How to Read 100 Books a Year

So often in our busy, adult lives do we bemoan not having enough time to sit down with a good book as much as we would want to.

I know my bookworm self is often daunted by my ‘To Be Read’ list made up of books recommended to me, that I heard good things about, from a favorite author, and that I just really want to read for some other reasons. So that’s why in 2019, and in 2020 to follow, I Goodreads challenged myself to read 100 books a year.

The point of this 100 book goal was not to feel morally or intellectually superior, but because of how many books I wanted to read I knew I needed to up my reading game. (But saying that I read 100 books in a year does feel pretty good!)

Because of this, I have come up with some tips for reaching that 100 book goal that can be applied to your 100 books or whatever other reading goals you’ve set for yourself.

Set the Goal

The first part of any reading goal is… setting the goal. That means picking a specific number of books you want to read, writing it down, keeping track, and holding yourself accountable.

Luckily, a Goodreads challenge has a great interface for that, telling you what percentage through your goal you are, and giving you a cool ‘Your Year in Reading’ post at the end of the year.

However, if you don’t want to use Goodreads or an online interface, an excel spreadsheet or pen and paper works just fine. There are also really nifty ‘reading journals’ out there if you want to get fancy.

Make Time

Increasing your reading, and especially increasing your reading to a large goal like 100 books in a year, means creating a strategy to achieve that goal. ‘Strategy’ is a big, scary word, but the biggest part of a ‘reading more’ strategy is the t-word: time.

You have to make time to read.

Look at your life and figure what places in your schedule you can wiggle in some more reading time. Some ideas: waking up earlier, using your lunch break at work, cutting out some TV watching/Youtube scrolling/social media scrolling for reading time, dedicating long and lazy Saturday mornings to coffee and a good book…

Figure out what works for you and experiment. For me, I always have ambitions of waking up earlier to read/journal/work out before driving out to my day job, but I can never maintain it for more than a few weeks at the most. So if one type of reading time slot does not jive with our life, try something different.

Embrace the Audiobook

Some people don’t consider listening to audiobooks reading. I consider those people unnecessary pedantic. Listen, as I said in the introduction, I want to read more in order to experience more books, not to prove my reading credentials.

So if you are not in on the audiobook trend yet, get on. Audiobooks are great for squeezing in reading time when your hands (or eyes) are not free for a book. Long commutes, doing chores around the house, cooking…

Now that audiobooks are easily accessible on smartphones (as opposed to when they were in books of CDs or even… cassette tapes), they can be listened to everywhere. There is, of course, a very popular audiobook app that I will not mention by name because they are not sponsoring this, but also….free audiobooks from your local public libraries. (From your friendly neighborhood librarian, seriously, get your library card and get signed up now…plenty of libraries have remote options for these things.)

Mix in Shorter Works

Listen, most of us — myself included — do not have the fortitude to read a hundred books the length of Les Miserables or The Lord of the Rings in a year. There is no shame in consciously mixing in some shorter/faster read titles: Novellas, graphic novels, children’s novels…

No one has to be a perfect intellectual reader all the time and all of those above “short” genres have exemplary titles and authors within their ranks. If you are not a graphic novel or children’s reader yet but you just love a good story, as a librarian, I recommend checking both of those genres out.

100 books a year averages in about two books per week. Reading two super-thick books a week is quite an undertaking. Pairing a larger or more complex title with a shorter or more light title creates a livable, readable balance.

Don’t Read Anything You Don’t Like

Perhaps the most controversial, or at least contested, piece of advice in this article: do not read books you don’t like. Do not force yourself to keep reading or continuing books you are just not that into. This will destroy your reading goal.

Look, there is definitely a value to the discipline of making yourself read books that are difficult or not exactly to your interest, and finishing books you’ve started. Giving yourself a deliberate challenge! Widening your horizons! There is also value in giving books a second or even third chance to catch your interest or a certain stretch of pages/chapters to warm up and prove themselves. All of this… with moderation. And a good reason.

But, please, do not force yourself to slog through every book you don’t like in some misguided attempt to prove yourself to…? Who are you even proving yourself to? Don’t suck the fun out of reading for yourself. This isn’t a high school literature class.

As someone who wants to read a lot to get through the highly anticipated titles in my TBR list, I don’t have enough time in my life to read a bunch of books I do not like, and neither do you. Forcing yourself to read/finish books you don’t like can really kill your reading enthusiasm and momentum. You might find yourself way behind on your goal and even dreading reading.

Find the Fun In It

There are two ways to achieve an ambitious goal like reading 100 books in a year: rigid discipline and/or finding the fun in it. Yes, you will need some discipline to read this goal, but most of us would prefer the things we do in our free time to be… fun.

Find the fun in your reading goal. Do this by finding a time or times to read that flow with your life. (In other words, don’t force yourself to be a morning person if you’re not.) Do this by reading the kinds of books you enjoy or at least find some sort of edification from. Do this by creating a special reading spot in your home or making a special tea (or stronger drink ;)) for when you sit down to read. Whatever makes reading an optimal, fun, enjoyable, relaxing, or wherever positive adjective you want to associate with reading experience for you… do that.

The last part of making it fun for yourself is… give yourself a break. If make an ambitious reading goal and find yourself falling short which in turn makes you more stressed out or feeling like a failure than enjoying reading, you have spoiled the fun. In these cases, it is okay to guilt-free roll back your goal to something more manageable and realistic your lifestyle and wants. Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew, and we need to roll back to something more appropriate. That’s okay.

Wrapping It Up

Your goal to read more doesn’t have to start at New Years’. It can start next week, tomorrow, today. So if you want to read vaguely more or to some specific goal, hopefully, these helpful hints will give you a hand.

How to read 100 books or some other ambitious reading goal… give yourself a goal, plan how and when you are going to read, use audiobooks and short books, don’t waste your time on books you don’t like, and, most importantly, have fun!