Are you in school still? I have ADHD, and I could not read for pleasure when I had to read for school. It took me about 3-4 years of being out of school before I could read.

Do you listen to audiobooks? When my attention for reading isn’t great, I still try to keep it up with audiobooks. They are great for multitasking with your hands. Reading while you fold laundry. Reading while you do dishes. Reading while you drive.

Do you read long form journalism? These are the magazine or newspaper articles that take 45-90min to read. reading those might be a good start to grow your attention to reading. There’s a subreddit for good long form articles. I think it’s long form or long reads or something.

What are you reading? If a book doesn’t interest you, stop reading after 10-30 pages and then find another one. Start developing a “taste” in books. What do you like? What appeals to you? Think less about content/themes/reputation in what you select to read and think more about pace, plotting, character development, narration style, genre, pacing, setting.

For example, even though literally every book I read is about queerness, I automatically pass on queer short stories because I realized that I hate short stories. I really dislike the beginning of books and ends of books, and love the middles. Short stories sucks for me because they are literally just beginnings and ends, and no middles.

Also, you don’t need to read classics. It’s not worth my attention to slog through 19th century prose. All of my friends (and everyone on this sub) is like OMG JANE AUSTEN! I hate doing reading that feels like school (and I have a PhD), so I just don’t want to read stuff like that.

ETA: stop buying books, too. Get books from the library. And then if you like it, buy a copy of the book after the fact. This will help you feel less guilty if you don’t finish it. I like keeping used copies of books I liked at my house because then I just gift them to my friends.