(xxDE) And speaking of mindfulness, when was the last time you really settled down with a good book? No checking your phone, no quick Googling, no interruptions? Yeah, same for us. Writing in The Globe and Mail, author Michael Harris makes the confession some of us at Enterprise are still too embarrassed to ‘fess up to: he’s forgotten how to read.

Ways to read: “To read was to disappear, become enrobed in something beyond my own jittery ego. To read was to shutter myself and, in so doing, discover a larger experience. I do think old, book-oriented styles of reading opened the world to me – by closing it. And new, screen-oriented styles of reading seem to have the opposite effect: They close the world to me, by opening it.” These new styles of reading, Harris contends, are sharper, more critical, faster. They speed towards the point and usher you on to the next thing, heightening our instinctive tendency towards distraction and undoing the conditioning of years spent curled up with a book. But instead of despairing, Harris chooses to celebrate that books can still transport us to a pre-internet frame of mind, an increasingly rare occurrence.