We all know the basics of book reading.
You read books.
You look up books.
That’s it.
And yet we can’t stop reading new books.
We’ve already got our favourite books, our favourites characters, our favourite scenes, our top five best-loved books of the year, and we’ve got new books coming out every day.
And so, while it’s nice to know what books to read next, can we stop reading a book before we start reading?
The short answer is: No.
It’s not the best idea to skip books, it’s just not a good idea.
So what’s the problem?
How can we get books out of our minds before we’re ready to read them?
The answer lies in how we think about the books we already read.
We need to start thinking about what we already have in our mind before we think of what we need to know.
That means we need a few books to think about before we can start thinking of the next book.
The best way to think of books in this way is to imagine how you’d use them in the real world.
We might start by imagining what books we’d want to read if we weren’t reading them right now.
If we start by thinking about books we’ve already read, we might think of some of our favourite stories or characters from the book that we already know.
And, if we’re already reading a lot of books, we could imagine some of the books that we want to revisit in our lives.
When you think about these hypothetical scenarios, you can start to imagine what you might want to see in your future.
You might start with books you might like to read, like classic stories or classics.
You may start by fantasising about the things you’d like to see, like a movie or an animated movie.
And you might think about what you would want to do with the time you have available to you.
You can imagine what kind of books you would read in your mind, or even what kind you’d want that you’ve already tried.
And when you start to see how you might actually use a book, you’ll begin to see that the first book that comes to mind is the one that’s already there in your brain.
If you’re reading a classic, you might have a picture of a man sitting in a chair with a book under his arm.
You’re already thinking about that book.
You’ve already seen that book, and now you’re imagining it in your head.
You already have it in mind.
If it’s the same book, but you’ve just skimmed it, it might look like this: A man in a suit, reading a story.
A boy in a hoodie reading a poem.
A woman in a dress reading a song.
A man with a big smile reading a comic.
A girl with long hair reading a picture.
A dog reading a newspaper.
You could imagine that you’re a book reader.
If this sounds familiar, it should.
That is, you are already reading books that are familiar to you, in your minds.
You just haven’t thought about them before.
As you start reading a new book, imagine what it would be like if you read it.
You’ll start to notice how familiar it is to you now.
You know that it’s a classic.
You probably know the plot.
You also know that the characters and plot elements are familiar.
You have a lot to think through, and you can imagine how that book might play out if you were to read it right now, and imagine how the story would play out.
You think about how the book would have been different if you’d read it when you were younger.
You imagine what your parents would think of it.
There’s so much to think over, so much that you can see and feel in your real life.
The books you’re already working on, and the books you’ve started to read might feel like they’re just there to be remembered.
You don’t have to do any work at all to get the same effect.
It may be that you already have a favourite book, a favourite character, or a favourite scene in your life, and then, while you’re working on that book or character, you see how that scene could have played out in the future.
When it comes to reading books, you’re not just reading them, you’ve also been thinking about them in your current state of mind.
You were probably reading a text before you started.
You thought about it.
Your mind was busy.
You had a lot going on.
It was an interesting time.
You got bored with the story and started reading something else.
When your mind is busy, you often think about other things, such as what to do next.
You consider the possibilities and try different things.
You want to get your mind into something more active, so you start working on something else that is more important to you at