Rediscovering the joy of reading
There was a time when reading was a refuge, a lucid pause in the noise of everyday life. Today, that silence is rare. Our days are broken into digital fragments, swept away by a constant stream of messages, notifications, and screens that seize our attention without ever truly holding it. In this perpetual state of distraction, the book has lost ground.
Reading requires presence, a kind of grounding in the moment, qualities our time scatters. And it’s precisely for that reason that reading has become an act of resistance. A way of saying no to distraction, of suspending the flow, of returning to oneself. To read is to slow down, to feel differently, to reconnect, through words, with depth, and with others.
But how can we rebuild that bond when reading has become almost foreign? How do we breathe life back into a practice that feels lost? Perhaps the answer lies in reconciliation, with our attention, our curiosity, and above all, with pleasure.
In Like a Novel, Daniel Pennac argued for a form of reading free from pressure or obligation. Far from rigid curricula and assigned books, he envisioned reading as an encounter, not a chore. According to Pennac, reading is not a moral duty or academic task, but a personal resonance, a moment of being touched, disturbed, transformed. Reducing it to a timed, graded exercise betrays its very nature.
Still, that’s often what we do. Schools frequently teach reading as if it were a technical skill, through instructions, objectives, and grades. What should be an inner adventure becomes just another task to check off. Pleasure is sidelined, treated as a luxury, or worse, as suspect. But reading out of obligation is already a way of renouncing its magic. The love of books isn’t transmitted through coercion, but through desire.
The more we try to control it, the further we push it away. How many children have truly discovered the magic of books outside the classroom, where no one demanded a summary, analysis, or commentary, but simply let them dive into a story and linger there as long as they wished?
Restoring spontaneity to reading also means restoring trust in the reader. Far from standardized expectations or imposed rhythms, each person must be allowed to follow their own pace, across their own landscapes. Because the reader’s journey is like no other, and that’s what makes it so precious.
Your brain on books: How reading rewires the mind
Reading isn’t innate. The brain isn’t born a reader, it becomes one. To decode written language, it repurposes neural circuits for speech, vision, and attention, blending them into a novel system. In the left fusiform gyrus, a region known as the visual word form area becomes specialized in recognizing words at a glance. But reading is more than seeing, it is understanding, imagining, feeling.
As the eyes glide over a sentence, the entire brain comes to life: frontal areas orchestrate syntax, temporal regions parse meaning, parietal lobes focus visual attention. Reading ignites intense mental activity, memory, mental imagery, emotion, far beyond mere recognition. To read is to think in motion.
And this motion has lasting effects. Neuroscience research shows that regular reading strengthens neural connectivity, particularly among networks involved in language, attention, and memory. It’s a form of cognitive training, enhancing our ability to concentrate, to follow complex reasoning, to structure thought. It fortifies attention in a world that constantly fragments it.
For children, reading jump-starts language development, enriches vocabulary, and sharpens emotional understanding. It also fosters theory of mind, the ability to infer what others feel or think, a key foundation for empathy. Unsurprisingly, children exposed early to reading tend to perform better not just academically, but socially as well.
But the benefits of reading extend far beyond childhood. In adulthood, it maintains cognitive flexibility, hones critical thinking, and strengthens our ability to connect ideas and embrace nuance. Regularly reading literary fiction improves our understanding of human behavior, our sensitivity to subtext, and our ability to interpret the unsaid. And later in life, reading becomes a powerful ally against cognitive decline. Longitudinal studies, such as those led by Robert S. Wilson’s team at Rush University in Chicago, show that older adults who read frequently experience significantly slower cognitive deterioration. Reading may help build what scientists call cognitive reserve: a kind of mental capital accumulated over time, allowing the brain to better withstand aging and neurodegenerative diseases.
Still, the impact of reading extends well beyond cognition. Reading is also a way of caring for oneself. Psychological studies have shown that just six minutes of reading can reduce stress levels by over 60%, more than music or even a walk. It acts as a mental reset, a deep breath amidst the constant buzz. It helps slow the heart rate, relax muscles, and ease inner restlessness.
It also benefits sleep. Reading a few pages before bed, away from the glare of blue-light screens, helps the brain wind down and transition more easily into rest. And perhaps most profoundly, reading helps us live better with ourselves. It opens windows onto other lives and other ways of being, which can gently illuminate our own shadows.
The illusion of speed: Why real reading can’t be rushed
Everywhere we see tempting promises: “Read a book in an hour,” “300 pages in 20 minutes.” Seductive claims, but neurologically misleading. Reading isn’t a race. It demands far more than our eyes. True reading activates a complex network in the brain. Working memory holds the information, reasoning organizes it, imagination dresses it in mental images. Then comes emotional understanding, interpretation, reflection. All of this takes time.
In rushing, we erase the essential. We may recognize the words, but no longer think with them. We skim, without inhabiting them. It’s like watching a movie’s headlines without experiencing the scenes. Meaning doesn’t unfold in a glance, it weaves itself slowly, between lines, in silences, in the very slowness of the act.
That’s why we need to rethink our relationship with reading, and how we teach it. Reading should never be framed as a standardized performance, judged by speed or quantity. Instead, it must be approached as a personal journey, where each reader is free to go at their own rhythm. This calls for a variety of formats, recognition of the value of reading for pleasure as much as for school, and the freedom to choose texts that resonate on a personal level. In the end, what matters most is what reading teaches us to feel, to think, and, perhaps, to become.
Reading again
Reconnecting with reading isn’t just about picking up a book where we left off. It’s about reclaiming a forgotten ritual, one that teaches us to experience time differently.
A single page, read slowly, almost aloud, can shift the rhythm of a day. The breath slows, thoughts settle, and inner agitation finds release. This modest act, repeated daily, sharpens focus, revives patience, and gently restores the pleasure of reading.
Reading isn’t merely about understanding a text, it’s a way of tuning back into ourselves. To let the habit take root again, it’s best to begin with texts that don’t intimidate: a short story, a slowly unfolding poem, an essay that provokes thought without imposing answers. Freed from school or social pressures, the reader can rediscover the simple joy of choosing a book that draws them in. But it’s equally important to remove distractions, to carve out an unproductive moment, free of notifications, free of interruptions. Reading, unlike digital streams, doesn’t promise anything instant. It doesn’t reveal everything right away. It asks to be tamed. And it’s precisely that delay, that slow unfolding, that gives it such richness.
Bringing reading back into one’s life is not an escape from reality, but a way of restoring the depth that urgency has eroded. To reconcile with reading is to reclaim one’s own tempo, to grant oneself the space to dwell in words, to let them resonate, to weave invisible threads between ideas, memories, sensations.
To read again is, perhaps, to rediscover an inner freedom, the freedom not to react to every impulse, not to answer every call, but to become, if only for the space of a chapter, the true author of one’s attention, the sovereign of one’s inner world.
Références
Dehaene, S. (2007). Les neurones de la lecture. Odile Jacob.
Kidd, D. C., & Castano, E. (2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science, 342(6156), 377–380.
Pennac, D. (1992). Comme un roman. Gallimard.
Wilson, R. S., Boyle, P. A., Yu, L., Barnes, L. L., Schneider, J. A., & Bennett, D. A. (2013). Life-span cognitive activity, neuropathologic burden, and cognitive aging. Neurology, 81(4), 314–321.
