Reading life, one evening at a time
Read more by asking less of yourself.
Reading challenges you can actually finish, habits that survive a busy week, and reading nooks that need nothing fancier than a lamp and a chair.
A reading challenge that works like a menu
Pick any three squares this season. You don’t have to clear the card. The point is one book you’d never have picked up on your own.
- 01A novel in translation
- 02A book published the year you were born
- 03Something a friend loved and you’ve avoided
- 04A book under 200 pages
- Free squareReread an old favorite
- 05A pick from the library’s staff shelf
- 06A memoir from outside your line of work
- 07Book one of a series you’ve never started
- 08A story set somewhere you’ve been
Prompts are suggestions, not homework. Swap any square for one of your own.
New on the shelf
All guides- How to Get Back Into Reading: 5 Myths and a 14-Day PlanHow to get back into reading after a slump: five myths that keep you stuck, a gentle 14-day restart plan, and small rules that help the habit last.
What a reading nook actually needs
Where you read matters more than people admit, and it costs less than you’d think.
- Light at shoulder height
- A lamp beside and slightly behind you, so the page is lit and the screen glare isn’t.
- A chair you can sit in for an hour
- Arms to rest a hardback on beat any designer shape.
- Nothing to charge nearby
- Leave the phone in another room for the first twenty pages. The habit does the rest.
- Somewhere to set the book down
- A small table or a windowsill turns a corner into a place you come back to.
Bookish things, for browsing
One piece for people who’d rather be reading. This shelf is display only and doesn’t take orders.
How the guides are made
Each guide answers one question readers keep asking. A machine-made outline gets the draft started; June rewrites it and looks up every title, publication date and series order in publisher pages and library catalogs. No publisher pays for a spot here.
June Hartley