How To Read Fewer Books

Reading books is an essential part of my life, and in my opinion, it should be an essential part of everyone’s life. Books made me the person I am today; they’re the reason I have the career I do, the hobbies I love and the philosophies I developed. People usually want to know how to read more books, particularly in January, so the very idea that someone who is an avid bookworm is striving to read less this year may sound not only contradictory but damaging.

When New year rolls around, everyone decides they want to read more books this year. It’s usually because their last year’s resolution to read more books failed and dropped off somewhere after April, but they believe January is always a good time to get back on track. Most people stopped reading books last year because life got too busy: tax season was stressful; they moved house; changed jobs; left university or had another baby.

They lament that they didn’t read enough last year because they just didn’t have the time to — yet they had the time to finish all those television series they were watching, see all those films at the cinema, watch the complete seven-part Shane Dawson documentary series and scroll through social media three hours a day. People have a lot of time for drama, social media consumption, shopping and hanging out with people they don’t like, but not much time for reading.