5 Ways to Become a Better Reader
“Leaders are readers”. We’ve all heard this. We all know we should probably read more. I’ve become a 2-3 book per week reader but I’m not a fast reader, I have two young children, and I love Baseball, so 3 hours of television a day for 162 days a year (since I’m a Dodger fan it’s usually more like 180). Here’s how I’m able to keep up with the reading for the podcast, research for my book, and just good old fun reading.
1. Audiobooks count! Get an audible subscription and abuse it! I listen to books when I’m working out, when I’m walking around the neighborhood with sleeping babies in the stroller and when I’m driving. My kids even like the sound of them. Jude, my youngest has read, or more accurately ‘heard’, Middlemarch. You can make notes in audiobooks, the function is called “clips” and it allows you to add a text note to certain section of audio. Pretty cool. Is listening to a book the same as reading one? No. But it’s a great way to familiarize yourself with a text and you can do it while you’re doing something else.
2. Read things you’re excited about. Reading is fun! We all have books we think we should read and these are not always books that we really want to read. You’re not in a classroom, forget about War and Peace for now and just read something fun. You probably won’t finish a book you don’t enjoy reading but you’ll devour a book you love. Maybe someday we’ll both get around to War and Peace.
3. Always have the next read ready. I have, many times, gotten deep into a book or a series, read every spare moment of the day, and then, when I finish the book, I don’t have another one to read and I lose the habit of reading. If you love the first part of trilogy after 100 pages, get the other two right away. If you’re reading non-fiction and the author mentions another book you think you’ll like, get it and keep it close for when you’re done. Read the last page, take breath, then read the first page of the new book.
4. Find some (more) book friends. If you already have friends who love to read, ask them when they’re into. One thing I’ve learned from hosting the Book Society podcast is that people love to talk about books that are important to them. If your friends aren’t readers, consider joining a book club, you can also read along with the podcast or any other book club type podcast. There are a few of them and they’re all fun.
5. Go down a rabbit hole. If you love a particular book or subject, don’t be afraid to dig deep. Becoming a good reader takes time and the more you learn about any corner of the literary world, the easier it will be to learn about a new corner. If you just read your first Steven King book and now you want to read all of them, go for it! Being ‘well read’, or ‘widely read’ whatever that means, takes time and the first step is to just read.
Have fun!
