this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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How do I read? [Serious] (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 days ago by lobaa@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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OK the title is a joke but the question is serious. A bit of backstory:

My parents failed to make me love books, because they also introduced me to a PlayStation 2, and I decided that I like playing vidya games a lot more than reading stuff. School didn't make me love books either because the literature they force you to read in my curriculum, is, in my opinion, better suited for adult reading.

Fast forward to now, I am a freshman in a prestigious university, but it turns out that it requires me to read a lot of stuff, but I don't really have enough willpower to sit through academic literature for more than an hour a day. And the fact I'm noticeably behind my peers in amount of books read makes me feel like I don't belong.

So my question is how to learn to love reading books, get immersed or enter flow state or whatever, and also retain information? Is it some kind of talent or superpower? I know a few of my peers who don't stop reading books and seem to not distract themselves with tiktoks and video games, and attend optional lectures in their free time which is kind of insane to me, but I respect it a lot and want to become like them.

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[–] Taster_Of_Treats@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

But don't bother with anything else by Orson Scott Card. His writing fell off the rails after the Ender series. His fantasy is especially terrible. Plus he's a racist rightoid and apparently stopped listening to editors after a while.

Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow I can personally vouch for though.

Edit: okay to be more specific, the Pathfinder series is the one that made me upset with how bad it was, especially in the third book. The guy has written a lot of books and I can't necessarily assume they're all bad because one series got up its own ass. Although his politics became so bad that he probably lost the ability to write well at some point.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah, Card is a Mormon, one of the worst types of KKKri$$tian, and a virulent bigot. But the Ender sequels especially are beautiful books about learning to understand and even love people who are completely alien to you.

How he managed to write Speaker for the Dead is a great mystery.

EDIT: David Weber's politics are also extremely bad but Honor Harrington is still fun. The biggest suspension of disbelief is a functional monarchy.

[–] Taster_Of_Treats@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I should read speaker for the dead, I think I bounced off of it at one point but it has been long enough that I'll try again.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's the high point of the entire Ender series/setting, imo

[–] huf@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

is that the one that's basically a detective story about the strange tree people?

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago

Yes, but instead of the typical detective story whodunit, the questions are why did they do it and what is it that they actually did