If you’ve ever tried to read more, but struggled to build the habit, it’s time to change the way you approach reading.
Would you like to be able to read more? Do you have a list of books you’d like to get to, but you’re struggling to just make it through the one on your nightstand? Do you find yourself putting off reading in favor of…well, everything else? Do you find yourself envious of those who talk about reading 50 or 100 books per year? Do you wish you could read more?
I have good news for you.
First of all, reading as much as some of the most prolific readers is within reach. Second of all, you’re thinking about reading the wrong way, and you’ll need to fix that before you do anything else.
What follows is a 4-part framework for reading more with less effort. Rather than teaching you how to push yourself to read more, it will change how you approach reading, so that you are pulled to read more.
Part 1: Get crystal clear about why you want to read
Part 2: Give yourself freedom
Part 3: Leverage the 4 different kinds of reading
Part 4: Embrace the idea of the anti-library
Disclaimer: This framework is for people who are looking to read more nonfiction. For the most part, fiction can only be enjoyed from beginning to end, and preferably with as much focus as possible. To that end, Part 1 will be useful to you, but that’s less true for parts 2–4.
Part 1: Get Crystal Clear About Why You Want to Read
A fairly common goal that people adopt is to read a certain amount of books in a year. Usually, there’s a lot of enthusiasm at the outset, but after a little while, the enthusiasm can tend to die out. They fall behind, and don’t achieve their goal. The culprit is usually an incomplete motivation.
What I mean by incomplete? Let’s say you set a goal to read 50 books this year. While it may be clear in your head that you want to have read more books by the end of the year, you’ve stopped short of clarifying why you want that. So when you hit the inevitable rough patch in your year, and momentum goes away, all you have left to motivate you is the goal to have read more books because…well, you set that goal! But that’s not much of a motivator.
In order for your reading goal to be motivating, you need to dig into why you want to read more in the first place. Do you want to simply be the kind of person who has read more books? Are you trying to catch up with someone you know who has read a lot? Those motivations will only push you so far for so long. You need a complete motivation.
A complete motivation is one that connects to a very meaningful and immediately felt desire. When it comes to reading, a complete motivation will come in two flavors: to learn about something specific or to be entertained.
If your core motivation for reading more is to learn certain things, then follow your curiosity and excitement where it leads you — regardless of if it’s in one book or not (more on that in the next section). If your core motivation is to be entertained, then read what entertains you, and stop reading what doesn’t. Don’t force yourself to read things that don’t hold your attention. And don’t feel bad about not reading the whole book!
Part 2: Give Yourself Freedom
Once you’ve got the proper motivation for reading more, it’s important not to fence yourself in. In fact, that’s why a great deal of resolutions to read more end up fizzling out. We don’t give ourselves the freedom to chase our excitement and curiosity.
Here are two helpful things to remember:
- Books don’t care how you read them. You don’t have to read a book in order from front to back.
- Books don’t have feelings. You’re not letting them down if you don’t finish them.
Read Like You Learn: In Your Own Way
For most books I read, I don’t pick them up and start at the very first page, reading every word until the very end. I believe that only fiction books and biographies are meant to be read in a certain order (and I’m not entirely sure about the latter, either). That has everything to do with the differences between the writer and the reader.
We all know (or don’t know) different things that are relevant to understanding the book in question. That knowledge base (or lack of it) may help you understand something in the middle of a book much better. From there, you can wander to the front portion of the book — placing markers for yourself at various points along the way.
You Don’t Have to Read the Whole Book Now
Finishing the book is never more important than reaching a deeper level of understanding of what you’re reading about.
Again, remember why you’re reading the book. You’re reading the book to get information — to learn something. Don’t let a single book dictate how or what you learn about something. And please don’t feel the need to finish the book now.
Finishing the book is never more important than reaching a deeper level of understanding of what you’re reading about. Please read that sentence again, because it’s important. Many of us still beat ourselves up for not finishing books. Enough of that.
Getting serious about learning means reaching outside the bounds of a single book. And don’t wait until you finish one book to search outside of that one book. Find terms, topics, citations, names, or theories within the book that pique your interest. Look them up, do some digging on them. Read two or three books or articles at a time. Follow your enthusiasm and curiosity. Connect the dots. That’s where the real learning happens — the kind that sticks, anyway.
