I have a long history of adoring long books. When I first started reading, I quickly moved away from kids books to what I charmingly called “chapter books, mama”. I read my first Tom Clancy book in fourth grade. Why did I choose it? Because it was big.

There was something in my brain that was quite impressed with myself for reading a book that was almost too heavy for me to carry.

That hasn’t changed too much, though all my books these days are digital. I still like reading longer books. It’s not like I never read shorter novels, but I still get a sense of accomplishment when I finish a 600 page book.

I have noticed, that it is harder for me to stick with longer books these days, however. I blame TikTok and YouTube. My attention span is horrifyingly short, and it makes it supremely hard to stay focused on one book. My ADD is already bad enough, but add in the “goodness this is a long book it sure will take a long time” syndrome, and I tend to float between things much more than I used to.

But that feeling of accomplishment that I feel when I finish a longer book is still something I long to feel. So I’ve been working on reading longer books again. I think that it will actually help me strengthen my attention span a bit. It’s why I’ve been focusing on books I’ve already read once or twice, so that I can get interested in them quicker. Now that I’ve done that a few times, I can focus on some new-to-me books and see if I can maintain my focus.

In this day and age where 15 second attention spans are becoming normalized, I think it’s important for us to force our attention on things that take focus and effort. It’s a muscle that we have to stretch or we’ll lose it entirely. I know I’ve felt that way. My brain is rotting a way under the influence of shortform content and AI. I will not let myself lose my ability to think for myself or focus on things I truly want to focus on. Even if my addict prone brain loves those little videos, I need to control myself and read my chapter books.