I have always liked to read but never really developed any good habits to really get any considerable amount of content read. I usually would start a book and get tired of reading it and then I would head to the coach to get caught up in a TV show or video game and return to the book several months later when I would have difficulty remembering what the book was even about.
This wasn't a huge issue because I rarely ever read fiction and so I didn't have to remember characters and plot lines. I could easily pick up a book and get back into it by perusing the chapters and stopping to refresh my memory on some of the things that I had highlighted. After my November 2016 epiphany I picked up a book and got myself into the habit of reading and working on finishing a book I had started a few months back. It was enjoyable to sit and read and just enjoy the pleasure of slowing down. Below you will find the method that has made me go from reading two or three books a year to having consumed the content of more than thirty books in the two months since I decided to read more.
1) Always be reading multiple books. Not one or two but five or six at a time. One of the books I had started on my Kindle but had never finished was "Wordsmithy" by Douglas Wilson (this is an endorsement of the book, not his Federal Vision theology). Part of my conviction with watching too much TV was that as a pastor my job is almost entirely a job in which I am dealing with words. A book I actually read and finished rather quickly, Saving Eutychus by two authors whose names I am not currently remembering, had convicted me of this and had caused me to really want to become a better preacher. This caused me to pick up Wordsmithy in hopes that even though I knew it was about the written word I hoped that the approach would apply to my desire to be better with the spoken word.
That book did serve that purpose but the most important thing that it did for me was give me a new approach to reading. In Wordsmithy, Wilson says that if you want to be a better writer you need to be a voracious reader. He suggested that you should have multiple books going all the time. Immediately I thought this was ridiculous. How will I keep everything straight? I have a hard enough time getting to the end of one book how will I ever properly finish anything if I am reading five or six books at a time?
Through the process of reading the book I realized how well read Wilson was and decided to give his methodology a try and it, with other the other methods below, really helps to make you a voracious reader. The key is to not have multiple books of the same type going at the same time but specifically having multiple kinds of books that you are reading at the same time. Here is the typical breakdown of the types of books I am reading with examples from my current reading list:
A work of fiction. (A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A theological book. (People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology by Michael Horton)
A biography. (Thomas Aquinas in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern)
A nonfiction book. (Live like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles by Joe Rigney)
A commentary. (Exalting Jesus in Mark by Daniel L. Akin)
2) Be organized and deliberate about what you are reading. Having multiple books going at the same time doesn't really work if you don't have some way of organizing what you are reading and what you are going to read next. I signed up for Goodreads years ago and like most people I am friends with on there wnet through, tagged a few books I wanted to read, and then didn't look at it again unless I was really bored or made some New Year's Resolution about reading I never really intended to keep. Once I started reading more I found it to not only be a valuable tool for tracking what I am reading but also as a motivational tool and way of discovering other books to read.
Once I finish a reading session I immediately go to Goodreads and put in my progress on the book I am reading. This gives me good, visible feedback of how I am doing with each book. It also lets me see how close I am to done with each book at a glance which lets me start planning ahead on which book I am going to devour in that genre next. Lastly, based upon what I have read, am reading, or am wanting to read it also shows me suggested books that I may be interested in. When I click on them it lets me put them on my "Want to Read" shelf and I can even click on links to take me to my preferred online retailer for both physical books and eBooks.
Goodreads isn't my only organizational tool though. I buy a lot of eBooks on a whim when they are on sale (more on that later). I cannot tell you how many times I have gone to buy a book for my Kindle and realize that I bought it the last time it was offered on a sale. Whlle it is fun to realize I already have it isn't a good thing to be so organized. To combat this I have put all the books that I have bought and really want to read into a project without a duie date on Todoist. Each book I want to read is a task in that project. I name the project with the type of book followed by a colon and the name of the book. This lets me find a type and also let's me drag the books around and organize them by type easily. When I finish a book I not only get the satisfaction of marking it as finished on Goodreads but also knocking another book off my list on my task manager.
3) Use eBooks. About a year ago Tim Challies posted that he was leaving the world of physical books for eBooks. I had recently started my job as a pastor. The bookshelfs in my study are large and are not moveable. Due to that fact, I was beginning to lament that the majority of my book collection was digital on either Kindle or Logos. When Mr. Challies was getting rid of physical books I was starting to see their benefits. I became a book hoarder. I would used and discounted books on Amazon that I wanted to read, yes, but mostly because it would fill shelf space. Even though I was buying loads of books the truth is I was not really reading them. Even some of the commentaries I acquired were staying on the shelf in favor of the resources I have in Logos. Now that my shelves are 2/3 full and I am actually reading the books that I buy I want to read on an electronic device.
