Reading in the modern era looks like a lot of different things. It’s not just paper anymore. It could be audio books, graphic novels, or ebooks. It could be traditional or ‘amateur’ publications. There are many things that I would count as reading, but there are also a few things that I would NOT.
In late May, I was informed of a trend that really upset me. Apparently, there are people who read books and skip everything but dialogue. This shocked me.
Guys. I would not call this reading, if all you’re doing is skimming dialogue. That’s like saying reading captions on Instagram Reels is equivalent to reading a novel. You’re missing so much of the meat and prose that a book has to offer. That’s like eating just one ingredient out of a soup and claiming you ate a whole meal. I’m not aware of any specific creator who is claiming to do this, and I think that a majority of readers actually do get the full experience of their books, but I was still stunned nonetheless.
Also, let me quickly address the point that was made in the above post about reading 30+ books being wholly unreasonable. I know plenty of people who can reach almost 100 books in the year, reading authentically. But I also believe that reading less than around around 30 books is perfectly reasonable! At the beginning of the year, I shared some statistics that state that the average person reads 5 or less books a year. Any amount of books read is far better than none. Who cares if you read one a month, or can reach 100? So long as we are consuming literature.
This thread was furthered a little more and continued to concern me. How can you include character development and plot through mostly dialogue? How can you accept that ‘good books’ have descriptions, and include them in your own writing, but hate reading it? I am baffled.
On a slightly different note, I talked before on the blog about how I also heard that there is a genre of ‘reader’ who ask Chat GPT for summaries of books, so they can read it and claim that they finished it. This is ALSO not reading. It’s as much reading as a LaCroix is fruit flavored. It’s like smelling a bowl of soup and claiming you ate it (can you tell I’m hungry as I’m writing?). You don’t watch a trailer and pretend you saw the movie! You don’t hear your friend tell a story and claim you were there!
Part of what makes literature so great is that it takes time. Time to read, time to write, time to understand. I am so tired of this idea of instant gratification. It ties into the AI argument. Life is about the journey! Not the destination! I believe in this idea so much it’s tattooed on my damn ankle.
I will admit, I am not immune to this. I crave getting to mark a book as finished on Goodreads. Sometimes, it’s what gets me to read. I love getting to see the numbers add up. But I also put in the work to get to that point! Hobbies take time. Reading should, too.
Since I just spent 500 words invalidating ways that some people ‘read’, let me spend the rest of the way validating some of the other outlets for book consumption. I consider all of the below mediums as reading, even if they aren’t “traditional”.
Audiobooks
This is my personal preferred method of reading as of late. I am a Libby devotee. It’s part of how I can go through half a dozen books a month. I usually have mine on 1.5 speed, but I always go through the whole book and slow down when I need to.
While I think my comprehension at times can waver when I’m listening, most of the time, I have a firm grasp on plot and prose. And there are studies that back this up. For adult readers, there seems to be no significant loss of comprehension when listening versus reading.
Plus, audio books can be so much fun. Voices, music, sound effects, and more can really make an audio book a full experience. Go check out some dramatized versions of print books, they’re a blast.
Ebooks
Ebooks are 100% reading, and sometimes, work better than a physical book. You can highlight, annotate, use guides and tools, and more to enhance your reading experience. They’re portable, and help you save money. I don’t have too much to say here, honestly, because it’s so well accepted that an eBook is almost the same as a real book. They rule.
Manga/Graphic Novels/Webtoons/Comics
I work with a lot of students, and you know what’s flying off the shelves right now? Manga. Manga is almost the same as the below category, but I wanted to give it some special attention because it may face some extra scrutiny due to it’s large overlap with anime. But reading a manga counts as reading, whether it’s done with a physical book, done online, or in a weekly edition of Shonen Jump.
Graphic novels are similarly in the limelight, and they have been for a while. I grew up reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Big Nate and Dork Diaries. The graphic novel craze has only grown since I was in school, with many novels getting graphic novel adaptations, like Wings of Fire.
Webtoons are essentially just graphic novels online, but many of them get physical adaptations as well! There are many apps that offer free, weekly access comics, like Webtoons, Tapas, and Tappytoons. Hooky is one of the best Webtoons I’ve ever read, and I have those in physical form.
And then of course we have more traditional comics. Marvel, DC, Invincible, and other super hero comics will always be popular, with people of all ages.
A lot of people benefit from good visuals while they read, so all four of these styles (and more!) really help with that. It’s also a great jumping off point for middle schoolers, who can start with the Warriors graphic novels, and then jump to the traditional novels with the images in their mind. Graphic media is awesome.
FanFiction/Light Novels/Online Self Publishing
Serial novels are very popular, ranging from FanFiction, which is inspired from a source material, to light novels, which is a style of quick, easy to read fiction that typically starts out as online serial chapters, and other forms of digital sharing. These are very similar to eBooks in that they are typically read on mobile devices, but often times, these can get physical editions as well.
My boyfriend is a big fan of light novels, and a lot of them involve genres/concepts like reincarnation, cultivation, and LitRPG elements. I may need to write a whole article on these bad boys because there is a lot to them. But, in short, they are reading.
I feel like I need to answer a question many of you may have. Are all of these options made equal? I said they all counted as reading, so does reading a comic book mean the same thing as reading a book?
Probably not.
But that’s not a bad thing! Not all print books are made equal. A 100 page novella is very different from a 1000 page high fantasy book. Luckily, we don’t need to compare, and we have these categories for a reason, and we don’t need to get caught up in the numbers. Someone’s 30 novels may not compare to 100 graphic novels. But why does that matter?
I joked with my boyfriend at the start of this month that he was reading more than I was, and it was making me look bad. He read three light novels in the span it took me to read one ‘traditional’ novel during the first week of June. In reality, it was nice to see him reading in earnest, and enjoying the new things he was finding.
In short, reading is reading! Pick up a book! Don’t care what you consume, so long as you are consuming it. Find the magic in a good story, no matter the medium.
This content was written and created by a human, without the use of any artificial intelligence tools. The authors do not authorize this article’s usage in training AI tools. We proudly support the original works of creators and individuals over technology that steals and manipulates original content without consent of creators.
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