I consider myself a fairly voracious reader, and without getting into too much snobbish, pseudo-Victorian yearning for the discreet joys of staying home with a book and a nice cup of tea, let it suffice to say that I’m proud to do so. I was fortunate to grow up in a household that made sure I read, and to spend my formative years in a suburb with one of the largest public libraries in greater Chicago. It’s as good a recipe for a lifetime of literacy as you’ll find. As a kid, I loved just about any young adult fiction I could get my hands on, Judy Blume being a favorite. I sought out many books about flags and languages of foreign nations, with any holes in my nonfiction reading filled by my mom’s old 1966 World Book Encyclopedia, which over a childhood I more or less read A to Z. Not bad, though I will also admit to having had a sizable weakness for periodicals about video games. Kids are kids.

These days, I pretty well spray to all fields, having amassed a solid bedrock of American and European literature, plus nonfiction on everything from history, psychology, and music, to baseball analytics, etymologies, and the civil engineering of New York (Robert Caro’s The Power Broker — an 1,100-page behemoth which I’d love to recommend if you have an interest in politics and plan to take, say, a trans-oceanic flight). All this and yes, of course, my growing shelf of books on autism, many of which I like to share with you here.

What I’ve noticed in recent months is that I’m just not reading novels the way I used to. I’m sure it’s a number of factors: as you get older, your preferences crystallize, and you don’t want to try something new in case you don’t like it. A fair deal of my favorite authors just aren’t writing anymore. But most of all, I think it’s a matter of time. Great novels require commitment. A website called “Infinite Summer” helps readers tackle David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece Infinite Jest with a daily reading guide that asks for just fifteen pages a day…for 92 days. And with I Am Autistic episodes to prepare and record, my copywriting job, and a teetering tower of books to review here, I just can’t commit right now. It’s not you, novel, it’s me.

What I am reading as of late are essays and short stories. Though they never get the same acclaim as The Novel, I’d rather enjoy a few great essays and short stories than read some airport novel just to say I finished a book. At the moment, I’m enjoying Nine Stories, a short story anthology largely centered around J.D. Salinger’s precocious Glass family, the tragic fall of the brilliant-but-flawed family being a favorite theme of mine in literature and film (Infinite Jest, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Royal Tenenbaums).

I’m also reading Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum. If I think I don’t have the time to sit and read, I can’t imagine what it’s like for the parent of a child with autism. Fortunately, here is a book that allows parents who are pressed for time and energy to steal a few moments for some relaxing, feel-good reading, for as much or as little time as they have.

The Chicken Soup format should be no stranger to any of us at this juncture: a collection of short pieces that serve to soothe, hearten, uplift, and motivate the reader, usually one who is going through some time of adversity: cancer survivors, expectant mothers, addiction recoverers, and veterans of wars, to name a few. I had Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul in middle school, adolescence being a great time of adversity indeed. The autism-spectrum iteration of the popular franchise follows form, with 101 short — generally just two to five pages — essays and anecdotes about life as a parent touched by autism.

…In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that amidst the featured authors are Autism Channel personalities, whom we’re proud to highlight…

The book is organized into rough categories of dealing with the label of autism, social interactions, humor, challenges, and family, among others. Reading entire categories at once, or reading the book cover to cover, however, is hardly required, and can even detract from the efficacy of the anecdotes. The sixth or seventh story in the same vein can find itself without the punch of the first or second, and so the best course for general reading is to skip around the 101, sampling a little bit of each. Of course, if you’re approaching the book as a direct response to an event — for instance, a rough day at the grocery store — perhaps you may wish to load up on stories about public interactions. Or perhaps after a day that has been trying in many ways, all you want is to find something to laugh about. You’ll find that here, like the story of a camper with autism who, after compiling a collection of photos, takes the term “disposable camera” literally.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that amidst the featured authors are Autism Channel personalities, whom we’re proud to highlight. Our Kathleen Leopold of The Blog Ladies shares a family conversation about autism in a household where some are on the spectrum and others are not, where one child wonders if dogs have autism. (My facetious verdict: they might, but cats definitely do.) And Mary Beth Marsden of Real Look Autism documents her efforts to produce a show about the autism spectrum, which she ultimately accomplished.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum is a book that, like many of the anthologies I’ve read, is largely what you make of it. You may choose to zero in on one category of stories, or you may eventually read them all. There will be stories you take from it that you’ll cherish, and there will be stories that are duds. And the duds for you may be cherished by someone else. What it will do is have you engaged in the act of reading a tangible book, something that you may not find yourself doing enough with the considerable time constraints placed on you. If you’ve forgotten how enjoyable it can feel to be immersed in a book, whether it’s a cover-to-cover page-turner or one where you skip from story to story, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Raising Kids on the Spectrum will, if nothing else, restore that good feeling of time well spent. And if you do want to accompany your reading with the proverbial nice cup of tea, I can recommend a terrific Darjeeling for a late afternoon.

If you are so inclined, you may purchase a copy of the book here.

Daniel Heinlein is the host of I Am Autistic, seen exclusively on The Autism Channel.