For this year’s Lent, I decided to reconnect with my reading spirit and get back into the groove by reading for 30 minutes each day. It was a little tricky at first to find the time and effort to do so, but all it took was the right book to get rolling, and I got exactly that with the Stephen King classic “’Salem’s Lot.”

As a kid, reading was a very important staple in my life. Before bed every night, I would indulge in some James Patterson classics, the “I Survived” series, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” “Magic Tree House” or whatever it took to put me to sleep. Reading helped me expand my vocabulary and broaden my horizons of creativity. Sadly, all of that left as soon as I got a new TV for Christmas, which was placed in my room and served as my new sleeping pill.

Since then, reading for me has become the chore every other high school and college kid assumes it is. I didn’t take time out of my day to read; instead, I’d spend the hours I had left playing video games, practicing the sports I was playing or going out with my friends. In the back of my head, I felt I was getting dumber and dumber, but I disregarded the fact that the lack of reading more than likely was the cause.

Fast forward to this March, when I decided it was time to go back to my roots and pick up a book. Thirty minutes a day is all I needed to feel comfortable yet challenged. At first, I started with an easy “picture” book, “The Mamba Mentality” by Kobe Bryant. It was easy to read, as there were only a few paragraphs on each page and some interesting insight into Bryant’s career and notorious mindset.

A few days later, I was done with the book and needed another. I decided to settle with Stephen King’s “’Salem’s Lot,” a book I purchased at Barnes & Noble a few years back but never got around to reading. For my first horror genre book, I was a bit skeptical.

I began reading, and within the next week, my 653-page book was finished. Just like a vampire at my window, pun intended, the book sucked me into its mysterious, thrilling, page-turning story about an author named Ben Mears and his nightmare visit back to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot.

For some backstory on the book, Ben Mears returns to ‘Salem’s Lot looking for a story upon which his new book can be based. Along the way, he develops a few relationships with some friends and a lover. During his stay, the town begins to unfold with uncharacteristic deaths left and right. While trying to discover the cause of these disappearances and deaths, Mears and his friends reveal a dark supernatural appearance among the community, a couple of new European occupants of the town.

I’ll stop there to avoid any spoilers, but I highly recommend reading this book. Not only did it entertain me throughout my Lent process, but it has also influenced me to pursue reading other King novels and classic best-selling books. Once Lent is over, I plan to continue pushing myself to read 30 minutes a day or even five hours a week.

I hope my resurgence in reading for Lent inspires others to pick up the book, or any book for that matter. Reading is a long-lost love of mine, and I’m glad I found my way back to the hobby.