How to read many books
Since Goodreads made it easy to do so, I’ve been tracking the books I read. Over the space of a year I tend to read between 50 and 100 books (I’m up to 93 for 2017 so far). Reading many books is important to me. I figure, why live one life when — through reading — you can live many lives? Plus, there are millions of books out there and even the most prolific reader will only ever be able to read a tiny portion of them. I’m not worried about running out of material.
As readers likely already know, reading is a wonderful hobby. It enhances our capacity for empathy, we get to learn lots of cool stuff, it’s cathartic, it’s challenging. Apparently all the successful kids do it. If you’re a writer, you come to absorb lessons for your own craft. Some books make you see life in a totally different way. Reading feels intimate, it feels like a communion with a character, you feel transported to a different place during an auspicious time.
But constantly, I hear people say things like: “I love to read but I never get any time for it!” People want to read but can’t seem to do it as much as they’d like. I thought I’d put together some thoughts about how I do it.
Identify as a reader
A reader is a real category of person. They have the patience to see stories through, to trawl bookstores and libraries for something that will interest them, and will try their best to engage with the world an author has created. Most importantly, readers read. If they haven’t read for awhile, they feel like something is missing. When you see yourself as a reader, you come to accept that one of the things you need to do to have a sense of equilibrium and to enjoy life is to read. It’s a bit easier to find time for it if you frame it in this way.
Make reading part of your daily routine
Train and bus commuters have this sorted — transit time is perfect for reading. Some people like to read before bed. A lunch hour is great reading time. In an hour you can probably read 50–60 pages, which is a hefty chunk of most books. Personally, I read first thing when I get up. To me, the rhythms of words helps me get used to the fact that I’m awake, it helps me into early consciousness.
Pick a time that works for you. If you’re exceptionally busy and tired, I’d say avoid the just before bed time slot (or else you’ll end up drooling your sleepy drool on page three). Reading is a great alternative to watching a 30 minute sit-com, you can take a book on a tread mill if you’re a gym bunny, or you might just get up a half hour earlier. Sometimes people advise incidental reading — if you’re in line at the supermarket or waiting for a barista to make your coffee, just pull out a book. I don’t enjoy reading in short stretches like that, I find it mentally hard to switch between reading and other tasks quickly. But if it works for you then do it!
Reading is ideally a daily practice. It gets you returning to the story frequently, which means that you’ll get the benefits of immersion. But we all live in a non-ideal world, so if finding time every day is a challenge, just start by finding time a few days a week.
Make reading part of your professional practice
This is not easy or possible for most people, but I’m putting this in anyway because for many of us, reading books can be a key part of our professional practice. I’m a PhD student. I have to read many books in order to understand what I’m doing (although I’d note that the minority of books I’d read in a year are strictly for my studies). I’m also a writer and though it’s optional, I believe that a massive part of a writing practice should actually be reading. I don’t think you can demand that your words be read if you aren’t prepared to read the words of others. Reading makes you humble, and it helps you see literature as a giant, ongoing conversation rather than the efforts of a bunch of isolated genius-types. Writers and those in adjacent professions should see reading as a duty as well as a hobby. Framing reading in this way makes it much easier to find time for it.
Join in on book conversations
When I regularly reviewed books, I read more books in general (not just more review books). The job engaged me with reading because of the fact that what you have to say about a book becomes meaningful to other people. People might buy it and spend hours of their time reading it (or not) based on what you have to say. I became enthusiastic about being part of a literary conversation.
If connecting with other book worms sounds like it would motivate you to read more too, there’s all sort of ways you can tap into that. You can start a book blog, you can get involved in the Goodreads community, you can exchange recommendations with a friend, or you can join a book club (book clubs have the added benefit of holding you account for reading the books you said you would).
See down-time and travel time as time to read
As much as reading can be something you set aside time for every day, and as much as reading can form part of your professional goals, a lot of reading gets done when you can dedicate bigger chunks of time to it. Two hours lying in bed, reading on a Saturday (bliss), could be the equivalent of an entire week’s worth of routine reading. Travel time is incredibly good for reading. I recently went to Copenhagen from my home in Oxford. The bus to the airport took 2.5 hours, and then the flight over was another 2 hours. I had almost finished an entire book by the time we landed.
So often, we’ll spend a lot of down-time on social media or we’ll use our travel time to watch in-flight entertainment that we’re a bit lukewarm about. Have a think about how you really want to use your time. Sometimes you won’t want to read: you’ll be too tired or the mood just won’t strike you. And that’s cool! But I noticed I read more when I conceptualised down-time and travel time as moments I could either read or find a good reason not to read. More often than not, I read.
