If you read 50+ books a year, how do you do it?

[Pigtailsandall]

I admit, this is just me being nosy, but I'm hugely impressed and astounded by people who get through 50+ books a year. I'm interested in how people do it- during what gaps in your day do you read, do you have many books on the go at once, do you have time for other hobbies? In other words, what does your reading day/week look like? Are you a fast reader? Do you read evenly throughout the year?

My goal is to read 24-26 books this year, essentially one every two weeks or so, and I know come summer months I'll struggle to keep that pace as life will get busy.

I think I’m chronically tired. If I do have a window to read in the day, I don’t choose to do so as I know I’ll fall asleep.
I do listen to a lot of audio books but don’t count those as reading a book (not that I’m counting anyway!).
I can plough through books on holiday but prioritise other things (mainly sport) for my regular down time as I have a sedentary, brain-intensive job.

Audiobooks while doing anything like cooking, housework, dog walking, the walking parts of my commute. I also have an hour on the train to and from work so I read a physical book or on my kindle for those parts.

Read a physical book every night before bed - I also have trouble falling asleep so I do get quite a bit of reading in in the evening.

On holiday I can easily get through a book a day, and generally am a fast reader anyway.

I have been trying to force myself to read for a while first thing in the morning instead of scrolling on my phone, checking the news or my email. I had to download an app to block me out of my own phone until 7.30am, but it's made a difference so far this year.

I agree that it's not worth comparing to others! I read vastly more books by number than DH - he reads weighty things like Crime and Punishment and it takes him a month, but he remembers everything incredibly well and never re-reads - whereas I'll sprint through 5 books in the same time knowing I might re-read one or two of them down the line if I really enjoy it. My friend reads more books than I do a year, but she reads more light cosy fiction than I do. She doesn't enjoy Victorian classics or purple prose like Gormenghast, which I probably re-read every 5 years. No right or wrong about it, just what different people enjoy.

Don’t compare your reading with other people’s. Reading for pleasure and curiosity is a hobby, and it’s important to enjoy it.

Keep a notebook of thoughts and quotes if you find it difficult to recall information. We all learn in different ways.

I usually have a book on me when going to work or travelling about, I can't read on buses but will do on trains. I don't watch much TV and prioritise reading over housework ;)

The flippant answer is one a week! But I read constantly - at mealtimes, sitting in the car before going somewhere (I'm early for everything, so spend a lot if time in car parks), on the sofa in the afternoon, especially at weekends, in bed before sleep. I never go anywhere without a Kindle in my handbag. Read a lot more on holiday - a beach holiday could easily be a book per day - so that will make up for any times when my reading pace drops.

I read fast, read every night before falling asleep, and have a lot of appointments where Im hanging round. I mostly read on Kindle, which syncs with my Kindle phone app, so almost always have access to a book.

Kindle with a backlight - I spent many happy years reading by a kid's bedside in the dark doing this. Then if you end up stuck somewhere with only your phone, you can still pick up in the same place on the app.

I am trying to do more steps this year, so every time I go on a walk, I listen to an audiobook. Listening and focusing is a skill - but one you can get better at!

It all adds up but it is about having the time, too. A friend of mine prioritises jogging so gets in more steps/runs than me. Nothing wrong with that. I tend towards laziness so read more. Nothing wrong with that either!

Beyond prioritizing a regular time to read each day it's possible to manipulate your numbers by doing the following:
Audiobooks (allows you to consume books when normally you couldn't read because driving / doing housework / exercising)
Graphic novels - less text so so less time to read
Genre fiction - lower reading age and focus on plot rather than style so quicker to read
Children's novels - as above
Novellas - got to be carefully with these because they are sometime so dense in writing style they take longer than expected to read
Non fiction- tends to be quicker to read than literary fiction.

However, I think someone who read War and Peace a chapter a day over a year will get more out of their reading than someone who read the complete output of Mills and Boons over the same time period. Living with a good book for a while gives a more intense intimate relationship than reading severaltrashy novels in a week. So while it's fun to compare numbers don't forget the pleasure in slowing down.

I recently saw a quote which gave me pause: “If it takes you more than a fortnight to read a book, you aren’t really reading it”. I think I get the point and there’s something to be said for it – you need the intensity of really living inside the author’s vision.

But having savoured Black Lamb and Grey Falcon over a full nine months last year, I’m saying no, some things really are better enjoyed slowly.

What a nasty and judgemental quote. People have many, many reasons to take a while reading a book. There's no deadline, no way of doing it "right".

The important thing is to enjoy it.

Being deeply read impresses me more. Someone once told me their friend was amazing because she read an entire book every weekend. It impressed me too (as a slow reader) until she added that the friend loved Jeffrey Archer! Great literature demands effort and concentration. You can’t zip through Middlemarch or Bleak House or Mrs Dalloway. Well, you could, I guess, but you’d be wasting your time.

