How to read more in 2023?

 How can you read more in 2023? Maybe you admire those who read 1 book per day like D.A. Carson and Al Mohler. Maybe you have a stack of books that you want to read and it never gets shorter. Maybe you just want to go from reading 10 books a year to 25. How can you read more without just pure effort?

Here’s my strategy: Pick 4-6 books and read 25-50 pages per day between them all. You might read 3-5 pages in some books and 20 in another. If your schedule allows, find different times of day to read in each. One book you might read along with your devotions. Another couple you might read before bed for fun. This makes the reading load lighter.

If you read 50 pages per day, you will finish around 4-5 books a month and 60 in a year. If you read 25 pages per day, you will finish 30 books in a year.

(This is different from skim reading that some people do to stay up on all the latest books. This strategy is for slower reading for knowledge and pleasure.)

Here are some of the advantages I’ve found to reading this way:

You will remember more when you vary your reading. Reading theology, biography, thrillers, and leadership together will help you remember more of each because the books are dissimilar.

You will digest each book better when you read them slowly rather than quickly. My pastor told me years ago that I got obsessed with a topic and then moved on to another obsession the next week. He explained that he noticed I was excited about a new topic  that went with each book that I read. Since I read 1 book a week, I flitted from shiny new idea to shiny new idea. He encouraged me instead to read more than one book at a time. Giving a book time would allow me to process them and figure out what is good, true, and noble. 

Reading that is easy gets done. Reading this way isn’t overwhelming. That is why you can read for hours on a phone. Each thing you read is a small article or even paragraph. Apply that principle to your reading. Reading 5 pages in a difficult book is easier than reading 25 pages of the same book. You can read 25 pages if you break it up into several books.

You always have something interesting to look forward to when you are reading 4-6 books. Few people could read straight through a systematic theology or John Frame’s The Doctrine of God. Break it into 5 pages at a time and mix it with war thrillers, mysteries, memoirs, or how-tos and the book becomes more manageable.

 I find that I choose more carefully this way. You have to choose better books when you read this way. If you are stuck reading a book for 1-3 months because you are reading it slowly, then you naturally get more selective.