Commentary: Your urge to get through the book is ruining reading

LONDON: My happiest times in childhood were spent reading the books of E Nesbit, CS Lewis and Joan Aiken.

The adult world presents a constant temptation to turn every activity into a competitive sport, and reading is no exception. It is beset with targets, hierarchies and categorisations. This raises a fundamental question: Why do we read at all? Do we want to enjoy books, or download them into our brains? Are we so obsessed with being able to tick a book title off a check-list that we risk forgetting that reading is a physical and emotional activity as well as an intellectual one?

As an adult, it is possible to recapture that immersive involvement with a book. What we need is the opportunity to focus entirely on the words, and a willingness to ignore stress-inducing challenges and targets.

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