My 10 Commandments of Reading

The “rules” of reading that I’m undoing for myself and beliefs I hold dear

The quaintest little bookstore in Iceland that my friend and I nearly missed our flight for.

I’ve always loved reading. So much so that my punishment as a kid was not being allowed to go the library for my weekly book exchange.

I participated in Battle of the Books with my friend during grade school, and told my teachers and parents I was going to be a librarian when I grew up.

As I aged, I let go of the librarian aspiration and traded it for dreams of one day filling my adult home with a beautiful library.

That pretty much came true when my partner moved in with me last year, for he brought with him hundreds of books, tripling the small collection I had built. (It's fitting that we initially began talking over our mutual love for reading.) Our filled-to-the-brim shelves make me happy every time I look at them, though I still fantasize containing everything along a continuous wall, stacked floor-to-ceiling with a ladder like you see in Beauty and the Beast.

My heart beat quickens whenever I walk into a bookstore, and I dream of one day owning one myself, perhaps in my middle-aged chapter (no pun intended).

I’m even related to the founder of the Dewey Decimal System.

Despite all these bookish things, I’ve never finished a book in a day. And the most I’ve ever read in a single year is 22 books, far below the threshold of most book influencers. But I am always reading something, forever a book or two on my nightstand. I am a reader, through and through.

As I've begun writing more—I am a writer now!—it's made me think about my relationship with reading. Something I'm working on in therapy is loosening my reins on perfectionism, allowing for more mental freedom in my life. I realized that some of the mindset shifts I've had about reading are similar in nature. The other half of my reading “commandments” are beliefs I’ve developed over my lifelong reading journey.

Without further ado, I present my 10 commandments¹ of reading, in no particular order.

1. Thou Shalt Treat Their Books How They Want to Be Treated

I used to have a hardcore stance against writing in books or folding pages of any kind. Gradually I loosened up over the years, starting to underline things in books and take the occasional margin note, usually reserved for nonfiction only. When I met my partner, I was aghast to learn he’s an avid dog-ear’er. It felt sacrilegious to me to fold a page, leaving a wrinkle in its wake. He had a good point that writing in pen seemed worse than folding a page, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do it. Until one day, when I couldn’t find a bookmark, I experimented by making the smallest fold I could on the page’s corner, condemning myself as I did it. I intended it to be a one-time thing, but alas, my book was okay. Here we are months later and I find myself folding corners a little more often. (Shh, don’t tell my bookmarks.) The lesson here? Do whatever the hell you want to your books, as long as they are your own!

2. Thou Shalt Be Permitted to DNF²

Oof, this is the hardest one for my Type A, perfectionist personality. It’s really really hard for me to not finish a book, especially once I’ve read more than half of. The first book I can remember not finishing was The Tipping Point and that was 10 years ago; the one I can remember after that was a history book about Iceland. I intended to go back to them both, mostly to soothe my thorough soul, but with enough time I found I had forgotten about them and didn’t care anymore that I had DNF’ed them.

Just last month I struggled my way through the back half of a novel. I had liked it fine but due to only being able to sleepily read a few pages at a time for a couple weeks, I found that I lost interest in the plot simply because I dragged it out so much. This is the time when I’m most persistent about finishing a book, sunk cost fallacy be damned. But I'm always trying to remind myself it is okay to not finish.

3. Thou Can Read Multiple Books at Once

Another habit I was stuck in years ago was only reading one book at a time. Over the the past couple years, as my reading interests and to-read list grew ever longer, I decided to experiment with reading a fiction and a nonfiction book concurrently. It sort of worked, but most of the time I found myself gravitating toward the novel. I’ve noticed that when I read multiple books at once, it usually just means I’m taking longer to finish them, so shouldn’t I just read them one at a time? But there is value to be had in reading what feels right in the moment. For me, sticking to one book means to deny myself pleasure and/or dismiss whatever curious impulse I may have.

As an example, I’m in the middle of Emily Henry’s latest novel, Funny Story, which I’m immensely enjoying. But last night I was caught up thinking about election stress, so I picked up A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works and—gasp!—leafed forward 150 pages to the election section and read the first two chapters. Then I returned to Funny Story as a pleasurable escape before bed. 

I joke that I don’t know how to read multiple books at once, but if you count those I’ve read at least a page from in the past week, it’s four. Five if you count the essay collection I've slowly been combing my way through since May. Maybe I’m onto something!

4. Thou Shalt Be Permitted to Read An Entire Book in A Single Sitting

As someone who grew up in the Harry Potter era, I vividly remember when a new book would come out. My best childhood friend Alex would stay up all night, devouring hers in one sitting. I, on the other hand, would also purchase the book immediately but read it slowly, over the course of several days or weeks. (Somehow I avoided spoilers. It surely helped that social media didn’t exist yet.)

Back then I think I thought I was savoring it, making the goodness stretch out. While there’s certainly a time and place for savoring things, I have enough wisdom now to recognize this as an instance of perhaps being too controlling with myself. Because it wasn’t my parents demanding I turn the lights out and go to bed. It was me, placing this restriction on myself for god knows why?! While I have yet to read a book in one sitting, it’s a goal I have for myself, just to see how it feels.

