Look, I get it: attention spans nowadays are shot. The pandemic seemed like it would’ve been a great time to get a lot of reading done, but my attention span was so thoroughly ruined that to this day I have trouble sitting down and reading a book, though I have made a lot of progress on that front of late. I get the struggle. I understand why book clubs have sprouted all over the place. Literacy rates are down, and we are all collectively trying to get them back up any way we can. But maybe we shouldn’t be paying thousands of dollars to go on “reading retreats,” where people gather around under trees or whatever to… just read.

Just go to a park. Start a Facebook group. Anything is better than people, mostly women, paying anywhere between $1,000-$3,000 to sit in a nice house and do something that is, generally speaking, free.

The idea of it, according to this feature from Bloomberg’s Weekend Dispatch, is that people gather in a scenic location like the countryside, a babbling brook, or a cozy boutique hotel and just…read. It’s not a book club where they’re all reading the same book. Sometimes there are snacks and some wine and maybe a guided hike, but mostly it’s paying the equivalent of most people’s entire paychecks to force yourself into a situation in which you would feel really weird if you didn’t read. I guess some people need the added motivation of potentially wasting a lot of money to get them to read a book.

I Wouldn’t Pay Thousands to Read Books, But I Understand the Urge

It sounds stupid, and yet I kind of get it. I wouldn’t spend thousands of dollars to partake, but I understand the desire, the desperation, behind it. And it’s not even all that strange an activity in and of itself. Reading used to be a social activity. Way back before electricity and smartphones, people would wander into the woods to read books together under a tree; sometimes, a book would be read out loud to a group. Mutual reading was a part of our social fabric.

Today, with so many outlets and media sources vying for our attention, the simple act of reading has been pushed to the margins and has been almost entirely regulated to an individual, anti-social activity. These retreats are a direct response to the idea that reading is an inherently isolating activity. They want to help you rebuild your ability to focus on a book while also reintegrating you into a community.

But do you need to spend thousands of dollars to re-create conditions that already exist if you were to just turn off your phone for a few hours one afternoon? I get the appeal of its infrastructure, and I get the encouragement of the permission the whole venture provides, it just doesn’t seem like that should cost thousands of dollars.

But, as the article goes into, for some, it’s money well spent, especially if it means being around other like-minded readers hoping to build a real-world community of other well-read people. Some apparently compared to a yoga retreat or a day at the spa. It’s self-care mixed with community building. It’s an isolated act made social. I get it all. I understand it. I appreciate it. I just think you can do the same thing for free.