Reading helps me to understand myself better…

My name is Bethan Richards. I’m from a small town in Hampshire, United Kingdom, and I currently work as a Marketing Assistant at Joffe Books. You can find me on Instagram at @doriansbooks (a name inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray which 18-year-old me thought would keep me safely undiscovered).

I’m also on TikTok and LinkedIn.

1. Why do you read?
Reading helps me to understand myself better, but more importantly, it helps me understand other people. Through books I’m able to sit inside a perspective far removed from my own and realise how many emotions, fears, and hopes are
shared across completely different experiences. It reminds me that the things we often carry quietly, whether that be doubts, or grief, or small moments of joy, are rarely unique. Somewhere, someone has felt them too and has found the words for them. There’s a kind of comfort in knowing that just by reading, you can find that type of companionship. That you can feel less alone.

2. What’s your reading routine?
My reading routine is quite fluid. I tend to get the most amount of reading done in the small pockets of time I can find throughout my day. This will usually be on my commute to work, or thirty minutes before bed . . . although this has resulted in me waking up with a book on my face more times than I can count. The best reading days are the slower ones, when it’s raining outside and I can settle down with a new book and a cup of tea and lose a few uninterrupted hours inside a different world. I never set any targets for myself when it comes to reading, I only ever want it to be something done for enjoyment, rather than as a task. This also means I’m not afraid to DNF a book. If something isn’t working for me, I’m more than happy to move on. There are way too many books out there, and time is far too valuable to spend pushing through something that isn’t bringing me joy.

3. How does social media impact your reading habits?
Social media has definitely shaped my reading habits over the past few years. At the start of the pandemic, I joined BookTok, and was suddenly introduced to a whole community of people who loved the same hobby as I did. Everyone seemed to be talking about the same books, and I definitely felt the pressure to keep up. I started wanting to read books because everyone else was and I didn’t want to be left out of the conversation. Over time, though, that shifted. While social media introduced me to so many books and authors I never would have found otherwise, I’ve learned to prioritise what I actually want to read rather than what feels popular in the moment. In many ways, it’s broadened my reading taste as I’ve found myself picking up genres I probably wouldn’t have considered before. Now I try to let platforms like BookTok or Bookstagram inspire my reading rather than dictate it, keeping reading as something personal rather than something I do just to keep up.

4. How do you think reading builds empathy?
Reading builds empathy because it invites you into lives that aren’t your own. When you read, you step inside someone else’s thoughts and experiences, basically inhabiting their inner world. You begin to see their fears, or desires, or contradictions, without judgement. It encourages you to sit with perspectives that might be unfamiliar or uncomfortable, and in doing so, it expands how you think about other people. Over time, that can change how you move through the real world. It teaches you to look at others with more patience, curiosity, nuance, and emotional awareness; at least I hope it would. It can be a good reminder that people are rarely simple, and that everyone is shaped by stories you may never fully see.

5. If you work in publishing, has that changed how you read?
I don’t think working in publishing has changed how I read, but I do think it has given me a deeper appreciation for the passion and dedication that goes into writing a book. A finished book can feel effortless when you’re reading it, but
knowing even a fraction of the work behind it, whether that be drafting, editing, revising or marketing it, makes the end result that much more impressive. I still approach books first and foremost as a reader, looking for the feeling of escaping into a story or connecting to the characters. If anything, working in publishing has strengthened that feeling, because I’m constantly reminded how much care goes into every page. It’s simply given me another lens through which to appreciate books, without replacing the one that made me fall in love with reading in the first place.

As an extra, here are some of my current favourite books:

• The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gilig
• Bunny by Mona Awad
• Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali
• Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab
• The Deep by Rivers Solomon
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara