By Alyssa Guzman,Editor

Copyright dailymail

With 50 state flags flying on a huge pile of dirt, it’s not your typical backyard.

But Colorado man Steven Reese has turned his garden into a challenge by burying 50 books in the soil in a bid to encourage people on the internet to read more… and it’s working.

Reese, 29, of Denver, never considered himself a reader in high school or college. In fact, he was among the group of students who avidly used SparkNotes to get summaries of the class readings.

‘Reading was never something I did,’ he told Daily Mail. ‘I would never read the books, I would just read the summaries.’

It wasn’t until his friend recommended him The Stand by Steven King, a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy, shortly after he graduated college that he got the reading bug.

‘I couldn’t get enough of it!’ he said.

Now, he’s on an endeavor to read 50 books from all 50 US states, partly to challenge himself and partly to challenge others to read books they may have never picked up otherwise.

‘I thought: “What’s kind of a category or something that could introduce me to a bunch of different kinds of books that I would never read?” he said in a phone interview.

So the 50 Books for 50 States challenge was created, and he gave his wife the stipulations – as she would be the one to pick the books. These included books that would challenge him and novels that would be new to him.

‘You know me,’ he told her. ‘So, pick books that are going to push me and be books I would never pick up on my own.’

The collection – which cost between $700 and $800 – is a mixture of old and new copies, hardback and paperback books, and consists of fiction and nonfiction stories.

‘This kind of a challenge forces you to read books you would have never picked up otherwise. And I think when we pick up books that we would have never picked up or forced to, we grow as individuals and it’s just good for people to read widely and read from different perspectives,’ he said.

Although a literary tour of the 50 states may not seem like a crazy thing for a man to do, it’s the way Reese went about it that caught the attention of readers and internet users alike.

Each book was wrapped in brown paper by his wife with the state written in Sharpie on the front and then stuffed in a Ziploc bag. But the kicker is, he then buried the books in the backyard of his new Denver home.

‘I’m DYING that y’all decided to BURY them,’ one TikTok user wrote.

‘HAHAHA WHY [ARE] WE BURYING THEM?’ another questioned.

An Instagram user commented: ‘My favorite part is that there’s absolutely no reason for the books to be buried.’

Even Penguin Random House was unsettled by the odd place to store books, commenting on Instagram that they were ‘at a loss for words’.

But that was the whole point, Reese said.

‘I wanted other people to do this with me,’ the Kentucky native told Daily Mail.

‘There’s so much noise [on the internet], so I was like: “How do I break through that?”‘ And that’s when the idea of burying them in my backyard came to me.

‘If I bury these in my backyard, people will stop scrolling and join me.’

And it’s working. His videos have gotten hundreds of thousands of views across TikTok and Instagram and racked up just as many likes. He’s also gotten hundreds of direct messages about the project.

If he had to guestimate, he suspects hundreds of people are reading along with him. A fan of the project even created a book club for it on Fable.

‘It’s honestly very silly,’ he said of the burial. ‘I like to do things that are, like, kind of dumb.’

As for whether he thinks his followers would join him in on the digging, he’s doubtful.

‘I’d be shocked if anyone is burying them,’ the soon-to-be father-of-two told Daily Mail.

But he and his wife are fine digging 50 holes in the backyard because they plan on putting grass in next year. Plus, the dry climate and limited rain in Colorado meant the books would stay safe in the shaded backyard.

And so far, none of the books have been damaged.

He also ranks the books in order of his most to least favorite on a pegboard, which is also in his backyard. So far, his favorite is California’s East of Eden by John Steinbeck, with Wisconsin’s Evicted by Matthew Desmond pulling up the rear.

The journey has also led him to read books like Pet Cemetery by Steven King (Maine) and Where the Crawdad Sings by Delia Owens (North Carolina), among others.

Reese is also aware that his audience is mainly women, who, statistically, make up the majority of people who read consistently.

As a man, he’s hoping to encourage other men to pick up a book and put down the remote controller.

‘I have seen that more men, as they see another guy reading, have become more interested in reading,’ Reese told Daily Mail. ‘Men used to read a lot more than they do now.

‘I think as men gravitated more toward social media and scrolling and video games and things like that, I just don’t think those mediums promote a lot of growth, they don’t promote wisdom, empathy, things like that. They’re not productive means of spending your time.

‘Studies have shown reading is such a better way to engage your time than the other things men have been drawn to.’

A social media trend of ‘performative men’ – guys who are often seen carrying tote bags and reading women-popular literature like Joan Didion – is also growing, which Reese doesn’t find to be helpful if the men aren’t actually reading the books.

‘Performative reading is not reading,’ Reese lamented. ‘It’s using books as fashion.’

He’s hoping his presence in the book community will encourage men to go to the bookstore and pick out material that actually interests them, rather than using them for social status.

‘If you want to read sci-fi, just go pick up a sci-fi book!’ he said. ‘You don’t have to pick up some post-modern literary thing you’re not even interested in that you’re just doing to perform. It’s just silly.’

At the end of the day, whether people embark on the journey through the 50 states with him or not, he’s hoping more people – both men and women – will be inspired to read, enjoy the material they consume, and maybe learn something.

‘Books have a unique ability to put ourselves into someone else’s head,’ he said. ‘Since we lost the art of reading as a culture, I think we’ve seen ourselves get more divisive, and more at each other’s throats, because we lost the ability to consider something from someone else’s point of view.

‘Reading is the only way, really, to get into someone else’s head for a minute to see from their perspective.