5. Thou Shalt Not Be Constrained By Format

I’m always going to prefer the experience of reading the written word on a physical page. There is research being done that shows how your comprehension changes when reading a physical thing versus digital, similar to how writing by hand versus typing is better for your memory recall. That said, in the past five or so years I’ve begun incorporating digital and audiobooks into my routine due to the alternative benefits they provide. (Namely, quicker access to new releases at my library and an alternative to podcasts for my long commute.)

While it won't ever feel natural to me to say I read a book when I in fact listened to it, I do believe that consuming a book that way is better than not reading anything at all. I also appreciate the accessibility that audiobooks create—when one of my parents’ friends, a retired judge and lifelong reader, suddenly began losing his sight, he relied on audiobooks. Lately I’ve been trying to be more open to them, especially after listening to this podcast on how they get made. (Currently listening to this audiobook narrated by Julia Whelan!)

6. Thou Shalt Refer to ‘Self-Help’ As ‘Self-Improvement’

This one is plain and simple—consider this my petition to reclassify the “self-help” genre as “self-improvement.” While I’ve never had any shame about reading this genre since it’s one of my favorites, the name has always bugged me. To me, it suggests a prejudice not unlike that of therapy, i.e. there must be something wrong with you if you choose to partake. Caring about oneself enough to read a book about better understanding ourselves is worth applauding. And words matter, so I’m rebranding.

7. Thou Shalt Not Buy Books from Amazon

If I had to pick one of these commandments that I feel most passionately about, it’s this one. I could write an entire post on this belief alone. While I’ve gone back and forth with using Amazon to purchase other items, I do not buy books there³, and I encourage you, dear reader, to do the same. Without getting too far into the weeds, this is a post I love referring people to that brilliantly and succinctly sums up why you shouldn’t use Amazon for books. The TLDR; is that books are cheaper on Amazon because they make up their lost profit margin on other products, which isn’t an option for bookstores. If everyone were to opt for the cheapest option and buy their books on Amazon, it would surely put independent bookstores out of business.

I feel strongly about this because I love independent bookstores and want them to survive. They are the cornerstones of communities (take my parents’ small beach town Book Brigade as an example), whether big or small, and I simply love the physical experience of shopping for a book in a store. Like I said earlier, I dream of someday owning one myself. So by purchasing books from independent sellers or from Bookshop.org, I am voting for the future I want with my dollar.

A brilliant anti-Amazon display I spotted at Powell’s years ago.

8. Thou Shalt Think Critically About What They Read

I strive to be a self-aware reader, i.e. pay attention to who, what, and why I’m reading. How diversified are the authors? The characters? The genres? I’d argue the first two are the most important, for this is how we dispel racism and create empathy and understanding. The latter is a bit more subjective. I understand the argument for reading what you like and perhaps there is too much rigidity in what you “should” read. Either way, I'm a firm believer in open-mindedness, curiosity, and growth and this applies to reading material too. So for genre, pay attention to why you’re reading a particular book—it is because you feel like you should, or because you are challenging yourself to try something new?

9. Thou Shalt Read Anytime During the Day

Something I’m intentionally trying to do more of is read throughout the day. Historically I've done the majority of my reading before bed, right before turning out my light almost every single night. Sometimes its chapters, sometimes it’s just a page or two, but it’s a well ingrained habit nonetheless. As such, practically the only time I'd read a book outside of the bedroom would be while traveling on an airplane or bus, or on vacation sitting by a body of water. I'm actively trying to allocate more time to reading outside bed, because I realized if I reserve it for bed time only, I'm sometimes too tired to get the most out of specific content. (That democracy book was a lot more engaging in the morning than it was late at night!) And I always want to read more because I have so many books I’m interested in reading. It sounds silly, but due to the routine I stuck myself in over the years, it somehow didn’t occur to me I could start my Saturday morning reading a book, or take a break in between household chores to read a chapter or two. Those are things I do more of now, along with reading during lunchtime at work.

10. Thou Shalt Display Their Books However They Wish

If my partner Pete had book commandments, one of his would be a steadfast dedication to alphabetizing books. When I lived alone, I arranged all my books by color, creating a beautiful visual effect I was proud of. Arranging by rainbow order was out of the question when he and I merged our collections together due to the sheer volume. It made sense, because it's a lot easier to find a book by the author’s last name than by having to remember the spine's color. And I’ve grown to love how it feels even more like a library because of the organization. That said, I’m a firm believer that you should display your books however your heart desires. And do it with pride. There are no rules! (Except that if you're going to use books to decorate your home, please read them. 🙃)

My mini-rainbow glowing during golden hour.

What about you? What's on your list of reading commandments? 📚

If you enjoyed this post, you might like these:

Reading Between the Lines

My Year in Books: An Emily Henry and Smash-the-Patriarchy Era

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1. Credit to

Lauren Scott

for the biblical inspiration. Her recent essay about sharing desserts in a Catholic school is hilarious!

2. Book culture slang for ‘Did not finish’

3. Out of curiosity I checked my Amazon history - the last time I purchased a book there was March 2019, honestly more recently than I had thought. It was coincidentally one month before I came across the Instagram post I referenced above.