I really struggle with books that sound like a narration and much prefer them when I feel like they’re in the room telling me the story. I’ve found it much easier to find this in young adult fiction compared to adult novels.

Some examples of books that hooked me right away as a kid and I read in a month or less:

• Holes
• Hatchet
• The Call of the Wild
• My Side of the Mountain
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians
• Artemis Fowl

• Are you aphantasic (unable to form mental images of things based on descriptions)?

• Have you tried audiobooks?

• Have you tried reading books of movies you’ve already seen (so you don’t have to keep track of characters and plot, and can focus on how they’re expressed in prose)?

One of the biggest problems with modern reading is that nobody ever has an hour to kill.

As raw entertainment, reading can’t compete with screens.

My tip is to ban your phone from the bathroom. Shitting is just about the only time you’re sitting still with nothing obvious to occupy your mind. In this situation a shampoo label is interesting.

Those are more like conversations than actually reading a book. They’re also very short with immediate payoff. Sounds like some unbalanced brain chemistry around delayed gratification - do you have problems with that in other parts of your life? If so it could be ADHD.

Your phone is a better distraction machine than a book. The idea that most people who read, or who read in the past, were reading for the noble pursuit of being more knowledgeable or cultured is a myth. Most people read because it was the best form of entertainment available. In the time before electronics, you had no tv, no radio. Your options for entertainment were books, the newspaper, or going to the pub to drink and listen to somebody plunk on a banjo. Or, yaknow, talk to people.

As soon as radio became a thing, lots of people started filling their time listening to music or serials or the news. Then tv came and drew more people away. Then the internet. Then the internet in your pocket. Then Tiktok. Every step in this process has been an improvement at tickling the parts of the human brain which desire novelty, drama, humor, and general stimulation. You are not especially “bad at reading” - while general literacy has gone up in the last 100 years, the quality of literacy among the literat has gone down.

Now, I think that reading books is good. Especially in this day and age, I think that being able to whip out a real, physical book and read it is a great way to expand your world, improve your attention span, and relax without distractions. But at the same time, I don’t think that you should jump right into reading the Great Books. If your metric is “I must be enthralled by 1984 or else I am bad at reading”, then you are not in for a good time. Often The Classics^TM are simply not that enjoyable to read. They were written in another time when people spoke in weird ways. They were written for an audience that had a different cultural context than you. And we keep lauding them not because they are the best books for the averge reader today, but because they broke new ground in their time (see: Seinfeld isnt funny).

And, to be frank, most of the people who these books were written for had much longer attention spans than modern people - hell, read Ovid in the original Latin - sentences will run on for three pages. I think 1984 is a good book that can be enjoyable to read for the modern reader. But you need to build up your capacity for book reading to enjoy it. Similar to how you need to build your running capacity up before you will really enjoy running with a friend in the park. So if you want to be a better reader, I suggest starting with things that are easier. Things that will be fun and easy to read. Things that were written not to be a “great book”, but simply to be a fun, rompy adventure, or a steamy romance, or a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Read harry potter or the hunger games or the girl with the dragon tattoo. Young adult fiction is great for this, because it tends to be written just for sake of being fun enough to get kids to read. Or you could also try reading some fun short stories - something to build the habit of just sitting down for 10 minutes and opening a book to read just for fun. Or you could read a book club, and have other people create a bit of social pressure to actually pick up the book and read it, with the reward that you get to discuss what you read with friends afterwards.

I also have this problem, but for me it’s an ADHD stimulation thing. On a screen, you can take breaks between reading large passages by switching between tasks

With books, thats a lot harder to do. The thing that fixed it for me was switching to audiobooks. That means now I can “read” while driving, or doing the dishes, or cooking.

Most likely it’s because you haven’t found the types of books you like, or at least the writing style you like to read. Modern writing is much more condensed than it was even 20 or 30 years ago.

What’s your favorite genre of movie or show?

Maybe you didn’t find the genre that clicks with you.

1984 is an objectively depressing story and not really interesting for the love story or other things. It’s political.

Reading is great when you have hours to kill and want just more dense information or description. You also sort of need to enjoy using your imagination I guess.

Maybe you’re interested in a biography of a musician or movie director, maybe you’re into history, maybe you like crime and horror stuff.

But also, there are SO MANY bad books out there. Don’t worry about it. I haven’t read a book in years, because I am not really interesting in topics at that level at the moment and I don’t think many authors really capture things well. You need a real good book recommendation.

And also, maybe you just don’t like reading books.

Also, translated books can be a lot worse, read in native language if possible. Authors can put a lot of… style and taste into their language and that’s lost in translation sometimes.

Different people like different things. Even despite my super busy life I still read a lot. It allows me to slow down a bit.

Try different types of books. I’m currently reading a lot of litrpg which is a fun genre related to fantasy.