How To Read More

It’s that time of year again, the one where we all resolve to change our lives in some fundamental way. Don’t worry, I’m sure next month we’ll all be back on our collective bullshit, but for now I’m here to help. One of the most common New Years resolutions is to read more – it’s right up there with exercising and eating “right”. Whether you say you want to read more, make time to read more, motivate yourself to read more, however you put it, it all boils down to the same thing.

I’m dedicating this entire month to helping you do just that, in a variety of ways. And you should steel yourselves, because I don’t play: I’m going to give it to you straight. Welcome to part one of the Keeping Up With The Penguins How To Read More series (slash bootcamp), where I will crush every single excuse you’ve got for not having your nose in a book.

“I Don’t Have Time To Read”

Yes, you do.

You “have time” for the things you make time for. You have time to work, don’t you? You have time to sleep, shower, take care of your kids, have dinner with your in-laws, whatever. You have twenty-four hours in the day, and you decide how you use them, just like the rest of us. It’s up to you how much you value reading, and whether that’s more or less important than everything else you decide to spend your time doing.

So, once you’ve decided that you want to use more of your time for reading (and for a good reason, more on that in a minute), here are some tips to make it easier:

• Put reading on your to-do list, just like you would exercise or any other “habit” that you’re trying to form. If you’re a list junkie, like me, that nagging feeling of an unchecked item will give you the nudge you need to pick up a book.
• Don’t shoot for the moon. If you try and carve two and a half hours out of every day for reading straight off the bat, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Keep your goals small and do-able. Set a target of, say, reading a few pages before bed, or reading for the duration of your commute instead of scrolling through Buzzfeed listicles. Goals that feel small and achievable are the easiest to reach.
• You can make it easier on yourself by incorporating reading into your existing habits. When you’re sitting on the couch with your family after dinner, try reading together instead of watching TV. Turn off Spotify, and listen to audiobooks during your daily walks instead (yes, that counts).
• Keep your books within easy reach – carry them in your handbag, make a stack on your bedside table, make sure they’re always an arm’s length away. Your brain will always take the path of least resistance, and if the books are handy and the habits are already there… well, you get the idea.

“Reading Is Boring”

No, it’s not.

You’re reading the wrong book.

Seriously, that’s the real problem. The right book is the one that captures your interest and keeps it. When you find that book, you won’t find the act of sitting down to read “boring” at all – in fact, you’ll look forward to it, and find excuses to get back to it when maybe you should be doing other things.

This advice holds true for the equally-common excuse “I’m too easily distracted by my phone/computer/television”. When you’re reading the right book, you’ll find yourself so immersed in it that it won’t even occur to you to check your notifications or go searching for the remote.

So, how do you find the “right” book? Easy: try them all. It can be an expensive exercise if you’re buying them, because you’ll probably burn through a lot before you get your money’s worth. If that’s a problem, look into a library membership or check out the selection of cheap/free eBooks available through Amazon. Give every book a go, and never let yourself forget that you are under no obligation to continue with one that’s not holding your interest.

(Of course, there can be value in doing that sometimes, but if boredom is what’s keeping you from reading, you need to focus on that for now.)

Even if you go through a dozen and still don’t find one that takes your fancy, keep going. Gobble up bite-sized chunks of books until you find one so delicious that you can’t help but devour the whole thing.

“Reading Is Hard For Me”

OK, there’s no tough-love advice for this one: it’s a completely legitimate problem… but it doesn’t mean that you can’t get any value out of books at all.

Have you tried large print books? Have you tried reading on an e-reader instead of a paper book? Have you tried audiobooks? My grandmother lived with a fairly severe vision impairment, but she still got a great deal of enjoyment out of audiobooks, and she was always excited to get started on the next one.

Whatever the hurdle, it can be crossed, I promise you – just keep investigating your options, and don’t get hung up on the notion that if it’s not ink on paper it “doesn’t count”.

If you feel that reading is inaccessible to you for financial reasons, you’ve got options too! Try your local library as the first point of call. Even if you struggle to read paper books, they probably have electronic and audio options available to you, all for free. Even if the building is a long way away, they probably have some kind of program that allows books to be delivered or mailed to you. If they really can’t offer you anything that works for you, write to your local government council and tell them what services you need. After all, it’s up to them to provide resources to the community that funds them – and that includes you!

