The ‘Book a Week’ Challenge: Read 52 Books In 52 Weeks
*Listen to the podcast before continuing to get the full description of the book-a-week challenge.*
New year resolutions is something that I don’t share publicly.
The goals I write down are personal and most of them won’t be applicable to others. However, I did identify one resolution that I think can be helpful. For the past few years, I’ve stacked books on top of books (virtually) based on recommendations I’ve received from friends, podcast guests, and my personal discoveries.
The problem was: I’ve never made the time (and priority) to set up the right systems to read them.
Now, I’m laying out a public challenge to you and myself called ‘The BAW (Book A Week) Challenge’.
The goal is simple: read 52 books in one year (one a week; four a month).
*Note: Yes, this is published in February so if you want to participate it can be 48 books.
If you just want the list of books that I’ll be reading, you can scroll down. If you’re interested in participating, read on.
How I’m approaching the reading process
1. Picking 1–3 areas of my life that I want to most improve or optimize
This year, with the goal to find more balance, I’ve decided to pick diversified topics most important in my life: Health & Wellness, Wealth & Business, Biographies. You can decide to go deep in one topic, and just read books on business, or just on health. Personally my ADHD will drive me nuts, but whatever floats your boat!
2. Create a list of books you want to read
Scour the web, browse through Amazon, take some of my suggestions — do whatever you need to get as many recommendations as possible. Make sure it’s from a diversified circle of people or source, so you can get a diversified group of books. Try to go beyond 52 books if you can.
3. Categorize them into the 1–3 areas
a. If you have more than 2+ topics, you can either:
- Read 4 books a month on one topic, then 4 books on the next. Or…
- Diversify by reading books on each topic every month (this is my approach)
b. Have a free for all section
- This gives you the freedom to either choose a book that is not related to the topics you chose, or read another book around your chosen topic. For me, these are topics around psychology, philosophy, relationships, history, fiction books, and more.
4. Go through your book list and start adding books in the order that you’re interested in
What usually works for me is to select topics that I can immediately apply in my life. Otherwise, you feel forced to read something that’s not directly applicable.
Another tip to keep in mind is to do some back research on the length of each book. For example, you wouldn’t want to cram in multiple 400-page books in the span of a month. Unless you’re a reading machine, then all the power to you! And last but not least…
5. Put the rest on your backlog
The backlog is there in case you run into a book that you lose interest in (which happens more often than you think). I’ve found that it’s rarely a good idea to finish a book for the sake of finishing a book. If you’re not vibing with the author, drop it and move on.
My last $0.02
- Take the time to study the process of reading faster. If you’re going to be reading 100,000’s of words, taking a few minutes to increase your reading speed can save you a massive amount of time.
- Measure how fast you currently read using this free test.
- Check out these free resources (or research on your own) on how to read faster:
- Blog post on Tim Ferriss, Blog post on Rype, Blog post on Mark Manson
- Try repeating the test again, and practice until you see some improvements
- Audiobooks can speed up your ‘reading’ MUCH faster. If you can retain non-fiction books in audio format, then this option is highly recommended. Although for certain books that involve more visual representation (such as bodybuilding or nutrition books), I prefer reading them.
- Check out Audible or Audiobooks.com
- Even though I’ve resisted Kindle for awhile (I’ve always liked the tangible feeling of books), adopting it into my life has been huge. I no longer have to carry around books when I travel, and I can bring one tablet that contains all of my books.
- If you slip up and forget to read a book (which will happen), keep going. The real purpose of the challenge is not to read 52 books in 52 weeks, it’s to develop the habits, time management, and reading skills to read more books. As long as you end up reading more books than you normally would, you’ve already won.
Without further ado, here’s my book-a-week reading list. Use and share it as freely as you please.
January
- Health: Becoming the Iceman by Wim Hof
- Wealth: The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies by Chet Holmes
- Biography: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone
- Free for all: The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
February
- Health: The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding : The Bible of Bodybuilding by Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Wealth: The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million Hardcover by Mark Roberge
- Biography: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Paperback by Walter Isaacson
- Free for all: Getting Everything You Can Out of Everything You’ve Got by Jay Abraham
March
- Health: The 4 Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman by Tim Ferriss
- Wealth: Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene M. Schwartz
- Biography: Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Paperback by Ron Chernow
- Free for all: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
April
- Health: The Bulletproof Diet: Lose up to a Pound a Day, Reclaim Energy and Focus, Upgrade Your Life Hardcover by Dave Asprey
- Wealth: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
- Biography: Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
- Free for all: Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan by Bill O’Reilly
May
- Health: The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting by Michael Mosley
- Wealth: Smart Pricing: How Google, Priceline, and Leading Businesses Use Pricing Innovation for Profitability by Jagmohan Raju
- Biography: Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s Mass Market Paperback — August 2, 2016
- by Ray Kroc
- Free for all: Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Expanded Third Edition Hardcover — 2005 by Charles T. Munger
June
- Health: Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime by Aubrey de Grey
- Wealth:The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
- Biography: Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton
- Free for all: Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman
July
- Health: The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama
- Wealth: Who by Geoff Smart
- Biography: The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty by J. Randy Taraborrelli
- Free for all: Lying by Sam Harris
August
- Health: The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease Reprint Edition by Daniel Lieberman
Wealth: When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man by Jerry Weintraub - Biography: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
- Free for all: The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done by Peter F. Drucker
September
- Health: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
- Wealth: How to Build a Real Estate Empire
- Biography: Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire by Julia Baird
Free for all: Our Country’s Presidents: All You Need to Know About the Presidents, From George Washington to Barack Obama by Ann Bausum
October
- Health: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Wealth: Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential by John Neffinger
- Biography: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
- Free for all: Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
November
- Health: The Men’s Health Big Book of Food & Nutrition by Joel Weber
- Wealth: The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick M. Lencioni
- Biography: The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
- Free for all: The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence by Gavin de Becker
December
- Health: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Wealth: Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal by Oren Klaff
- Biography: Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft by Thor Heyerdahl
Free for all: The Complete Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage, Life of Greece, Caesar and Christ, Age of Faith, Renaissance, Age of Reason Begins, Age of Louis … Revolution, Age of Napoleon, Reformation by Will Durant
The Backlog
Health & Wellness:
Business, Life & Money:
- The Fountain Head by Ayn Rand
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School by Mark McCormack
- As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
- Small Giants by Bo Burlingham
- Disrupt You by Jay Samit
- Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway
Biographies:
- The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson
- Muhammad Ali: His Life And Times by Thomas Hauser
- Empire State Of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner To Corner Office by Zack O’Malley Greenburg
- Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert
Other:
- Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
- On The Shortness of Life by Seneca
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- What If? by Randall Monroe
Hope you found this helpful. Would greatly appreciate it if you could hit the ‘Recommend’ button so more people can take on this challenge!
This was originally posted on my blog, Sean Kim.
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