One of the most crucial signs you know you’re a bookworm, apart from the collective buy-a-new-book-everytime-you-walk-into-a-bookshop punctilio, is reading slumps. We’ve all been there at one point or another, in that state of dormancy, that visceral feeling of drought, where we feel plagued by our own inactivity.

And so it was with me over the course of the last two months, where I was frightfully inactive with my reading. Apart from the natural symptoms of a reading slump i.e. you just don’t feel like reading because it’s been a while since you’ve been to the gym or taken a yoga class, I genuinely feel like a lot of the books I’ve read over the last three or four months have been sub-par, uninspiring and average. This meant that my usual reading pace had slowed to a reluctant crawl.

I’ve found that the best way to get out of a reading slump is just to be patient and go at your own pace. Ignore the quiet whispers of envy at the back of your mind when those anomalous readers post their monthly wrap-ups of twenty+ books. Even they experience reading slumps. It might be the case that you experience a reading slump whilst you’re already reading something. In those cases, you might want to put your current read on the back burner.. indefinitely (we call this a soft DNF) and start something entirely new!

Most importantly, I would advise against trying to force yourself back into a reading frenzy so as to keep up with the mainstream masses as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how counter-productive this is. I find it better to just accept the fact that one needn’t have to feel like they should be reading all the time.

Such feelings of disillusionment are temporary anyway and before you know it, you’ll be back to your usual machine-like #readinggoals bookworm high. But in the meantime, here are some tips you can try;

1) Join Reading Sprints

If you’re currently experiencing reading fatigue, then reading sprints is a great way to make things more engaging and interactive. Luckily for you, I will be hosting reading sprints on my Booktube channel LochanReads Book Reviews, this Friday 18th June at 7p.m. BST. I hope you can join me and my guests! Click the link below and turn on the handy reminder notification icon so you don’t miss it!

2) Experiment with different genres

Experimenting with different genres, especially those you may be unfamiliar with can help you to keep your reading momentum going. This is because it prevents the feeling of monotony and tedium that can sometimes result from reading only books belonging to a certain genre. Check out my Book Reviews page to see a range of different recommendations across various genres,

3) Try buddyreading

Much like with reading sprints, buddyreading is an interactive exercise that you can do with friends and fellow bookworms alike and it makes the activity stimulating and fun. It can feel more interpersonal than sprints which explains why many readers today commonly engage in this form of reading.

Can you think of any more tips? Please share them with me in the comments below. x

Happy reading book lovers!

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