Is your New Year’s resolution to read more books? Good. It should be.

Is your New Year’s resolution to read more books? Good. It should be.

According to a troubling end-of-year article from The Atlantic, if you read a book in 2025—just one—you now belong to an endangered species.

“Like honeybees and red wolves, the population of American readers, Lector americanus, has been declining for decades,” the article reported. Fewer than half of Americans read a single book in 2022, and only 38 percent cracked open a novel or short story. Even worse, daily reading for pleasure has been dropping by about 3 percent a year since 2003.

Things don’t improve when you look at younger readers. In 2023, only 14 percent of 13-year-olds read for fun almost every day—down from 27 percent a decade earlier. Many high school and college students now struggle to finish a book cover to cover.

Bleak stuff.

But if reading feels like a chore, here’s a radical thought: maybe you’re just reading the wrong things—or reading them the wrong way.

Since starting at the Blackwell Public Library (and later becoming Head Librarian this past summer), I assumed my reading habits hadn’t changed since my “prime reading years” of middle and high school. Turns out, that was wildly optimistic.

I tried to jump back in with old standbys—science fiction and fantasy—and discovered my tastes had apparently packed up and moved without telling me. I can barely slog through fantasy anymore, with the lone exception of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (aka the backbone of HBO’s Game of Thrones empire).

Sci-fi? Forget it. The only science fiction I’ve finished in the last decade is Frank Herbert’s Dune. And once you read Dune, everything else feels like climbing Clay Hills behind the high school after summiting Mount Everest.

Thanks to our library book club, I’ve since learned to both love and loathe entirely new genres. My reading horizons have expanded, and I now read far more romance, mysteries, and—somewhat to my own surprise—horror.

I’ve also learned something even more shocking: physical books aren’t the only way to read.

I’m deeply traditional at heart. I prefer movie theaters over streaming, physical 4K and Blu-rays over digital rentals, and physical video games instead of downloads. Books were no different. I once looked down my nose at audiobooks and e-books.

Then life—and the library—happened.

I spend a lot of time on the road traveling to Wichita, Stillwater, and Ark City, whether for work or movie trips, and audiobooks have become a lifesaver. Spotify Premium’s audiobook catalog has helped me plow through hundreds of pages of A Game of Thrones while driving between showings of Avatar: Fire & Ash, Marty Supreme, and various visits to Ponca City and Stillwater.

And if Spotify isn’t your thing, the Blackwell Public Library offers Libby and Hoopla—two massive, free catalogs of audiobooks and e-books available with your library card.

If you need extra motivation, there are reader apps like Goodreads or Fable that let you compare stats with friends, because nothing fuels reading quite like friendly competition.

Another incentive? Bragging rights.

Last year’s biggest TV dramas—Heated Rivalry and IT: Welcome to Derry—were book adaptations, along with films like The Housemaid, Regretting You, One Battle After Another, Frankenstein, and a parade of anime hits based on popular manga.

This year won’t be any different. We’re getting not one but two Game of Thrones series (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and House of the Dragon Season 3), plus Dune: Part Three, Project Hail Mary, The People We Meet on Vacation, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, and The Odyssey.

Reading is cool. Reading makes you look important. And reading has never been more accessible, thanks to resources right here at the Blackwell Public Library.

So go ahead—make 2026 the year you read more. Your future, slightly-smug self will thank you.