The modern world is so noisy and busy and overcrowded that we now struggle with the classics. We don’t have the time or space to truly absorb Proust or Tolstoy. Such writers need dedication. And if you completely immerse yourself in them, and really live their writings, they change you. Edward St Aubyn, the author of the Melrose novels, said he once hired a cottage and spent months doing nothing but read Proust. When he emerged at the end, he wasn’t the same man. That’s the kind of reader I admire. People who really dedicate themselves to a great work.

Certain writers really would change you if you approached them in that way - Blake, Wordsworth, Dostoyevsky, D H Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, etc, will re-wire your brain and re-shape how you see the world. Sadly, we no longer treat great literature with the kind of reverence people use to.

I read about 100+ a year
i don’t really watch TV/scroll
I usually read in the mornings, on my commute, at lunch, before bed
on weekends I usually go to coffee shops to read

Edward St Aubyn, the author of the Melrose novels, said he once hired a cottage and spent months doing nothing but read Proust. When he emerged at the end, he wasn’t the same man. That’s the kind of reader I admire. People who really dedicate themselves to a great work.

I assume he had taken the precaution of being born rich, and hiring/marrying “help” for any familial and domestic responsibilities?

Certain writers really would change you if you approached them in that way - Blake, Wordsworth, Dostoyevsky, D H Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, etc, will re-wire your brain and re-shape how you see the world. Sadly, we no longer treat great literature with the kind of reverence people use to.

And equally, people can read what they like and enjoy.

Most of your list of classics were written by dead white men. The world is a lot wider than that.

(Oh, and Jeffery Archer hasn’t written that many books. If your friend of a friend finished one each weekend, she would have moved on to a different author in less than 6 months.)

Did you ask ChatGPT to write this post in the style of a sneery twat, or is this all your own work?

People like you give readers a bad name. I read more books than most people I know, but less than others. Some of them are reading less books because what they read is more 'high brow' than me. Some read less than me, and read more fluff than I do. I read a wide variety of
Who cares. We all enjoy what we read and get something from it. That's what matters.

My son reads about 2 books a year. He hates reading. So that's a massive achievement for him.

Thankfully most people aren’t trying to impress you with their reading material.

I spend my working hours pouring over unpublished scientific manuscripts and data.
You can forgive me for being more than happy and fulfilled with my Ruth Jones when I get to bed.

DD listens to an audiobook (speeded up) whenever she is doing anything - cooking, cleaning, walking somewhere and gets through loads that way (she is also an English Lit student - this is for her "fun" reading).

I mix and match audio, ebooks and real books. I have specific points of my day I try to make a point to read i.e. the half hour after I get home from work and the time before bed. That's the minimum! I mix up longer and more slow paced books with shorter easy reading.

I think as with fitting in anything, the question is not "how do you fit it in" but "what else are you doing that take priority?". The period of my life when I read most was actually when I had a young baby because I read when I breastfed and while he napped, and used that as my own wind down time.

I'm contemplating submitting it to Private Eye for Pseud's Corner

I read in bed for at least half an hour every night, often longer, and I read everytime I go to the loo at home some days, especially on weekends I will read an hour or so during the day and whenever we go somewhere in the car that's longer than 30 minutes and I'm not driving I'll read. Last month I went to my DD's volleyball games 4 hours away and read a lot on the minibus!

I also have a book I keep at work for reading sometimes during breaks, something non fiction so I can just dip in and out.

Audio for me as well. I have a 30minute commute by car, so that's an hour a day. Plus I usually have to do more driving in the day - another 60-90 minutes isn't usual. And then probably another hour's listening while doing chores in the house.

If you have the kindle edition it's sometimes quite cheap to add audible so you can switch between reading and listening.

I assume Bleak House was sold as a page turner so that people would want to read the next issue, and I certainly found Middlemarch an enjoyable read. Haven't read a Jeffrey Archer novel for decades, but I love Robert Galbraith, Richard Osman, Anthony Horowitz.

Edward St Aubyn, the author of the Melrose novels, said he once hired a cottage and spent months doing nothing but read Proust.

He just sounds like somebody with plenty of money and no children.

I try not to count as I find myself starting to resent long books as it'll spoil my number! Reading a book in a week is reasonably normal for me I guess though, depending on the length of course. If I add audio books then absolutely loads as I spend hours a week commuting and I run around 3 hours a week (in total) and listen to books then too.

Yes, but it messes with your head when the voices you’ve got in your head when reading are nothing like the ones in audible!

This poster consistently swoons over the recommendations of a dead white male literary critic and doesn't seem to see the value in reading anything that wasn't pronounced worthy by him, so the continued commitment to dead white men - and what they have to say - doesn't surprise me