I honestly miss reading for pleasure once school begins. Every time I pick up a book or a magazine after classes resume, I suddenly feel guilty because I should be doing work. There's so much reading required in college that completing it and still having time and energy to read for pure enjoyment is incredibly difficult.
But it's not impossible. I have discovered the key: Find little bits and pieces of time to read, rather than trying to devote three hours of your afternoon to a Harry Potter book when six textbooks are lying next to you, still in their plastic wrappers.
Throughout the course of a day, the odds are that you've got "in-between time." This might be when you're waiting for the bus, waiting in line for coffee or waiting for class to start. Rather than just sitting and twiddling your thumbs while you wait, it's incredibly useful to have a way to get some reading done. It may not seem like much, but you'll be amazed how many pages you can turn in a mere 10-minute block.
There are great tools to help you manage a reading list, so you will be prepared with something to read any time you've got a minute to kill. One of my favorites is called Instapaper (www.instapaper.com). Instapaper gives you a little bookmark that you put into your browser, and you click it anytime you come across an article you might want to read later. Then, when you get a second, open up Instapaper and your reading list is there ready for you. If you're on the move, there's a great iPhone or iPod Touch application that will let you read your articles anywhere, even offline.
If you're not an iPhone-user but want the same mobile accessibility, check out Read it Later (www.readitlaterlist.com). The functionality is essentially the same - find an article, click to save it for later and read it when you get a chance. It has applications for Android phones, Blackberries and just about any other phone or you might come up with. My favorite thing about Read it Later is if you're reading on your phone, it will save your spot in the article, even if you open it on another device, such as your computer, later.
If you're a book reader but don't want to spring for a pricey device like Amazon's $259 Kindle simply to read on the bus, check out the Kindle mobile application. Again, you can read from your phone, and it gives you access to all the same, cheap E-books on Amazon as the Kindle itself would. Download a book to your device, and you can access it anywhere.
If you are uncomfortable walking with your nose in a book, there is a solution called Audible (www.audible.com). Audible has more than 60,000 great audiobooks available to you for a $7.49 monthly rate for the first three months. Download books to your MP3 player, and you will be walking to class and flying through the classics in no time.
With any of these applications, you can read just about anything, anytime, anyplace. It may not seem like a huge step forward toward not missing your pleasure reading fix, but you really will be amazed by the amount of reading you're able to get done, not to mention how much faster the line at Starbucks goes when you're in the middle of a great article from The New Yorker. I highly recommend The New Yorker - though I never understand a word of it, I love telling people I read it.
I've missed reading everything from Michael Crichton to Malcolm Gladwell during the last few years, but with these applications, I get my fix - 10 minutes at a time.
David's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. He can be reached at d.pierce@cavalierdaily.com
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