This summer, I read a book.

Not a blog post. Not a podcast transcript. Not a long-form article on Substack. A real book. A paper one. With pages. About a hundred of them.

It’s the first book I’ve finished in longer than I care to admit. Somewhere along the way, my attention span got swept up in an endless stream of digital content—quick hits, hot takes, clever clips, and smart commentary that rarely lasts more than a few minutes. And I’ve told myself it’s the same. That reading a dozen thought-provoking pieces online is just as good as reading one book cover to cover.

But this was different. And, honestly, it was hard.

I had to put my phone in another room. I had to sit in silence. I had to fight the urge to check notifications or Chat GPT a passing reference. It felt almost foreign. But also… refreshing. Grounding. Satisfying.

The book was about education and artificial intelligence, written by a colleague whose thinking I admire. I have been meaning to read it for a while. I picked it up partly out of curiosity, partly out of professional obligation. But as I worked to stay focused on pages discussing how AI is reshaping schools, student agency and even our attention spans, the irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, struggling to sustain focus, something the book suggests may be eroding in the digital age.

Is that a bad thing? I’m still not sure. Maybe our brains are adapting to new ways of thinking. But there was something undeniably satisfying about the deep, slow engagement that a book demands. A different kind of thinking. A different kind of learning.

And, perhaps most importantly, a different kind of accomplishment.

I know some may say I’m showing my age still believing books matter. But if that’s the case, I’ll own it. Because this experience reminded me there’s still something powerful in sitting still, slowing down and immersing yourself in one sustained idea.

And here’s the twist: I think I might read another.

The joys of summer.

Read Full Post »