Reading is bad for you...

Reading gives me solace when I'm upset and adds to my joy when I'm happy but there are times when I must admit that reading probably does more harm than good. Well it's not reading itself that's the problem; it's what I am reading.

I suffer from anxiety, which most of the time is like having a very mild case of tinnitus - I am aware of anxious thoughts and feelings, but I am usually able to ignore them. However, sometimes, my anxiety dominates and I find it very difficult to focus on anything else. On these occasions, my instinct is to Google "answers" to whatever it is I am fretting about. This I've learnt is absolutely the worse thing I can do. If there was a definite answer to the thing I was anxious about, I wouldn't be anxious about it. For example, I may not be happy about the fact that tomorrow's Monday (obvs, I am writing this on a Sunday) and may even be anxious about what may happen tomorrow but I am not anxious that it may be Monday tomorrow because I know it is Monday tomorrow. The point is I am not going to find a solution via Google (assuming I haven't searched for "how to deal with anxious thoughts" etc.).

In fact, rather than finding answers, I find more reasons to be anxious - I typically manage to come across all of the blog posts/articles that have been written by people who have similar anxious thoughts to me (humbling in a way; our irrational thoughts are rarely unique to us). Even if I come across something factual, I still tend to interpret it as "confirmation" of my worse fears. Anxiety is very manipulative in that way; your thinking is skewed, so you're not capable of logically reviewing information. Therefore, I am slowly learning to stay away from Google when I am having an attack of anxiety; I also, if my anxiety is related to national or international events, avoid reading the news.

As well as avoiding the news when I am anxious, I try to limit my exposure to the news to prevent myself from becoming anxious. The news, particularly of late, always seems to be filled with stories of horrific events. Therefore, for the sake of my sanity, I try to avoid reading/watching the news in the evenings or on the weekends. If something terrible has happened, me knowing or not knowing about it will make no difference - it will still have happened when I do decide to engage with the news again. Keeping up to date with the news is obviously important but sometimes it's equally important to switch off.

Another benefit to "switching off" is that when you do decide to look at the news, you're more likely to get the full facts. On the night of the awful London Bridge/Borough Market attack, I made the decision to turn off my phone and go to bed rather than, as I had done with the Paris attacks, read about things in real time on Twitter. No good, I thought, could come of me reading people's speculations about what was happening. And as I live in East London, miles away from London Bridge, I wasn't able to offer any assistance to those caught up in the attack. The next day, I made an effort to find out what had happened (when by that time, the basic facts had been established) and make sure my London friends were safe (they were). Me waiting a while to learn about the attack didn't, of course,  make it any less horrific but I was at least more able to deal with the news.

OK, so the title of this post really should have been "some reading" is bad for you. But, that wouldn't be as clickbaity would it? Reading, like a lot of things, is neither good nor bad. It's what you read and what you're feeling at the time that's important. Sometimes, it's better to take a break from the world outside,

How I read reviews

Before I start reading a new book, I only want to know two things about it: its basic plot and its average Goodreads score - a book that has an average score of 1 star doesn't exactly sound promising. What I don't want to know is the specifics* of why a person did or did not like a book, which is why I tend to only read a review of a book until after I finished reading it. 

I am particularly averse to reading the lengthy (and frankly, long-winded) reviews you see in broadsheet newspapers and supplements. I've never understood the appeal of reading someone else's in-depth interpretation of a book when I could be coming up with my own interpretation by reading the book myself. For the same reason, I don't read introductions to well-known books - particularly as they often contain spoilers. I know that there are some people out there who prefer to read these types of reviews rather than read the book itself, but that seems a pretty pointless exercise to me. If they can't be bothered to read the book, why go to the trouble of reading a review of it? (If it's so that they can pretend that they've read the book, that's really quite pathetic)

That said, I do read reviews (but on Goodreads or blogs rather than in newspapers) when I am not sure whether or not I want to continue reading a book. Sometimes, a book really only gets going after the first few chapters; therefore, when struggling to get into a book, I read a review of the said book to see if it will get better if I persist with it.

Reviews in this context can also help you to know when you definitely don't want to keep reading. Recently, I was reading a book that I wasn't finding as compelling as I thought I would. Given that it had an average 4.76-star rating on Goodreads, I decided to read what other people thought of it. While most people gave glowing reviews, one person noted that how uncomfortable they were that, essentially, one character RAPES another character and then these two characters, after much remorse on the part of the rapist and forgiveness on the part of the victim, fall in love. Also, according to another review I read, the rape victim never gets to have a voice. OK, so the story is based on folklore and the victim is a nymph-like creature rather than an actual woman but I really don't understand how that makes that type of story acceptable. If the author wanted to raise the issue of redemption and forgiveness after rape, why didn't they tell the story from the rape victim's point of view? Obviously, the huge caveat is that I haven't read the book and I am basing my views on those of someone else rather than my own interpretation of book. But, nope, sorry, not prepared to give such a book a chance.

Back to the point in hand,  as mentioned, I mainly read reviews after finishing a book. This is basically to see if someone agrees with my view of a book. I once went to an event where The Guardian columnist Tim Dowling was giving a talk. He said that most people only read columns that share or support their views - which pretty sums up my approach to reading reviews. That's not to say I don't read reviews that disagree with my view of a book; I just tend to keep reading reviews until I find one that does agree with me. (I might be shallow and egoistical in this respect, but at least I'm honest). I'd be very interested to find out how other people read reviews - so if you're reading this, let me know!

* = I hope my sister doesn't read this; she always takes the mick out of me for my inability to pronounce the word "specific"