Building a Love for Books That Lasts
When it comes to building habits to enjoy reading, I’ve experimented with quite a few ideas. Some worked while others didn’t. The four strategies that follow have proven themselves, making and keeping reading enjoyable.
Here’s hoping they work just as well for you.
Quit Annoying Books (but not immediately)
Are you reading a book and still finding it just average after a hundred pages? Quit it. Put it away and move on. There are too many incredible books waiting to be read to waste time on ones you don’t enjoy. If there’s one thing that can destroy your joy of reading, it’s forcing yourself to read through books you don't like. Think back to the books you were forced to read in school. For most of us, those didn’t exactly ignited our love for reading, did they?
Read 3 Books at a Time
Choose three books from your reading list, one fiction and two non-fiction. Then continue to switch between them. Having three books on your active stack has some benefits. The fiction book is your "anytime" companion, which you can read anywhere and everywhere (but especially when winding down before bed).
Non-fiction, however, is best avoided at night as it demands quite some focus and can leave your mind racing when you just want to sleep. Reading two non-fiction books simultaneously lets you switch between them when one starts to bore you. Often, after putting that book down for a while and picking it up later, it feels fresh again. This flexibility keeps you in the flow of reading and at the same time adds variety.
Write a Short Book Reflection
I’ve had mixed feelings about writing book summaries or reviews. Structured review templates designed by others can make you feel productive at first, but they can get annoying very quickly. However, a brief reflection after finishing a book can be valuable.
Here’s what works: as soon as you finish the book, write freely from memory, without using a template. This results in a short story about the book’s main idea: the concept that stuck with you. I’ve done this recently for The Time Machine and The Midnight Library. Both reflections took less than ten minutes to write, yet they describe the essence of each book perfectly, at least for myself.
Travel with a Book
The easiest way to develop a reading habit is to always carry a book. Waiting for a train? Read. Ten minutes early for a coffee with a friend? Read. Looking to finally start your nighttime routine? Introduce time to read.
Make reaching for a book as easy as reaching for your phone. Once reading becomes that accessible, it is hard to ignore it. Better to have a book-addiction than a phone-addiction.
That’s it. Now go grab that book you’ve been meaning to read for ages and dive in!