Books

I have so many bookshelves full of wishful reads. I used to do the same with magazines. They are all part of my hopes and dreams to read more.

I love physical books but I’ve committed to Kindle because if I can purchase and start reading a book during that surge of “I want to read this book!” I will usually finish it!

Cookie

I wasn’t diagnosed ADHD until I was an adult partially because I used to hyper focus on reading. As an adult, I find that I hyper focus less in general.

I used to buy so many books that just sat on a shelf. I always wanted to be the kind of person who could just sit down and read a book for hours. Rarely worked out. I'm so grateful for audiobooks.

FWIW ebooks saved me as an ADHD reader. No stack to overwhelm me with guilt. It remembers where I'm up to in each book. And I can swap between titles or jump ahead easily when my "antsy-reader syndrome" kicks in.

Stephen

This piece on Tor helped me feel better about it: https://www.tor.com/2021/05/03/stop-feeling-guilty-about-the-books-you-havent-read-yet/

Josh Neff

Same. It's crazy how much I used to read when I was younger. I actually made it through all of Moby-Dick in high school and it wasn't even assigned, I just read it for fun. Now it takes me a couple of days to read a 150 page novella, and that's assuming I even finish it. The pandemic made my focus on reading even worse. *sigh*

Josh Neff

This!!! 👆. I have 4 on my nightstand. 2 I started on months back and never finished and 2 still waiting to be opened. And then there’s the books on the bookshelves at home and in my office at work.....

Throughout my teens I read every book I could get my hands on, whereas I'm about to complete my thirties having read precisely zero. Which often plays into my belief that I'm making up my ADHD because if I had it, it would have been present from childhood, in which case how do I explain all those books?

James Webley

I feel this! Lately, I can only seem to get through a book by listening to the audiobook version, aside from textbooks for school (which have that extra incentive of being required)

Sam Howard

I'd have to tear out the last 3rd of the pages in the "actually read" books too.

Same and it makes me really sad. Being a reader and lover of books has been a big part of my identity since I was a little kid- it bothers me that I don't know how to be good at that anymore.