading to feel like a chore. I never want to be like slapping myself on the wrist and be like, no, got it. Time for reading... that's just one way ticket to slump town, baby." —Mallory (21:23)
• "Make sure you like what you're reading." —Mallory (26:21)
• "He's just a silly baby. What does she know? She can't do anything." —Adam Sokol (50:26)
• "Focus Friend... five out of five pages for me. It's free. It really helps you... it's great for reading, it's great for staying off your phone." —Brea (62:08)

Episode Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening Book Chat: 00:38–05:45
• Listener Feedback & Libby Tips: 05:56–13:27
• Main Focus Strategies: 16:14–30:06
• Adam Sokol Interview: 31:32–57:47
• Book Tech Review – Focus Friend: 57:59–62:59

Resources & Recommendations

• The Ballad of Bonaventure Palmier by Adam Sokol — Available via Amazon (paperback/ebook) or request at your library via Libby
• Focus Friend App: iOS & Android, free, by Hank Green

Closing Thoughts

This episode is packed with practical, judgment-free advice for building or re-building reading focus, whether you’re battling phone addiction, new-parent brain, or the stress of modern life. Mallory, Brea, and Adam all encourage a compassionate approach: remove distractions, keep the habit alive in small ways, forgive yourself for slumps, lean into joy, and let technology (like Focus Friend) cheer you on.

For book lists, show notes, and more: Reading Glasses newsletter link in the show notes or find the community on Discord/Facebook.