As an example: You may get a book on quantum mechanics, but you aren’t looking to understand everything about the subject, just a certain portion of it. So for your present purposes, read the portion that gives you what you need then and there. Does that mean you should disregard the rest? For now, yes. Move to where your enthusiasm or interest moves you next.
Part 3: Leverage the 4 Different Kinds of Reading
Did you know there are 4 different kinds of reading? Knowing what they are, and how and when to use all 4 types is key to getting the most out of reading — and thus, to reading more.
Mortimer Adler — champion of the Great Books educational movement — wrote a book called (interestingly) How to Read a Book. In it, he proposed that there are 4 ways to read:
- Elementary reading: the front-to-back method of reading we’re trained to do from when we’re children. Start at the beginning, and read every sentence until the end.
- Inspectional Reading: sometimes misclassified as “skimming”. It’s a way to parse out information about the book and topics in it — both to decide on what is worth reading, and to gain an initial understanding of the topic for contextual purposes.
- Analytical Reading: Deep, abiding reading, with frequent points of stopping and thinking, or jotting down notes in between pages and paragraphs.
- Syntopical Reading: Beyond just reading a book, this is about reading for understanding of the greater point an author is making. Other books are brought in — differing opinions, related subject matter, etc. Reading in this way is about connections and holism. Many times, it can mean reading several books or articles at once — some of which are read only partially, to provide support for another book.
The more you can cycle back and forth between these types of reading, the better. For the most part, you’ll want to start with some inspectional reading. Get the lay of the land of what you’re reading — and if it will even be worth your time. If it’s a book, read the table of contents, perhaps the introduction or preface (if it includes an outline of the book), and skim through the beginnings of the chapters. If it’s a long article or essay, look at the introduction and headings to get a feel for the structure. See what you’re in for, and if the work looks engaging.
Sometimes, elementary reading makes sense. If a book is telling some good stories, or the style is really enlightening, that can help you get more engaged, curious, and excited about the material. This can often lead to analytical reading — where you’re going through things more deeply.
The point is that using different kinds or modes of reading will help keep reading from becoming stale, and help you get more out of what you read. You can learn much more, and stay much more engaged if you use different kinds of reading as the material (and your energy level) calls for it.
Part 4: Embrace the Idea of the Anti-Library
Author and philosopher Umberto Eco is famous (infamous?) for having what Nassim Nicholas Taleb referred to as an “anti-library”. Essentially, it’s a large library containing mostly unread books — far more unread than read. He explains:
Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an anti-library.
I have an anti-library. I have many books that I acquired (mostly during graduate study), but didn’t sit down and read. However, I have used most of them — from time to time — as a lily pad. I jump from one book to another, following not the sequence of the chapters of any one book, but the path of and connections between ideas in them. I’m chasing deeper understanding, so I have far less concern with a given book’s full material, and far more concern with the connections that I find between the ideas in many of the books.
But you don’t need to buy a bunch of books to build an anti-library. The point of the anti-library is to surround yourself with reminders of what you don’t know, but might learn by simply picking up something new to read. You can just as easily do this by keeping a list of books or articles that you’d like to check out at some point. Then go to your local library (or use their online ebook/audiobook services — which most have) and check out some of them as you need to.
Aside from my physical half-read or unread books, I also have a long list of stuff that I’ll get to reading one day or another. And because I see the stuff on that list as opportunities, rather than tasks to complete, it excites me. It especially makes syntopical reading much easier, because I have resources to fold into my reading process.
Concluding Remarks: Going Beyond Reading
If you follow these 4 principles, you’ll find yourself not only reading more, but more importantly, learning more.
- Remember your motivation: learning
- Give yourself the freedom to jump around
- Learn and use the 4 kinds of reading
- Develop and maintain an anti-library
Following these principles, you will be reading more, but it won’t be the kind of reading that most people are talking about. The word “read” tends to have a connotation of sequential movement through a text in the way that the author has laid it out. But you don’t have to play the game that way.
Go beyond reading. Don’t just read, search. Search and connect. Follow the enthusiasm and interest that develops as you’re exposed to new ideas, points of view, names, places, and subjects. Don’ ever suppress the desire to pursue information outside the bounds of the book you’re reading. Put the book down, pause and follow your curiosity. The book won’t mind. It will be there later. Books are awfully good at sitting around and waiting; it’s kind of their thing.