I have a really hard time reading on a tablet but I will read assorted books from Logos on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e. The majority of the reading I do of my vast digital library is done on a Kindle Paperwhite.
Another good reason to use eBooks as much as possible is the deals that are available. There are deals posted for Kindle and other devices daily. Some are like drinking from the fire hose and have so many you can't pick through them all. Others are curated like the daily list Tim Challies has. I appreciate his list because we are relatively close to being in agreement doctrinally and so I let him weed out the false teaching and heresy so I don't have to. If something is something I'm interested in reading and it is $2.99 or less I usually buy it on the spot and put it into my task manager list.
One last major benefit of eBooks is that I can purchase them and have them in a moment. In many ways this may be seen as dangerous because I could make a lot of purchases on a whim. This used to be the case before I was really reading. Now when I find a book that is interesting to me I put it into an Amazon Wishlist that is only the books I plan to purchase on Kindle. This lets me hold them there and follow the price. Items on your wishlists on Amazon will tell you if the price has dropped since you put it on the list so you know if it is a better deal. If it is at the top of my list and I am ready to read it I can buy it and have it on my device in less than a minute.
4) Use audiobooks. In many ways this feels like cheating. That's because it is. I can now read books while I am in the car. I live in a small town and the nearest hospital is 15 miles away and that is a small town hospital that most of my members don't end up at for a very long time. They either go home or end up in the larger city more than 50 miles away. I also have a shut-in that I visit who is nearly 40 miles away. Making these trips with audiobooks not only passes the time but it also lets me make great use of my time. I have consumed a whole lot of classic literature in the last few months. I own a large assortment of fiction on Audible from when my wife used to have a job delivering nuclear medicine. We had a membership to Audible for a long time and even though we no longer have the monthly membership I am finally giving those books a listen.
I limit my audiobook listening to works of fiction and biography. I don't feel a need to highlight either of those kinds of books and if I miss a tiny detail usually it doesn't matter too much because they are about a bigger narrative. I also listen to fiction at a minimum of 1.4x speed. That might seem fast to you but if you start at 1.1x and work your way up gradually I've found that depending on the person reading the book I can get up to 1.8x speed and still understand them.
The best way to get started cheap on listening to audiobooks is to download the LibriVox app for your device. They claim to have more than 15,000 free audiobooks. Not all of them sound the best but the concern is consuming books not having the best possible experience. If you want professionally produced books audible and ChistianAudio.com are great choices.
Now that I have listened to lots of audiobooks I have gotten better at listening and I recently tried something new. I own several biography eBooks without DRM from books I have bought on $5 Friday from Ligonier Ministries. I converted the to doc files using Calibre and imported it into the Natural Reader app. This lets me listen to the book. It is an emotionless rendition of the book but I'm not concerned with style I just want to hear the book and Natural Reader is significantly better than the computerized reading applications of years past. I also use Natural Reader as a part of my sermon preparation process and so I paid the $10 in app payment to be able to use the app without interruption. This isn't my favorite way of consuming books but it is very functional.
5) Background noise. For me one of the problems of reading is being able to stay focused. Not only do I struggle with reading when there are four other people roaming around the house but I also struggle with tinnitus. Sometimes the noise created in our house is a dream compared to the way in which the ringing in my ears keeps me from focusing. Over time I have discovered that having background noise of some kind is infinite value for helping me focus. Recently I discovered some awesome resources for having a variety of background noise. As an Amazon Prime member I have access to Prime Music. Not only is there a large assortment of white noise, brown noise, and nature sounds but some days the best background noise is instrumental music. It provides just enough noise for me to focus on instead of the ringing or the noise my children make in the background. Prime Music provides loads of classical music to work to but I have also discovered albums by Tycho really provide great working music and Prime Music has enough that I can listen for hours without having to get things organized. I download the music to my phone and play it on the noise canceling Bluetooth headphones I recently acquired. Focusing on a book at home has never been easier.
Hopefully these tips help you to discover the joy of reading a lot of content. Regardless of your reason for reading lots of books I believe you will be very satisfied at the progress you make at reading more books.
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