Ten minutes a day, a story in your bag — reading pulls you in and keeps you there
Sylvie Belmond 
In Simi Valley and beyond, books can connect neighbors, build focus and fuel imagination
(CLAIR | Simi Valley, CA) — A book can stop time. You open the cover and step away from the buzz of notifications, errands and endless feeds, and suddenly you’re somewhere else entirely.
In a world of scrolling and swiping, it can feel almost radical to sit with a story, to let words stretch out across hours or days and demand your attention. But the rewards are lasting.
Books take us places we can’t otherwise go — into space, into history, or into the kind of adventure that might inspire us to set out ourselves, whether on a motorcycle or a sailboat, headed who knows where. They let us borrow someone else’s shoes for a while and remind us what focus feels like. Here are a few that recently found their way into my hands.
- Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly. The veteran astronaut takes readers inside the brutal realities of long-term spaceflight and the unlikely path that brought him there — a story of grit, risk and imagination distilled into one remarkable career.
- A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston. The actor’s life unfolds in sharp, surprising chapters that show how every odd job and audition shaped the craft he’s now known for. Read together, the pieces form the path that eventually led to Walter White — one of television’s most unforgettable characters.
- The Journey to Me by Annette Birkmann. Alone on a motorcycle for more than 33,000 miles, she writes about finding clarity when the road gets rough.
- Swell by Liz Clark. A young surfer-turned-sailor takes off across the Pacific on her 40-foot boat, chasing waves and solitude while wrestling with storms, breakdowns and the joy of living life by the tide.
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. This one is pure magic. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor.
- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. A World War II novel so beautifully written it feels like stepping into another world.
Even ten minutes a day can be enough to slip into a story — a small investment that retrains your concentration and reminds you what it feels like to follow a single thread without distraction. A few pages in the doctor’s office or at the DMV beat another round of scrolling. The story waits for you, ready to carry you somewhere else.
Page vs e-reader
Screens have their place, but the page is still different. Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo and Nook all offer distraction-free reading, yet nothing quite matches the feel of holding a book in your hands. Focus comes easier, imagination runs freer, and your phone’s buzzing notifications stay out of reach.
What research tells us
Reading does more than entertain. Pediatricians with the American Academy of Pediatrics note that reading aloud with children from infancy builds brain development, language and social-emotional skills — benefits that ripple through a lifetime. And studies of adults show that reading literary fiction in particular can strengthen empathy and our ability to understand others’ perspectives.
Learning itself also shifts depending on how we take in words. According to Psychological Science, published by SAGE Journals, students who typed notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than those who wrote by hand. The difference? Writing by hand ties together motor, sensory and cognitive systems in ways that boost learning of new words and concepts. Recent high-density EEG research has confirmed this advantage, showing broader, stronger brain activation during handwriting than typing.
Finding books in Simi
Books don’t have to be expensive. The Friends of the Simi Valley Library run used book sales that support local programs, and The Open Book on Cochran Street is a browser’s delight. You never know what you’ll find tucked on a shelf. And of course, books are free at the library itself.
And if reading is better with company, Simi Valley and the 805 area have clubs for that too. Silent Book Club Simi Valley says it gathers people who want to sit and read together in quiet camaraderie — their next meeting is set for a café in Thousand Oaks. For a more social take, Simi Valley Chapter Chats says it organizes monthly “Drink and Digest” meetups, votes on book picks, and even hosts movie nights when a story makes it to the screen. And in Camarillo, 805 Reads says it has been bringing together readers from Ventura, Oxnard, Thousand Oaks and Simi for 14 years, with four different monthly groups focused on everything from contemporary fiction to mysteries to award winners, plus quarterly salon nights.
These are examples, and readers should check for themselves whether each group is currently active — but they show the variety of ways people are coming together around books, whether in quiet or over coffee and conversation.
And if you don’t see a fit, start your own. A living room, a café, even a park bench can be the beginning of something.
When a city reads together
The City of Simi Valley celebrates books in more ways than one. The Family Book Festival has carried themes like “Reading ’Round the Campfire!” in 2024 and this year’s “BFF: Books, Friends, Fun.” The city also runs Community Reads!, choosing a single book — such as Brené Brown’s Rising Strong — to spark conversations around resilience. And this year, the Simi Valley Public Library joined the national “Drawn to the Library” theme, reminding us how art and story tug at the imagination.
Your turn — What’s the last book you read, and why did it stay with you?
