Commit to a Long Read (The Reader's Long Run)

Runners Have a Long Run. Readers Have a Long Read.

I read Never Split the Difference in my usual two windows (a few pages before sleep, a few more before getting out of bed). Then, one night, I looked up much later than planned, having read something like sixty pages instead of my usual ten to fifteen. That was a long read. I didn't schedule it, and I've never scheduled one since.

Runners don't leave it to chance. A training week has easy daily miles, one long run, and the occasional race. It maps onto reading almost exactly: your daily sessions are the easy miles, a readathon is race day, and in between is where the long run should be.

Every long read I've ever had just kind of happened – a book that wouldn't let go, or a long-ish plane ride without any other form of entertainment. This is about putting one on the calendar instead.

What an Hour Gives You That Twenty Minutes Can't

Every session starts with a tax. You open the book and the first few seconds (or a minute) go to working out where you were: re-reading the last paragraph, remembering who's talking, rebuilding an argument. At two windows a day, I pay that tax fourteen times a week. A long read pays it once.

In twenty minutes, you can hold one point in your head. In ninety, you can hold the argument. Chapter four takes on a different meaning when chapter two is still fresh in mind. The author's structure becomes visible, and connections can finally happen. Nonfiction is where I notice it most.

The daily sessions aren't worse, though. They're the base: they built the habit, and they're what keeps it alive day in and day out. But a base isn't all. There's a reason the last stretch of a book is where most of us finally sit down and read properly. We know what the payoff feels like.

Never Split the Difference

by Chris Voss

An FBI hostage negotiator's playbook, rewritten for the negotiations you actually have (salary, rent, a disagreement at home). Built out of stories, that's how it steals an extra hour off you.

Est. read: 5h 3 min

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The Three Things That Stop You

I know exactly why I've never scheduled one. Three reasons:

"I should be doing something else." Two hours reading is two hours not working on ReadingHabit. This actually stops me, and I think it's a proximity problem: the desk is right there. So don't be near it. A café, a library, a park bench – anywhere you physically can't do the other work.

"My attention won't hold that long." Probably true. It's what a decade of short inputs trains into everybody (more on that here). Thinking you have to start with two hours from the get-go is a mistake. Start at forty-five minutes instead: long enough to minimize the re-entry tax and get somewhere, short enough that you finish it instead of quitting early and deciding you can't do this.

"I don't have a two-hour block." Nobody has one lying around. A long read isn't found; it's taken (from a morning, an evening, or whatever currently claims that slot). Name what you're trading and it becomes a decision. Then put the phone in another room; a reading focus mode handles the rest.

How Long Is a Long Read?

There's no correct number. "I'll get to the end of Part Two" is a goal you can't miss (unlike the vague intention "I'll read for a while").

Anchor your goal to a page count or section boundary rather than a duration. A page target tells you when you're done and gives you something to aim for, and it doesn't punish you for reading slowly.

You do need to know how long each page takes you for this to work. I read about 0.7 pages per minute, so an 80-page section takes me about two hours (worth knowing before blocking out 90 minutes and ending up annoyed). If you've never measured your reading speed, the Reading Speed Test takes about two minutes. Then work backward from the number of pages to determine the length of your reading block.

Stop Waiting for a Plane

Travel is the long read most people have actually experienced. A plane is a room with not much else to do. I have an eleven-hour overnight flight at the end of this month, and I already know I'll read more on it than on a regular day. It works because the conditions are imposed, so it happens a couple of times a year at best.

Building a ritual instead can make it happen more often: same place, same (hot) drink, phone in another room, and your book. The cues do what the flight did.

I'll give The Science of Storytelling a shot for my next long read. It's in my summer pool, waiting to be read.

The Science of Storytelling

by Will Storr

Why stories work on the human brain, told through neuroscience and craft rather than conventional writing advice.

Est. read: 5h 36 min

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Schedule One This Week

One book, one block, phone in another room. That's all it takes.

If you want the go even bigger, try a readathon: a day or a weekend, several books, much closer to race day than to training. A long reading session is a bit smaller and more repeatable – an hour you take back, often enough that it becomes part of your week.

Pick the book tonight (don't shy away from a difficult one). Put the block on your calendar for this weekend, with a start time set. Then go find out what your reading is like when nothing interrupts it.