Reading for Pleasure: An Update
By Kye Hamilton | Personal Blogs | Reading Blogs
April 25, 2026
Read Part One Here.
A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about my quest to “read in the moment.” In it, I described my journey of trying to read one book at a time, and truly focus on the intrinsic value of reading for the sake of pleasure.
Unfortunately, I’ve found myself in an even worse predicament than before: I’ve lost the desire to finish books altogether. For context: I’m a college student nearing graduation who’s in the process of moving and job searching, all while running on the academic treadmill and trying not to senior-slide into oblivion. Because of this reality, reading—and writing by that extension—isn’tt usually at the top of my endless list of tasks.
Moreover, when I do finally find free time at the end of a long day, I usually don't want to put my mind to something challenging, and will simply scroll on my phone or play video games—The typical brain-rot we often find ourselves falling into. I’m finding that this is both the most important and most boring stage in my life, and I fear that one day I’ll reflect on the carelessness of my youth and damn myself for wasting it.
In fact, my frenzy is making me reflect on my last blog a lot. In the same way that the future reading caused me to check out of my present book, I’m constantly thinking of my next task while completing the current one. To take it one step further, I also feel broadly checked out of this stage of my life, already picturing myself in a new city with my first full-time job.
Ultimately, will this conundrum ever stop? After I graduate and move, will I finally be able to live in the present? Will I want to pick up a book? Will I be able to live my life to the fullest? Honestly, I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine your life from one stage to the next. There’s really no way to ease into it, you’re just thrown into the midst.
What I can do is try to be proactive. I’ll begin to practice “being in the moment” without any change incentivising me to do so in the first place. These next few weeks are just as precious as any other in my short life, after all.
I’ve been doing a lot of mental spring cleaning, taking a moment to breathe and really smell the flowers. Since the beginning of the year, I've started half a dozen books and only finished one of the—and it was a hundred and fifty pages. I started with The Brothers Karmatazov and only made it a fifth of the way into its well-over-a-thousand pages before putting it down and moving on to my next book, telling myself I’d focus on it when I had more time. I’ve gotta reach this year’s reading goal somehow, right?
Since then I’ve attempted finishing five other books and, as I said before, only finished one: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. This book was honestly a rejuvenating experience that was really thought provoking and has really made me want to throw myself into literature again and do it right this time. I’ve started a new book and I’m determined to finish it before I move on to the next. Maybe I’ll get back to Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece someday, but, for now, reading at all is what I’d like to focus on the most.
Reading in the moment, and thus, living in the moment isn’t a concept, it's a skill. One that we all need to work on, especially in such a distraction-filled, chaotic world. My life, and the world writ large, is in an avalanche of change right now and I don’t have control over much of it, but I can still enjoy the ride and shove my face in a book while doing it.
