What To Read When You've Run Out Of Reading Material

What to Read When You've Run Out of Reading Material

for the reader who just can't get enough.

Books in your bookshelf. Rereading is like greeting former friends. It means re-entering familiar worlds and receiving warm "welcome home" greetings from your favorite characters.

Poetry. From Edgar Allan Poe to Lang Leav, some poems are as short as five words, others take 1.8 million words. Reading poetry can enhance your language and cognitive skills, open your mind and stimulate your imagination, and make you more aware of the world and the people around you. Here's a compilation of free online poetry sites you can visit.

A topic you're interested in. Ever wondered how the government of Zimbabwe works? The Internet is home to everything you may be wondering about and longing to know. Take time to research and immerse yourself. You'll be armed with trivia that you can bring up in conversations. Stuck? Try experimenting with these weird-but-wonderful topics.

Discarded newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, etc. Besides using them as cat litter box liners and placemats, there's a lot of usefulness in reading them. You can find how-to articles, political opinions, and one-line comic strips. Maybe there's hidden treasure in their text.

Text from cereal boxes and other food containers. Want to know how much calories you consume from your Mars bar? Check the back of its packaging. Before long, you'll learn about terms like monounsaturated fatty acids and disodium guanylate. You are what you eat.

Your old writings. Take a trip down memory lane. It can be your third grade homework, confession letters to your middle school crush, or a story about dragons you made up when you were six. You'll notice how much you've grown as a reader and a writer.

Something from your book list. Your list consists of the books you want to read. These may be recommendations from your friends or interesting books you've seen online. Now's the time to tackle the books on your list. Haven't started on your book list? Take a look at these books!

Similar books from the ones you've previously read. Perhaps your favorite author wrote other books than the ones you've already read. Or maybe you want to keep reading about dystopian communities. Either way, the literary world is interconnected with millions of books for you to read.

Encyclopedias and dictionaries. These were invented for you to read them. Long before Google and other browsing sites existed, your ancestors looked up information from these thick, dusty hardcovers. Time to brush up on your knowledge, buddy.

Your last resort. This is the topic of your nightmares; something that you find boring or useless. You would never, ever dream of reading about this. But with your boredom and desperation to read something, you might find these topics interesting. Learning about the migration patterns of redwings could be useful someday.

"Take your reading material with you everywhere you go and think of it as a treasure and a lifeline."

𝗙𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴💡

There are plenty of ways to maintain focus while we are reading, but here are my top five. I would love to know yours too! Feel free to share them. 📝

Trivia Tuesday #2

After finishing a book, I kiss its front page and sob quietly. I hold it tight and cradle it like a baby. It's my farewell ritual. Afterwards, I don't know if I can find another book that can satisfy the last one I've just read.

"Stories can cross the barriers of time, past, present and future, and allow us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others, real and imagined."

— Andrew Stanton, PIXAR screenwriter, from his TED talk: The Clues to a Great Story

5 Great Articles About Reading

...to help you adapt the habit in our fast-changing world.

Your mom tells you to read. Your teacher or your boss tells you to read. Successful individuals tell you to read. They're right to tell you so.

For non-readers, it's not going to be an easy task. Reading is tedious. Sometimes a bit irksome, too. You find that words are drowning you in boredom and irritation before turning to the next page.

This is why I've collected a list of five helpful articles to aid you in reading actively, effectively, and habitually. Whether you're an avid bookworm like me or a stranger to pages, these articles can help you acquire the habit in our modern-day society.

1. How to Read the Right Way: A Complete Guide | Medium

Even books and reading evolve. In this article, author Melissa Chu tackles the art of speed reading, the pros and cons of different reading formats, and how to read in a changing society.

2. The Complete Guide to Effective Reading | Medium

Worry about memorizing dates for your history exam? Maarten van Doorn takes you into an in-depth analysis of acquiring information into your long-term memory, as well as how to read actively.

3. 14 Ways to Cultivate a Lifetime Reading Habit | Life Hack

Reading is a habit, not a chore. If it isn't one of your pastimes yet, don't worry! Life Hack presents to you 14 ways to make reading a pleasurable and worthwhile habit.

4. The Case for Reading Fiction | Harvard Business Review

Business and companies look for various skills and good characteristics in their employees. Harvard Business Review says that reading literary fiction can help you develop these in-demand traits, and ultimately become a better person.

5. Books are good for your brain. These techniques will help you read more | Popular Science

Here's the science behind the effects and benefits of reading. Popular Science shows you not only how to make reading a habit, but also how to read more and achieve your reading goal.

These are just some of the multitudes of articles I've found to help you learn to read. I hope this helps spark your inner reader!

Reading opens our minds to the world around us, taking us to places even though we're only within four walls.

One real benefit of reading I rarely hear anybody mention is how much more interesting life becomes when you read a lot. It depends what you’re reading, of course, but most (good) books will teach you something you didn’t already know, and even if you have to give the book back to the library, you get to take that much with you. A lot of people talk about things they wish they’d studied in school–I’ve done it, too–but it’s a nice consolation prize that you can always pick up a book and learn something new. And as that library in your brain collects more volumes, everything around you gains new resonances, new context, and new connections which make your lived experience richer. In quarantine alone I’ve read about religion and politics and history and evolution and computer science and astrophysics without even leaving my house and it’s already a more interesting world.