Why we're doing this
We live in a time when people of all ages are experiencing reduced attention spans, thanks to our smartphones, the proliferation of short form content, and the insidious infinite scroll. We may be technically reading – in fact we may be inundated with text in our daily lives, on the platforms and apps that we spend time on – but often, this is scanning or shallow reading. Some of us might feel a vague discomfort, and an awareness that this cannot be good for us, whether for our brains or in some cases for our mental health. And yet the hold of the algorithms is powerful. We believe that books can be an equally powerful antidote.
Reading deeply and for pleasure can have a significant positive impact. It can help retrain the brain to sustain focus and rebuild cognitive depth. Reading fuels our imagination and creativity. It's how we make sense of the world around us. We gain valuable perspective when we step briefly out of our own lives and into someone else's. Beyond all this, the simple fact is that if you discover the books that you enjoy most, reading can be loads of fun! The books we come to love can be a source of lasting joy and comfort in our lives.
For TRY’s first cohort, our focus is on young and emerging adults aged 18 to 24, for whom reading for pleasure is often an early casualty, whether on account of screen time or mounting academic pressures. We are looking for applicants who want to make books a bigger part of their lives, but don't know where to start, can't justify spending on books that might not suit them, or have no one to recommend books to them. The Reading Year removes these obstacles for a year: the books are free, so they needn't worry about the cost of a bad choice, they're chosen with care by a friendly neighbourhood bookshop, and we ask nothing beyond some light-touch feedback. We hope that the students who enroll come into the program with curiosity and intent.
At the end of the twelve months, we expect that a reasonable number of our participant readers will have gained a better understanding of themselves as readers and the kind of books that appeal to them, and that they will choose to keep on reading on their own, outside of the program.
Based on our experience with the pilot, the same idea could serve other ages, other cities, and other kinds of readers.