Reading slumps suck. I'm at the tailend of one (or at least I hope I am) and it's been terrible. As someone who regularly reads a book or two a week, not reading anything for months was bad (it was also one of my big red flaming signs that said, hey go get help, you're not doing okay).

I love reading and I've read voraciously for my entire life. Reading is how I learned about the world far outside of my own experiences, it transported me into entirely different universes. I remember going into school late one morning because I'd read a chapter where my favorite character had died and was too emotionally devestated to deal with first period science.

So basically, a reading slump feels like I've lost my footing on the ground. Suddenly the world is more confining, clausthrophobic and overwhelming. I'm still struggling through it, but I have read at least one book this month which is more than I've read the entire rest of the summer. Since I take the train to work every day and that gives me about 45 minutes of downtown. Writing on the train is a challenge so I use the time to read...when the slmp hasn't smashed me over the head. So what do you do instead?

For me, I've fallen down the rabbit hole of podcasts. You can find almost any genre or style of podcast you like. I've enjoyed fictional stories like The Message, LimeTown, Tanis, and The Black Tapes. These are fun engaging stories told like a radio drama. The well done ones emerse you into the world like a blanket wrapping all around you.

Audiobooks fall into a similar vein of this but I haven't really fallen into audiobooks in the same way as I have podcasts.

Another thing I've found easy to read are comics. The visual component plays such a vital part to the story it feels like a totally new medium.

I'm slowly falling back into reading with one book at a time.