“I Don’t Know What To Read”

Well, subscribe to Keeping Up With The Penguins, for starters. Do it right now:

OK, that was a bit cheeky, I know 😉 But in all seriousness, start looking at reviews and recommendations from book-lovers online. They’re bound to suggest at least one or two that appeal to you. You could also try looking over the recommended reading lists of people you admire; not all of them will be winners, of course, but it’s a good place to start.

Sometimes figuring out what to read can be as simple as coming up with a list of things that you like and enjoy – road trips, taxidermy, 1960s fashion, Renaissance art, soccer, chemistry, whatever – and searching Google (or a site like Keeping Up With The Penguins) for “books about X”. Think of it as a super-easy shortcut for cobbling together a shortlist of books – usually a good combination of fiction and non-fiction, too – on a subject that you already know interests you.

Bonus tip: you can start going back through the archives and re-reading some of your favourites from childhood or high-school. That nostalgic kick you get from books you remember well can’t be beat!

“I Need More Easy, Practical Tips To Read More”

I’ve got you covered:

• Try joining a book club. Whether it’s one that meets in person or an online forum (there are a lot of Facebook groups for this!), it’ll work. Not only do you get to chat about what you’re reading with other people, you’ll probably find friends with similar reading tastes who can recommend other books to you. If nothing else, the social pressure of knowing that your book club meeting is coming up will get your butt in a chair and your nose in a book.
• Set specific goals. Not to sound like a corporate wanker, but specific goals are important. Whether it’s a number of books, a specific timeframe, or a list of books (like mine), giving yourself a measurable outcome that you can track as you go is super-motivating.
• Get on Goodreads (friend me!) and #bookstagram (follow me!). Seeing all those book-lovers sharing their favourite reads and book hauls will really get you in the mood to pick one up for yourself!
• Try going to literary events in your area: check out book launches, writers festivals, author readings, and other kinds of gatherings. You’d be surprised how much more interested you are in a book after hearing an author speak about their work. I’ve discovered a bunch of incredible books and authors myself this way!
• Look up the books your favourite movies were based on. I’ve got a whole category of books that were made into movies here on Keeping Up With The Penguins, and its not hard to find them all online. Sometimes, being familiar with the story and the setting and the characters already can make it much easier to get into a book. If it works, you can build on it by looking into other books that were based on the same story. So, for example, say you love 10 Things I Hate About You: it was based on The Taming of the Shrew, as were the novels Taming Of The Drew by Stephanie Kate Strohm, Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler, and Wise Children by Angela Carter. That’s plenty to get you started!

“It’s Not Working, I Still Don’t Read Enough!”

Before you wave the white flag and go back to a life without books, I want you to make sure that you’re not getting hung up on reading “fast”, or even on reading “efficiently”. For some reason, a lot of “experts” lately have been pushing their followers to read as much as they can as fast as they can… for no discernible bloody reason, as far as I can tell.

You don’t get anywhere near as much enjoyment or value out of a meal that you wolf down in a couple of bites, as you do a meal that you savour slowly – the same goes for books.

I also want you to check that you’re not pushing yourself to only read the “right” kind of books – by which I mean the type of books you think you “should” be reading. The books you think you “should” read almost never match the type of book you actually enjoy. Pushing yourself to read Victorian classics when you’d rather be reading dystopian young-adult novels is a recipe for disaster. Why torture yourself with dry business strategy books when you’d rather be reading Harlequin romances? Take no shame in enjoying whatever the fuck you enjoy, Keeper Upperers! Literary elitism stinks, and I don’t want to hear that any of you are putting yourselves under pressure of that sort, okay?

Finally, to find the winning strategy and truly get into the habit of reading more, you need to know why you’re doing it. This is the most important thing you’ll get from this series, and I’m giving it away up front. Are you looking for new knowledge or skills for work? Do you really want a better understanding of a particular subject that interests you? Maybe you’re hoping reading will give you access to different perspectives and viewpoints more generally? Is it helping you learn a new language? Heck, maybe you want to read more for the simple fun and pleasure of it. Whatever the case, once you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, you’re in a much better position to figure out how best to go about doing it.

The good news is this: the “trick” to reading more… is to read more. That’s it. The more you do it, the more you’ll do it. Reading (and enjoying reading) is a vicious cycle, and once you’re in it’s bloody hard to pull yourself out. It ain’t rocket surgery…

Are you committing to reading more this year? Or have you set some other bookish goal? Let me know in the comments (or tell me over at KUWTP on Facebook) – I want to keep you on track and cheer you on!

Check out the next installment of this series – How To Read More Out Of Your Comfort Zone – here.