I had slowly come to the realization that we are not a nation of book readers. Our top selling book list seemed unchanged for months on end. Crazy Rich Asia has been on the top 20 list for a number of years and most book positions hardly moved. There must only be a very small group of book readers then.
Bottom line, if you ask family members or friends, they will find it hard to tell you when they last picked up a book. It could be the social media onslaught, the Netflix/YouTube video buffet or just too much school or work-related distractions that simply occupy too much of our time.
Instead of dedicating an hour each night before bedtime to read a good book, most of us will probably be glued to our handphones watching videos or scrolling through our social media. I am guilty of that. There was a time when I was serving my national service in the army that I was reading one book a week to kill time. But they were mainly storybooks and there were no mobile phones or internet then.
In America, you can tell that they read a lot more as the best seller book list constantly changes. Authors do book tours and appear on talk shows to promote there books. They even have signing sessions at bookshops and millions of hard copies are sold. Everyone has a story to tell and if they have participated in an important event or knows of someone who has, they can put their writing skills to good use. Even aspiring wannabe authors can create ebooks online to give away or sell them for 99 cents to make decent money. There is a huge audience of avid book readers that are always on the lookout for the next book to read.
I thought that I read more than most people. I subscribed to business magazines and read widely. I needed to be updated on the latest financial news and constantly seek information. Whenever I had the time, I would be holding newspapers or magazines in my hand to read.
For my new year resolution this year, I had resolved to read 10 books for 2019. To date, I have completed 4.5 books so far. I list them in my Notes app and try to do a one paragraph summary to remind me of the books read.
2 months back, my old uni friend KT introduced me to a whole new world of ebooks which I could read for free. He told me about the app called OverDrive which we could download for free to subscribe to. Once in, we can link our NLB (National Library Board) account to the app.
I was amazed that our public national library has a stock of most of the latest ebooks. The best thing is that they will automatically be deleted from our devices once the book reaches the due date. No need to physically return the books anymore. At that time, I was reading the hardcopy of Lee Kai-Fu’s “AI Superpower” book which I had purchased for $26. When I searched for this ebook, NLB had 27 ebook copies available!! I could have saved my money and read for free!
My friend used this app to read 40 books last year and he showed me a summary of the books he had read. While travelling for business, he becomes a serious reader and cultivated a habit of borrowing free ebooks to read on his iPad. I was blown away and felt small as I only had a target of 10 🙂
I have started to introduce this app to a few groups of friends. There should be no excuse to read if the world is your oyster and the ebooks are free, right? Not true, because the person must first want to read more. I am a marketing guy, so I try my best to convince them. But ultimately, I should walk the talk. I should begin the reading habit myself. I should double my book reading goal this year to 20, yes?
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