How To Read More
How To Read More
It's easy! But it's also kind of hard.
I’m noticing the mid-year “how to read more” chat starting to pop up, so as a Big Reader™, I thought I’d weigh in too. I’ll admit that this year has not been up to my usual standards, but I’m blaming still not having any books on my shelves six months into the year. I’ve made a solid dent in my Kindle Daily Deals, but it’s a way off of where I’d usually be by now - which is fine! Reading is supposed to be for fun!
On average, looking at the last 5 years of my glorious, colour-coded spreadsheet (I’m on Goodreads, but I don’t rate anything there, and I’ve made my own system so I can easily see how my reading is split between books by men, women, or nb people; books by writers of colour; books in translation; novels/short stories/poetry/non-fiction; small publishers vs big ones; etc. There are emoji ratings, I love it, it feels very satisfying to start a new sheet at the beginning of the year, and I’m very fun at parties.) I read about 100 books a year. I have no real idea of whether that’s a lot any more, because I know a lot of people who read far more and a lot of people who don’t read at all. I used to read more, before I spent REDACTED hours a day on TikTok instead, and I’ve always read multiple books at a time. It’s normally only two or three now, but when I was younger it would be six or seven on the go, my mum finding piles of books under the duvet at the foot of my bed.
Considering a subscription? For just £2 a month paid subscribers gain access to bi-weekly writing prompts, plus discounts on our courses and workshops. This Substack is reader-supported, and paid subscriptions mean I can do more of it! Please feel free to share it with friends who would enjoy it.
There has to be some nod towards lifestyle, too - I read a lot because I don’t have kids, who I imagine would eat into a lot of my time to do literally everything else. I don’t drive, so I can read on public transport when I’m going anywhere. I would read more if I spent less time doomscrolling, or if I listened to audiobooks instead of Spotify, but I work for myself most of the time - and a lot of that is reading, so that’s more time there too - from home, so if I want to spend all day on a Wednesday reading, I usually can. If the issue is just finding time to read, then some of that has to factor in the number of hours actually available to you, which, I think, if you have kids/drive everywhere/work in a customer-facing full-time job/etc, you probably have fewer of. It always feels kind of big-headed to be a Big Reader, but I promise it’s at the expense of doing other things I don’t want to spend that time on.
With that in mind, then, here are my top tips for squishing in more reading time…
Watch less TV / put down your phone
It’s obvious, but it’s true, and it’s probably the hardest one. I’ve never read more than in the two years I didn’t have a TV (my spreadsheet backs this up). I still don’t have a TV in the bedroom, but now I lose a ton of reading time to TikTok, which I really need to get out of the habit of.
Always take a book
Have a book in your bag, have the kindle app on your phone, have audiobooks downloaded ready to listen to. If it’s there already, it’s easier to read.
Read in bed
I have my phone set to lock all of my apps at 10pm which I routinely ignore, much like everyone else I know with screen time limits, but it does mean that I try to not have my phone an inch away from my face while I scroll for hours before I try to sleep, and I try to read for at least half an hour instead. Reading in bed is great! (I take no responsibility for you being tired if the book was good.) Very few things feel more luxurious to me than a morning in bed reading. It makes me feel like a lady of leisure.
Read what you want to
If you like beachy rom-com chick-lit, don’t be peer pressured into reading War and Peace if you don’t want to read War and Peace, and vice versa. Read short stories! Read novellas! Read 1000-page doorstops that you have to prop up on a pillow and can’t take out of your house. Honestly who cares if what you’re reading isn’t cool or trending on booktok or sitting on the ST bestsellers list. Life’s too short to read books you hate just for the sake of having read them. This also means you don’t have to finish a book you’re hating. Of course you don’t, you’re a grown up and no-one’s going to a) give you a gold star for slogging through a terrible book, b) know whether you finished it or not. DNF and pick up something you love instead.
Get good recommendations
Follow people on tiktok and instagram who have the same reading tastes as you, and follow people who don’t if you’re looking for new things to try. Join a bookclub! Talk to people at your local bookshop! Go to the library and see what’s on their TRY THIS shelf!
Be nice to yourself
Genuinely, if you don’t spend a ton of time reading, or don’t carve out more time for it, it’s fine! No one cares! There’s no prizes. If you like playing video games or watching Netflix or scrolling instagram instead, great! If you prefer spending your time cooking or going to the gym or making things or actually talking to other human beings, you’re allowed to prefer those things. If I preferred any of those things over reading I would probably have had not quite so many boxes of books to ship to Australia and more IRL friends 🤷🏻♀️
Recently…
