Today I’m sharing 10 reading tips because people always ask, “How do you read so many books?”

10 Tips for Reading More Books

Last year, I read 154 books. How do I read so many books? Is there a secret? First, reading is NOT a competition and reading 1 or 100 books a year qualifies you as a reader. Your enjoyment and satisfaction are the true measures of a reading life.

I have a few tips for you if you want to increase the number of books you read in a year.

I’m linking up today with That Artsy Reader Girl for Top Ten Tuesday: Freebie

***This post contains Amazon Affiliate links.

(In no particular order)

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R E T I R E M E N T ! ! !

OK…this is cheating! But, it’s something to look forward to! I can read in bed in the morning or stay up late at night. I’m mostly free to pick up a book at any point of the day and read. Treating myself to a bagel at the corner shop and an hour of reading, yes, please! In retirement, I average around 150 books per year.

While I was teaching, I only read in the summer and occasionally during fall, winter, or spring breaks. During my career years, I averaged about 30 books per year (and some of those were middle grade books so that I could offer recs to my students).

While I was raising my children, reading was mostly limited to magazines and a handful of novels. We didn’t have audiobooks or earbuds! We did have books on tape which were cumbersome and inconvenient. My life in these years included frequent and routine trips to the library, and I never counted the number of picture books and chapter books I read!

Between child raising years and my teaching career, my reading consisted of textbooks while I finished my undergrad and earned my master’s and teaching credential.

Reading has seasons! Reading is one of the joys of retirement!

If Retirement is not in your immediate future, how do you increase the number of books you read in the meantime?

1. Read Books You Enjoy!

I can’t emphasize this enough! Nothing kills reading mojo faster than forcing yourself to read a book you’re not enjoying! Find a genre or subgenre you love. There are no book police. If it’s not bringing you joy, set it aside. Practice the art of DNFing! Find an author you love, and read their backlist. A good series can be motivational because you already know the characters and their world.

2. The Magic of 10-15 Minutes!

Those 10 minutes add up at the end of a week or month! Use those idle minutes in the pickup line at your child’s school. Use the few minutes you’re waiting for your friend to meet you for lunch. Read while you’re eating or during commercial breaks while watching TV. Watch the minutes add up to hours!

3. Audio Books

I always have one audiobook in progress that I can take with me in the car or play while I’m cooking or watering my plants or folding laundry. While I don’t love an audio format for all my reading, I do enjoy one in certain circumstances. One downside for me is that I read faster than I can listen. Even though I listen at 1.25 speed, it still seems like it takes me a long time to finish an audio book.

4. Take Your Kindle

I love my Kindle because I can carry my entire library with me! I look forward to wait times in doctors’ offices because those are ideal distraction-free reading times. I’m always annoyed when they DON’T keep me waiting! I’ve even pulled out my Kindle while in line at the post office. Maybe you don’t want to carry your Kindle, or you don’t have a Kindle, no problem. You can download the Kindle app to your phone. Kindle syncs between devices, so you can easily pick up where you left off. I used the Kindle app on my IPad and IPhone for years before I bought a Kindle.

5. Buddy Reads or Book Clubs

When you are buddy reading with a friend or in a book club, there’s an accountability factor that will work to your advantage. Discussing books with reading friends is enjoyable, motivational, and will inspire you to read more.

6. Blocks of Time

Some readers are successful in blocking their time. If you work, you could read for 15 minutes during your lunch break or sit in your car and read for 10 minutes before driving home. You could schedule a short reading block in your morning or evening routine. If you enjoy poetry, you could read a poem each morning, or a chapter in your nonfiction book during your lunch break, or 20 pages in your novel before bed.

7. Set a Goal

Goals can be attainable! Set some realistic goals and build from there. Maybe you can read 10 pages a day or 5 minutes a day. I also need to note here that all readers read at different speeds. I happen to be a fast reader, so I might be able to plow through more books in a week/month/year than others. Realistic goals need to be set to match your reading speed. If you read ten books last year, maybe twelve would be a realistic goal for this year.

8. Consider a Shorter Book

Any book over 400 pages can be intimidating. Short stories, poems, novellas, and/or essay collections might be more motivational. Rereading an old favorite may entice you to do more reading. If you want to get through a long book, break it into smaller chunks: one chapter a day, a certain number of pages, or a set amount of minutes. A long-range reading project interspersed with shorter books can motivate you toward a satisfying and productive reading life.

9. Find a Book Twin

If you don’t have friends who are readers, you might consider trying out different bookish blogs, instragram accounts, podcasts, etc until you find someone whose reading tastes (mostly) matches yours. These are called book twins.

10. Establish a Habit

We will find a way each day to do the things that are meaningful to us. If reading is important, you will find time for it in creative ways. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear offers lots of practical advice for establishing new habits. One of his best tips is to connect a new habit you want to acquire with an already established habit. For example, you can listen to audiobooks while you shower or take a bath. You’ve already carved out time for your shower, so combine audiobooks with that established habit!

Another habit that works for me is to plan what I’m going to read next before I finish my current read. If my next book is already waiting for me, it keeps me in the habit of reading. If I don’t know what to read next, a week or two or more could go by without picking up a book, and then it’s more difficult to get back into a reading routine.

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QOTD:

What is your favorite tip for reading more books?

Don’t miss my FREE 2025 Summer Reading Guide!

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