The Reading Life as an Emotional Practice, Not a Task List
I’m Priya Chandrasekaran, and I write from Scarborough, Toronto, about contemporary literary fiction as discovery and comfort. I was born in Chennai, and my reading life has always been a conversation between places — the books that found me in one city and the ones that waited for me in another. When people ask how to read more without it feeling like homework, I think they’re really asking how to make reading feel like a relationship again, not an assignment. That’s what this piece is about.
Reading more isn’t about speed or volume. It’s about lowering the barrier between you and the page. The goal is a sustainable rhythm — one that fits around commutes, caregiving, work, and the particular exhaustion of diaspora life. This article sits in the Reading Life & Wellbeing pillar, and it’s part of a larger editorial project here at joyousreads.net: treating reading as an emotional practice, not a performance metric.
Why Reading Starts to Feel Like Homework
Somewhere along the way, many of us absorbed the idea that reading should be productive. That it should improve us. That finishing a book matters more than being changed by it. I notice this most when I catch myself checking page counts instead of paying attention to sentences.
There’s also the pressure of the to-be-read pile. It sits there like a syllabus. Every unread book becomes a small accusation. The result is that we read less, not more, because the whole thing starts to feel like a chore we’re failing at.
I’m not immune to this. In January I made a list of twelve books I wanted to read in 2024. By March I had abandoned the list entirely and was rereading an old favourite instead. That felt like failure for about a week. Then it felt like relief.
The Difference Between Reading and Finishing
Reading is the act. Finishing is a byproduct. When we confuse the two, we turn a pleasure into a task. I try to remind myself that a book I put down after fifty pages still gave me fifty pages. That’s not nothing.
Lower the Barrier: Small Changes That Actually Help
None of these are rules. They’re experiments. Take what fits and leave the rest.
Keep a Book Within Arm’s Reach
The single biggest predictor of whether I read on a given day is whether a book is physically near me. Not on a shelf across the room. Not in a bag I have to unpack. On the arm of the couch, on the kitchen counter, on the passenger seat. If it’s there, I’ll pick it up for five minutes. Five minutes often becomes twenty.
Read Two Books at Once — On Purpose
I used to think this was cheating. Now I think it’s just matching books to moods. A novel for evenings, an essay collection for lunch breaks, poetry for the ten minutes before sleep. When one book isn’t working, the other one is. This is how I read Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan alongside a collection of Tamil short stories in translation. They didn’t compete. They kept each other company.
Let Go of the Book You’re Not Reading
If a book has been on your nightstand for three weeks and you keep choosing your phone instead, that’s information. It’s not a moral failing. It might be the wrong book for this season of your life. Put it in a donation pile or return it to the library. The relief is immediate, and it makes room for something that actually wants to be read.
Use Audio Without Apology
I resisted audiobooks for years because I thought they didn’t count. They count. I listened to The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese on walks through Scarborough in the fall, and I remember whole passages more vividly than things I read with my eyes. Audio is reading. Full stop.
Build a Rhythm, Not a Schedule
Schedules break. Rhythms bend. I don’t read at 9 p.m. every night. I read when there’s a natural gap — waiting for the kettle, waiting for a meeting to start, waiting for my daughter to fall asleep. Those gaps add up.
Anchor Reading to Something You Already Do
Habit research often points to habit stacking — attaching a new behaviour to an existing one. I don’t follow this rigidly, but the principle helps. I read one page while my coffee brews. I read one poem after I brush my teeth. The anchor does the remembering for me.
Protect One Long Stretch a Week
Short reading sessions keep the thread alive. One longer session — an hour, maybe two — keeps the thread from fraying. For me it’s Sunday morning, before anyone else is awake. I don’t always get it. When I do, it changes the whole week.
Make It Social Without Making It a Book Club
Book clubs can be wonderful. They can also turn reading into a deadline. If a formal club feels like too much, there are lighter ways to make reading communal.
Text a Friend One Line
I have a friend in Chennai who sends me a sentence from whatever she’s reading. No context, no review. Just the sentence. I do the same. It’s a small ritual that keeps both of us reading, and it’s become one of my favourite parts of the week.
Follow Readers, Not Influencers
There’s a difference between someone who reads and someone who performs reading. I follow a handful of people on Instagram who post about translated fiction and South Asian debut novels — not hauls, not rankings. Just what they’re reading and what it’s doing to them. That kind of community makes me want to pick up a book, not buy one.
Let Books Find You
I’ve stopped treating my reading list as a plan. Now it’s more like a weather system. Books arrive when they arrive. Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan found me in February, during a week when I was thinking about family and distance. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka found me in June, when I needed something wild and funny and devastating. I didn’t schedule either one. They showed up.
This is the opposite of homework. Homework is assigned. Discovery is received. When you let books find you, reading stops being a task and starts being a relationship.
Rereading Is Not Cheating
I reread more than I used to. Partly because it’s comforting, partly because I notice different things at different ages. A book that felt one way at twenty-five feels another way at forty. Rereading is its own kind of reading, and it belongs in the Rereading & Literary Memory pillar here on the blog.
If you’re stuck in a reading slump, try rereading something you loved. It’s low-stakes. You already know the ending. The pleasure is in the sentences, not the plot. I reread Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje last year and found a whole book I’d missed the first time.
What About the TBR Pile?
The to-be-read pile is not a debt. It’s a library you’re building for your future self. Some books will wait years. That’s fine. They’re not going anywhere.
I keep a small shelf of books I intend to read soon and a much larger shelf of books I intend to read eventually. The small shelf is the one I actually read from. The large shelf is aspirational, and I’ve made peace with that.
Reading as Comfort, Reading as Discovery
These two things aren’t opposites. Comfort is what lets you keep reading. Discovery is what keeps it interesting. A reading life needs both. When I’m tired, I reach for something familiar. When I’m restless, I reach for something translated, something debut, something from a part of the world I don’t know yet.
That balance is the whole editorial thesis of joyousreads.net. Contemporary literary fiction as discovery and comfort. Debut novelists. Translated works. Tamil and South Asian literature. Read slowly, read emotionally, read on your own terms.
FAQ
How many books should I read in a year?
However many you actually read. There’s no correct number. Reading ten books with attention is better than reading fifty in a blur. The number is not the point.
Is it okay to abandon a book halfway through?
Yes. Abandoning a book is not failure. It’s curation. Your reading time is finite, and it belongs to you.
Do audiobooks count as reading?
Yes. Listening to a book is reading it. The format changes; the engagement doesn’t.
What if I’m in a reading slump?
Try something short. Try something you’ve already read. Try a different format. Slumps are normal, and they pass. Don’t force it.
How do I find books that aren’t homework?
Follow readers whose taste you trust. Browse translated fiction shelves. Ask a librarian. Let a book find you instead of assigning it to yourself.
A Next Step
If this resonated, the next piece in this series will be about building a reading rhythm around a full-time job and a family — the specific, unglamorous logistics of it. I’ll also be starting a recurring column called What Found Me This Month, where I write about the books that arrived without being summoned. If you have a question about your own reading life, send it my way. I read every message, usually between chapters.