The accident took place without warning during a holiday. The culprit: an Airbnb bedside table with no power outlet. A minor inconvenience forcing a mobile phone on its last gasp of ions into another room for the night.
While lying on the bed desperately trying to stem the terrifying rise of my own thoughts, it happened: I reached over and picked up a book.
The creeping anxiety of missing global breaking news had sent me, started to slowly release its grip on my synapses, as sentences on pages swelled to paragraphs that soon arched to chapters. My goldfish-trained brain, so used to the mindless flick of short-form, calorie-void videos as a wind-down technique, suddenly felt soothed as it held a single connected idea together on paper. Peace descended.
I slept through that night, something I hadn't done in a long time. Now, months later, I've never once had the phone back near the bed.
The downside of this new leaf, though, was turning into the absolute worst type of book reader — a born-again book reader. "Books! Have you tried reading books!?" I preach. Conscious that this life development was transforming me into the bibliophile equivalent of a vegan on a yoga mat, I've since been delighted to learn I am far from alone.
I'd seen headlines screaming that book festivals are the new raves. Wishful thinking from a bunch of nerds, I thought. But as it turns out, it has never been cooler to read books — and to collectively share that experience — than it is today.
The recent Auckland Writers' Festival enjoyed its highest attendance ever, breaking all records in its 27-year history. Crowds were up 15% on the previous year as people excitedly gathered and queued for sessions and signatures. The Sydney Writers' Festival also declared this year the most successful event in its 29-year history, with record attendance and ticket sales.
So what is driving people back to wood pulp and ink? Are book readers the vanguard of a human reaction to the AI-generated content that online platforms now serve with increasingly diminishing returns? Or perhaps a breakthrough group simply scrolled to the end of the internet and decided there was more to life — and that "more to life" was a Patrick Radden Keefe book?
And what does the upsurge in collectivism say about us? What is it about book reading, traditionally a solitary pursuit, that seems to spur us to bravely navigate public transport and forgo sacred weeknights to come together and bask in the glow of a well-written story, often alongside its author?
On the face of it, it's a strange concept, given that attendees have typically read the book, the author has obviously written the book, and now everyone is smugly sitting in a theatre celebrating their own personal achievement. Nevertheless, these get-togethers are working, bringing new layers to the simple experience of reading.
When it comes to book clubs, I've always thought of them as mainly an excuse to gather and chat. We once had a major midnight disturbance outside our house, only to learn the next morning it was a local book club's end-of-year function whose members, on their wobbly walk home, decided to sing their appreciation outside our gate — each clutching their book of the month. Absolute scenes.
None of this properly explains why people are increasingly rejoicing in this solidarity of breathing the same air as other bookish types. But I wonder if these events could be the timid re-entry into public socialisation after years of keeping apart?
Maybe these bookfests are gateway gatherings — a first brave step back into crowded rooms, before people lose themselves on a dark, jostling dancefloor to obscure electronic music once more. Or, maybe, that's just my newly book-stretched imagination, spilling out a sentence that was far too long, as it discovers its whole new expanded potential.