We all dread the feeling: deadlines piling up, seven days to finish an assignment, then five, then suddenly it’s due in two days and you have absolutely no idea how you’re going to get it done in time. The idea of reading any material outside of that which will lead you closer to the eventual goal of finishing and turning in an assignment during exam season may seem completely foreign, but reading for fun often helps me come back to the studying I procrastinate.
It works as a sort of reboot. When I read I feel I have accomplished something. This sense of accomplishment then helps me feel motivated to get back into the studying I was putting off and as an added bonus I come out of this form of procrastination with a book read instead of increased hours on my screen time.
Now this doesn’t mean I’m going to reach for something like Crime and Punishment or Mrs. Dalloway. Instead, I often reach for books that don’t require the highest level of investment. What I find to be the perfect books for this is collections of essays. Collections of essays do not require you to memorize many characters or plotlines and in turn allow you to just read without worrying about retaining any specific information during times when your mind is preoccupied with information for essays you have to write or exams you have to study for.
These types of books can range from predominantly lighthearted essays having to do with events from an author’s life such as Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton or they can be more serious and educational, such as the poignant essays found in James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. Last exam season I read a collection of essays by Natalia Ginzburg titled The Little Virtues which I would highly recommend for periods of academic stress. The essays in it, while being thought provoking, also felt quite light as they allow the reader to gain insight into a variety of Ginzburg’s outlooks on life in small digestible pieces.
If essay collections aren’t your thing I would also recommend books with straightforward writing. Books that simply state what is happening in the plot without long drawn out descriptions or stylistic syntax can be great for moments of stress when you just want to consume a story without having to keep rereading passages to understand what they’re getting at. My top two recommendations for books of this type would be Convenience Story Woman by Sayaka Murata and Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin.
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