Sorry for the long post, but I was wondering if anyone else noticed this about themselves when it comes to their enjoyment and recall of reading fiction versus non-fiction.

I do not consider myself an avid reader, but I do like to read for about 20-30 minutes each day. I have been much busier the past few years which has led me to reorient how I read. When I was younger, I used to love reading fiction novels maybe once a day for an uninterrupted 40-minute (or more) segment. However, with new time constraints, I find that I have to break that segment up into two or three 10-minute segments throughout the day. This was difficult at first, and it led me to stop reading books for a little over a year as I found it difficult to get into a rhythm because I found 10 minutes to be too short to connect with longer novels.

I then started reading a lot of online articles about various topics (history, science, etc.), and I found those much easier to get into. This led me to start reading primarily non-fiction books. Even with longer books such as biographies, I found that it was much easier to simply “plug in” for a few minutes, and it actually felt like I was connecting with the reading. As a result, I started reading nothing but non-fiction for a few years.

Transition to now, and over the past few months, I have tried to get back into reading fiction, but I find myself unable to enjoy or connect with the longer stories. I have been doing some thinking about this, and my conclusion is that the quick “start and stop” nature of my reading conforms much more to non-fiction than it does to fiction. Recently, I read the first two Dune novels, and while I got a decent grasp of the stories, they were kind of difficult to follow by reading them in shorter segments. I have tried this with other fiction books as well, and I have found the same thing.

I do not know how many others feel this way, but my theory is that fictional stories require me to be in a lot more of a “flow” state where I can visualize and connect with the characters, environment, and overarching plot. This is something that I find very difficult to accomplish in multiple short segments throughout the day. Oftentimes, a chapter will be building up to something, and I have to put the book down before it gets good. When I come back later, the suspense is severely diminished. It also gets exhausting going back and rereading the previous few pages, and I like to read passively for fun, so I am not the type to make notes. This leads me to trod along through the rest of the book in a way that I can mostly understand the main events, but the little nuances get forgotten.

Switching to non-fiction, I have a totally different experience. With non-fiction books, no matter how long and in-depth they are, I can easily just start reading, whether it be in short or extended segments, and come away with a much better understanding. I think that this is because non-fiction books are structured in such a way that there are main ideas, key topics of that idea, and then even smaller segments of those key topics. Even if it is a long biography, you know where you are in that person’s life and what specific detail(s) you are currently reading about. On top of that, non-fiction books tend to repeatedly hammer in the key ideas and concepts so that you really cannot forget what you are reading about. I have read many of these books over the past few years, and I have learned so much from them. I should also mention that I have been told that I have a very great memory and am capable of remembering specific things, so I do not know if that comes into play.

I just wanted to see if anyone else had any similar experiences or revelations. I am not saying that any one genre of book is better because everyone is different and has different tastes. I do sometimes miss reading and enjoying novels as those were all I used to read as a teenager, but I am also happy reading about a variety of different topics now. If anyone can read longer novels in those quick and short segments, then I would be happy to hear how it works for you.