This post is not for me, it's actually for my husband.
I am an avid reader who ploughs through books and am never without one. I get stressed out if I go out and only have about 25% of whatever I am reading left because then I might not have anything to occupy me. I don't use social media on my phone or anything because I realized how damaging it was to my focus and attention span. Removing all the apps off my phone has been night and day for my mental health!
My husband on the other hand has not read a book, other than the ASOIF novels, since high school and he's 32. So it's been a while since he cracked a book. He's tried a few times but no novel or nonfiction book has been able to hold his attention.
This is where I am sort of stuck. I will read pretty much anything and everything but am very quick to DNF after 15-20 pages unless I have been given reason to push on. There are too many good books to read. I have tried to recommend books I think he will like based on how much he enjoyed the ASOIF books as well as ones that I know men in my life who are avid readers with similar tastes have enjoyed. My dad loved Lies of Locke Lamora, for example, and my husband found it desperately boring.
Normally I wouldn't care in the least and it's not an issue in our marriage, but we are looking to have kids in the near future and I want any children we have to grow up in a house of books with a culture of reading. My husband has agreed as well. He wants to like reading but he's just unable to find something that holds his attention or appeals to him the was Martin's books did.
We're both teachers and are seeing the negative consequences of technology and unlimited screen time so that's why we're not going to allow screens in the house for a long time when we have kids. I jokingly said that I want each kid to have read 2000 books by the time they're 5 but I realized that's actually not as unreasonable as I thought and works out to one of us reading them approximately 1.1 books per day, which is totally doable.
So Reddit, how do I get my husband into reading? Please also send me your suggestions of books you think he might enjoy.
Also if you are going to suggest Dungeon Crawler Carl, I have tried that one too but he doesn't want to read via my kindle and the library doesn't have physical copies either. Stephen King and Grady Hendrix are also off the table as he is scared by even mild horror.
by MoonAndStarsTarot
2 Comments
find an autobiography of someone he loves. it can be a celebrity. a sports person.
or a collection of short stories that he can dip in and out of.
It’s entirely up to the person themselves… Reading requires interest, patience, and curiosity. Without those, a book isn’t a book, it’s an instrument to make your lopsided kitchen table level again. People are either readers or they’re not. I haven’t seen anyone suddenly become interested in books without already having been a reader. Society sabotages reading, and it’d be easier to raise a child to become a reader than to change a full grown adult into a reader.