Read books you actually want to read
This feels like obvious advice, but when I a teenager, I tended to want to read through older classics. The kinds of books you should read. I still think there’s a place for these challenging books, but you probably don’t want it to be all you read (unless it’s your jam). Over time, I’ve found out that I have very distinctive tastes. I like books from the mid twentieth century onwards, I like contemporary themes, most of what I read is ‘literary’, I’m not big on genre fiction (although the odd chick lit or psychological thriller hits the spot every so often), I like character-driven books, and so on. You don’t find out what you’re drawn to if you only read those books you think you should read. Moreover, it’s really difficult to read many books if you’re slogging away at something your heart’s not quite into.
It follows that you can quit reading a book if you just aren’t getting into it. I don’t mind reading books I don’t like because I find my disdain instructive (it’s good to know what doesn’t work in literature, and what annoys you) and often it has a momentum. It’s also really fun to hate on popular books (like Gone Girl, ugh!) The books that I give up reading are books that are boring. That’s way more offensive to me than irritating characters and inane plots.
Read a mixture of easy and challenging books
Some books you fly through. Do you love them? Keep reading. You don’t have to read High Literature (whatever that is) all the time to have a worthy reading life.
At the same time, your reading life ideally gives you more than a few hours of diversion. You gotta go for high quality stuff too. Here’s an example of what I mean: when I was little I practically inhaled Babysitter’s Club books. This is a good thing! My literacy skills were still developing and prolific reading really supported that. At the same time, my teacher told me that I should extend and challenge myself more. While I still liked the Babysitter’s Club, I started to find books that made me realise how stimulating, nourishing, challenging, and life-changing books can be. Instead of reading about what it’s like to look after American children, I came to read existential journeys to repair a dystopian future, or stories about the complex emotional landscapes of people undergoing hardships. Reading began to have a point much more profound than, say, television. There was more in it for me, and so I grew to be an even more prolific reader.
You blend the hard with the soft, the shade with light. You stretch and then you bundle up. Balance is key, I think, to being a dedicated reader. Books come to serve the function you need them to serve, and it becomes habit to begin to reach out for them more.
Read multiple books at once
Some books get a bit challenging and you lose momentum. I find it helpful to start another, perhaps more engaging book when I come across these. Sometimes it’s also just nice to mix up subjects and genres. Sometimes it’s nice to have a small, portable book to take out with you while you’re reading a mammoth book that you’ve decided to leave at home so you don’t strain your back carrying it around. At the moment, I’m reading four different books at four different paces. The real danger of reading multiple books is that you’ll never return to the book that is the most difficult/least interesting/biggest. So, you need to plan out how you’ll spread your attention. Remember that a chapter a week of a big novel will eventually lead to finishing it. While I’d call this slow progress, you can enjoy the quicker progress of your other book(s) and end up ultimately reading more.
Finish books in one sitting
Sometimes you just get those books that are really hard to put down. So, don’t put them down! Sure, if you need to sleep or go about your life or what have you, you literally have to put them down, but there’s nothing wrong with giving into the urge to finish books in one sitting. It’s a very satisfying way to read. The first time I did this was the fifth Harry Potter book (it was newly released and not only was it super-engrossing, I had to finish it asap to avoid spoilers), but if 700 pages seems like too many to read in one sitting, I’d recommend looking for novellas (which are practically designed for this purpose) or graphic novels (they tend to be quite quick reads because they’re picture-driven). Thrillers are also good to keep you turning pages.
Know what you want to read next
When you finish a book, you may want another nearby so you can start the next quickly as possible. Many readers have a huge backlog of books they want to read around their house, but less compulsive book buyers would do well to think about their next book as they’re reading their current one. I often jot down titles on an Evernote file on my phone when I see or hear about a book that sounds interesting. In the unlikely event I’m ever at a loss as to what to read, I can take my list to my local bookstore and have at least a few ideas about what I’m looking for.
Booksellers are great at recommending books, so if you’re confounded, go to them. Alternatively, if you send me a message saying what kinds of books you like and what kind of book you’d like to read next, I’m also always happy to offer recommendations (although, as indicated earlier, my book knowledge really falters at genre fiction).
Don’t get too caught up in the numbers
It feels somewhat hypocritical to say this after I’ve bragged about how many books I’ve read, but it’s unhelpful to see finishing a book as a task to check off your to do list. Reading a book takes however long it takes. To read a lot, you have to enjoy it, and to enjoy it you have to give your attention completely to the author’s world. Rushing through stories misses the whole point (as a side note, I endorse Ryan Holiday’s view against speed reading).
Obviously, it’s not that meaningful to measure the amount you read based on the number of books you’ve gotten through. You might have other reading habits that aren’t reflected in the stats. If you read lots of articles online or if you read the newspaper every day, you’re probably more disciplined a reader than me. As well, some books are just longer and denser than others. Some books can reasonably take ages read themselves, they’re just the kind of text you dip in and out of every now and then (this is how I’ve been reading Hermione Lee’s biography of Viriginia Woolf for two years and counting).
Set reading goals for yourself if you want, but what’s more important than the number of books you read is just the fact that you’re setting aside time for them. In the end, that’s how you maximise the benefits of reading, and maximise the number of lives you live.
