Did you have a really terrible nickname growing up? Maybe one that your family and close friends still call you? These tend to be horrifying accurate, if less than complimentary.
Aside from being called a ‘Potato’ for my multitude of freckles (I don’t understand it either,) my other, more common moniker was “nose in a book.”
I was always reading. Once, my family was recording a Christmas Day on a camcorder and forgot to stop the recording, which then proceeded to capture three hours of yours truly, age 11, reading quietly in the corner as my family proceeded to go about their business.
I read in the car so much that when it came time to drive anywhere as a teenager, I never knew directions because I had not previously ever looked up during a car ride.
For me, it was always fiction - mostly fantasy, with world building, complex characters and lots of magic. Starting a book before bedtime was a surefire way to stay up too late reading.
Then, there was less and less time for reading for pleasure as the demands for studying increased. Gradually, the books were not stories, but textbooks, papers, and articles that I was reading with a pen in my hand, underlining and annotating and trying to extract meaning from them instead of simply enjoying them.
And for a while, I fell a little out of love with reading. I think this happens to everyone at some point - our attention spans change, we have to read too much for work, or we just don’t have the time to read for pleasure.
For ol’ nose in a book, this simply would not do. So I made an effort to get back into reading fiction, starting with novellas and shorter books until I was able to get back to my full-fledged novels and multi-book series.
And once I started reading fiction again regularly, I noticed that many of the books I was reading were premonitions of how technology might change our lives one day, and the ways very advanced technology can seem mythical.
When Technology Looks Like Magic
One of the most delightful examples of this is a novella called Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which is built around a very simple premise: an advanced anthropologist from a distant civilization is studying a medieval society, and the technology he uses is so far beyond their understanding that the people around him believe he is a wizard.
From his perspective, he’s using perfectly normal tools. From their perspective, he is performing magic. And the entire story is essentially the two worldviews colliding.
Which feels very timely right now!
Because that’s exactly how a lot of people experience AI tools today. If you’ve spent time learning how they work, you know there’s logic underneath it, there are patterns and inputs and structures that influence the outcome.
But if you encounter it from the outside, it can feel a little like magic.
Another book (this one is a series, sorry!) that gave me this same feeling recently was Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett, which revolves around a form of magic called “scriving,” where you essentially rewrite the rules an object believes about reality.
You inscribe commands onto something, and if the instructions are convincing enough, the object behaves differently.
A door might believe it is unlocked. A wheel might believe gravity works in a different direction. And as I was reading it, I kept thinking, “This is just prompting.”
It’s not that far off from how we interact with AI systems today. You give instructions, you refine the language, you experiment with different ways of framing the request until the outcome improves.
These books gave me a context to help understand more complicated systems and complex structures, in a fun and entertaining way.
Getting Back Into Reading (If You Fell Out of the Habit)
If you used to read fiction and fell out of the habit somewhere along the way, which I suspect happens to a lot of us once studying and work take over, I encourage you to get back into it.
A few things that helped me:
Start with novellas, not massive fantasy series, because finishing a book in a single evening feels incredibly satisfying.
Revisit a genre you loved when you were younger, even if it feels slightly nostalgic or silly at first.
Keep a book somewhere visible, like beside the couch or your bed, so it’s easier to pick up than your phone.
Don’t worry about reading “important” books, reading something enjoyable is the whole point.
Try audiobooks for low-pressure reading, especially on walks or during chores.
You might find that the habit comes back quickly - for me, it took about four months.
And once it does, you may notice that those hours spent with your nose in a book were doing more than entertaining you, they were giving you a different lens to view systems, people, and possibilities to help better frame your understanding.
Do you have any book recommendations for me? Send them along!
