A Prescription for Living Well

The case for prioritizing reading the way you prioritize working out

Last week, a subscriber named Abby commented on my newsletter “Would you ever consider writing about your reading schedule? You’re one of my favorite sources for book recommendations…and I’d love to hear the nitty gritty of how you get through so many books :)?” I thought that was such a good idea — flattery will get you everywhere! — and exactly right for the Dinner: A Love Story community that seems to have expanded their definition of The Good Life to include not just excellent dinners, but excellent novels and memoirs, audiobooks, and stories that make you feel things and see the world in a new way. This has been an incredibly satisfying development, especially since there are only so many pasta recipes I can develop before I want to lay down on the couch, eat a dozen jelly donuts, and watch Naked and Afraid for the rest of my life.

Not to mention, I welcome the opportunity to give the same treatment to books that our optimizing-obsessed media gives so many other topics that affect our well-being. Think about the absolute avalanche of content you are hit with on a daily basis teaching you how to work hydration into your day, cardio into your workout, meditation into your morning, meaningful connection into your social life, vegetables into your kids’ all-white diets, omega-3s into your dinners, protein into your salad, smoothie, pasta, Starbucks’ cold foam, wine, water, omg enough with the protein! How are we not equally obsessed with optimizing our book-reading lives? Especially when we know how good it can be for our psychological health. To remind you, reading books flexes our empathy muscles, makes us feel less alone, makes us — duh — smarter, and, most important, acts as our first line of defense in the battle to retain whatever brain cells we have left that are responsible for focusing and deep-thinking.

Just that! So how do I make sure reading is a regular part of my life? I find there are two main ways to answer this. For me, it comes down to rituals and routine, of course. But it’s also about keeping the TBR (To Be Read) stack piled high with the good stuff.

Let’s start with the most important thing…