Guest Post: How You Can Read 200 Books In a Year?

This is a guest column from faculty member Jason King who teaches geography and math. Professor King contributes semi-regular posts to this blog.
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It’s hard to make time to read for pleasure and as you age into this mad world, it doesn’t get any easier. And there’s so much to learn out there! If you’re living an ascetic life because of Covid, at least it may be possible to come out of it with a wealth of information only books can give you.

By the end of today I’ll probably have read 200 books this year.* How did I do it? I’m not blessed with excessive time, nor do I have a fortune to spend on books. Here’s what I’ve been doing since 2017 to get 150 books read a year.

Try to find reading synergies in your life. If reading has to be done as a substitute for other things – you either drive to work or you read, for example – it’s always going to be hard to find time. But if you can use these as a complement your potential for reading more can increase drastically. I read when I’m waiting at the doctor’s office, when my kids are playing at the park, when I’m on a treadmill, when insomnia hits. I used to be a snob about e-Readers, but now most of my reading happens on a Kindle Paperwhite – if I had a more advanced model I’d get more distracted than I already am.
Use the library. Buying 200 books would be difficult on a lot of budgets and floorplans – it would cost a ton of money and take up a lot of space, and I don’t reread books very often. I use two library apps, Hoopla and Libby, in a combination of my local library and Moraine’s library, on which I can always find something I want to read. I still buy books when I find ones that are tough to find but it’s more rare now.
Audiobooks are books, too. Some snobs think that listening to audiobooks isn’t the same as reading audiobooks – the research suggests that retention and brain usage are basically the same in either medium, so I do count audiobooks. For me, opening up audiobooks as a reading option opens up a lot of time to read. I listen to audiobooks when I’m doing dishes, doing the laundry, driving to and from places, hiking, and shopping, and sometimes playing video games. If I get cut off in traffic it’s possible I lose some of the material, but I can always rewind – and, to be frank, I sometimes space out when I read paper books as well.

Sometimes this irritates my family, when they have to ask me something twice because I couldn’t hear them the first time. 🙂
If you’re listening to audiobooks, don’t be afraid to try listening to them at higher speeds. Using Hoopla and Libby allows you to listen to audiobooks at accelerated reading paces – I regularly listen to audiobooks at 2x speed, but sometimes at 2.5x or even 3x. This isn’t as awkward as it sounds – some narrators read glacially.
Book selection is key. For me there’s a bunch of important aspects of picking books:
–Many of my favorite books are contingent on time and place. Some books are great when you’re exploring an idea in your own life and reading them later on would make them feel redundant and irritating. Other books are great, but need to be read after education and experiences are cultivated. Some books I’ve tried to read when I was preoccupied or angry and my opinion of them was colored by the environment of my life. Some books should be read when an expert opinion guiding you through them.
–If books are like food, I have found it’s good to make sure you allow yourself cheat days. Reading only classics or higher-level academic stuff gets boring, but reading only pulp fiction and easy-to-read material also feels gross after awhile. No matter what, it’s still better to eat only junk than to starve.
Use a tracker to keep you honest, if you think it would help. I like tracking my books on Goodreads – it lets me log my books read, pages read, helps me set a reading goal, and can even make recommendations if you need some ideas on what to read.

I’ve included some of my favorite library books I’ve read this year. Feel free to send me questions or ideas on good books if you have any!

Deep River by Karl Marlantes (audio book, ebook)