How do y'all find the self control to stay away from tik tok and actually read your books. I feel like every time I sit down it's just easier to sit and doom scroll than it is to read and I want to get away from that. I'd delete tik tok but it's so hard since I get so many good book recommendations there.

hi friends! with the year and everyone's reading goals wrapping up soon, i just wanted to share some reading highlights from 2025 that i'm proud of. would love to hear about your reading achievements / fav moments during the year as well so please feel free to share 🥹

• starting off strong, i purchased a Kobo earlier this year and honestly this has transformed my reading hobby in the best way possible.

• (with huge credit to my Kobo), i've been maintaining a consistent reading streak. i've read at least one book per month the past year,which is a huge improvement from the past where i would fall into repetitive cycles of reading everyday and a complete hiatus for months before picking up something again.

• got into reading nonfiction. although i only managed to finish 3 this year, i feel like i've gained a new perspective on nonfiction and definitely gotten past my misjudged prejudice against the genre (for this, i blame the era of overhyped self help books being shoved into my face on every social media platform in the past).

• i've also generally tried to diversify my reading and PB has genuinely played such a vital part in this. i've read -and thoroughly enjoyed- several books that i wouldn't normally pick up if not for the readalongs, quests, lists, and even directly from PB user recommendations. i can't stress on how refreshing it is to be recommended a book that's not fuelled through algorithms or AI.

• on that note i wanna give a huge shout out to PB. for me, this community has rekindled that giddy excitement over reading that i used to feel as a child, that has been somewhat numbed over the years due to a mix of over saturation of books on the internet, getting lost between reading as a hobby vs an aesthetic, and just adulting and life honestly.

i'm excited for new challenges in the upcoming year and wish everybody on here the same xx

I just suddenly remembered that my elementary school had this reading programme thing they were a part of and it really makes me wonder if this was a common experience or not cause I feel like i've never heard anybody else mention something like this. Basically, my school (and maybe the entire district) was worried about literacy rates and so decided that for every grade level it would be mandatory to use a specific website to track every book that you read. Your log-in info was directly connected to your student ID, and you had to read a certain amount of books per week or else your grade average in English would automatically fall. In addition to this, we were also required to leave a review for everything that we read so that our teachers could make sure that we actually did, which I remember was the worst because when you're 9 years old re-reading your Hungry Caterpillar book just to meet your quota, it feels like, what is there to say?? 'Boy, that caterpillar sure was hungry!' Sigh. But anyway, as you continue to read, you would level up on the website. I really don't remember how the system worked, but I do know that the more you read the more avatars you could unlock, and they were all these really ugly early 2000s stock animation CGI things. You know the ones. There was a bit of a clout thing going on also because our teachers would display the statistics in class which would also show people's avatars and badges and turned it into a competitive thing where people would just keep reading baby books over and over so that they could get the most points and it was a whole mess. But back to the point about how if you don't meet the quota they set then your grade drops - the entire time I was in school, and especially in elementary, I was a straight-A student. But I cannot tell you how stressful it was any time I saw on that weekly report that my grade was dropping cause I had forgotten to read, or how many times I remembered that a quota was due and had to scavenge my bookshelves for something short I could read to that I could submit it in time to get credit for that week. And the thing is I don't think this system actually did anything to encourage reading OR to improve literacy. ALL of us were reading toddler books, at ages 7-10, just to avoid being penalized, and I didn't start reading at all again until my last year of middle school just from how bad of an experience all that was and affected the way I saw books, as a source of academic stress rather than just for love of reading. So... did anybody else's schools have similar systems??

Hello guys I’m in the middle of One Hundred Years of Solitude and I was wondering… Do you ever, when finishing a book, take the time to read actual literary articles about the book you’ve just finished, in order to really understand what you’ve just read? I feel like I’m going to need it because there are a lot of things I don’t understand, mainly due to the writing style. So, if you do research your readings (especially when dealing with classics), what do you read/watch/listen to? (I imagine there must be podcasts of some sort but I was really hoping for recommendations) Thanks a looooot

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I was wondering if most people read on a kindle or not, as I find it hard to with the bright light? But it’s also cheaper. What do you guys think? 💭