
How to read 100 books a year (and still have a life) - forrestbrazeal
https://forrestbrazeal.com/2017/12/03/how-to-read-100-books-in-a-year-and-still-have-a-life/
======
forrestbrazeal
So, a word of clarification.

Some comments are expressing either disbelief that one can read 100 books in a
year, or that one would have to read them so fast that one would get nothing
useful from them.

In the post, I talk about the importance of varying the difficulty level of
what you read.

Of these 100 books, not every one would meet the standard of this community as
"difficult" \- after all, I read five books in the juvenile/YA category, one
of which (Stranger at Green Knowe)I consider in the top 10 books I read all
year.

Of the really deep, difficult books, I tended to take a longer amount of time
and return to them repeatedly.

For example, Russell and Norvig's "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach"
was assigned in a grad class. I read it over the course of a semester from
January to April (and took multiple tests on it).

Did I get every possible insight from every book I read? Of course not.

Did I get more than if I'd not read them at all? Yep.

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Arun2009
I find that the true challenge is not reading, but internalizing what I have
read. I often find that books that I read eventually get summarized to a few
pithy statements in my memory (if I am lucky). Most of the body is gone after
a few months. I sometimes wonder if there is any point in reading books
(particularly non-fiction) if you will eventually lose most of it.

I have tried using Anki to capture my knowledge, but it's not easy to stick to
it regularly, and it may even be an overkill. Two of the reading projects that
I wish to complete are Campbell's "Biology" and Myers' "Psychology". These are
not difficult books, but tax the memory quite heavily. I have covered
significant chunks of both books earlier, only to give up in the middle and
move on to the next shiny thing. Next year I wish to resume at least one of
them and cover them systematically with the help of Anki until I have truly
mastered the content. I don't think you can undertake reading 100 books like
these if your intention is to truly imbibe the content and make it available
to you in an active form.

Also, some books contain not just information, but _skills_. Mathematics and
programming are more like swimming or riding a bicycle rather than studying
History - you are learning to _do_ stuff, not just absorb data. Readings like
these where there is significant amount of doing in addition to the reading
itself will also be slower than what the post mentions.

~~~
franl
I tend to feel the same as you regarding the body of the book being gone after
a while. However, I do feel like every book I’ve read colors in my view of the
universe just a bit more. Over time, I think it adds up to more than we might
think. Also, I would imagine that our subconscious minds are gobbling up a lot
of the major points of these readings, to be used at a later date. It’s all
going into the intuition mill!

~~~
Arun2009
I hear you, but I also fear that these sort of intangible benefits that we
think ought to exist might not exist after all. When I read a book I
definitely feel that I have accomplished something. I even take notes. I
certainly acquire bragging rights! But when I actually try to pin down exactly
what I have learned from the book after a few months, I am mostly lost except
for a grand overview of the subject.

I think I might retain only around 10% (if that) of a good book that I read. I
wonder if I might have been better off reading just the 10% in the first place
(provided I can get the _right_ 10% somehow). You could cover 10 times the
number of books at that pace with nothing lost!

~~~
lucraft
I totally agree with you and have been on a similar mental journey on the last
few years. I used to read phenomenal amounts.

But I’ve found myself very disillusioned by the reading of books, to the point
that I don’t actually do much of it anymore.

I’m too distracted by the fact that it seems pointless. Or I’m dispirited by
the thought that to make it not be pointless requires large amounts of school-
like study (notes, self testing, regular revision etc.)

I’m not sure what to do about this. I don’t think not reading is a viable life
strategy, I just don’t quite get it right now.

~~~
stuxnet79
Perhaps it might help to deflate your expectations. I look at books, like I
look at tv shows or movies. The long term usefulness of consuming might be
questionable but that does not make the act of watching / reading any less
worthwhile. I actually think that reading less is good if you were reading
prodigious amounts. When I read A LOT it's usually an indication of a lack of
balance in some aspects of my life that I try to correct. If you want to ease
back into reading without taking it too seriously go for the fluffy page
turners. There's tons of non-fiction books too which are engaging and quite
readable. Anytime somebody tells me they don't read a lot, it's usually
because they are not reading anything that interests them.

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SippinLean
For the "Keep track of what you read" section I'm surprised there's no mention
of [https://www.goodreads.com/](https://www.goodreads.com/). It's a fantastic
webapp for tracking books you've read, along with the ones you want to read,
and what your friends are reading. Some of the reviews are very well-written
and insightful.

They also have a "reading challenge" where you can set a target number of
books to read that year (in this case, you could set it to 100).

~~~
Cyph0n
If you'd rather not provide Amazon with even more of your personal data,
LibraryThing ([https://www.librarything.com/](https://www.librarything.com/))
is a great alternative.

I use Goodreads due to the social aspect, but I did try LT a while back and it
was pretty good.

~~~
pgt
Argh, didn't know Goodreads was acquired by Amazon :/ thanks for saying so

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jyriand
I seems that reading 100 books a year as a goal will filter out lot of books
that might be too long/difficult. For example. Would you take "Gödel, Escher,
Bach" into your reading list when it's obvious that reading this book with
some understanding retained will take lot of time? Instead of 100 books a year
I would go for some specific author and his works, trying to read everything
by them if possible and let these authors lead you to next authors etc. etc.

For example. I was interested in psychology, this led me to Carl G. Jung, this
led me to gnosticism, this led me to Philip K. Dick etc. And now I'm mostly
reading his fiction.

This seems like an organic path of discovery, instead of constructing
artificial list of possible books that might interest you.

~~~
cadlin
I would just point out that "Gödel, Escher, Bach" is one of the books he read
this year. As is Anna Karenina, which took me several months of devoted
attention to read.

~~~
georgeecollins
Those are two of my all time favorite books. I don't know anything about you
but I bet you are a great person!

------
swanson
Establishing an evening reading habit and using 1.5x audio books are great
tips. I would personally add/tweak:

* Don't try to pick/buy a book during your reading time, otherwise you will spend your time deciding what to read. Have a queue of books already bought and ready to go.

* Don't feel bad about skipping around or stopping a book that you aren't getting anything out of

* Buying books is a very cheap investment so I don't worry about the cost or trying to get things from the library. If you take one key idea away from a $15 book, it is well worth the cost.

* Getting recommendations from people is useful, but often there are books that I really enjoy because of the order I read them in or the melding of ideas in two books I am reading at the same time. Context and background do matter so let your own interests guide you.

(Disclaimer: I only read about 30 books per year)

~~~
sizzzzlerz
I like your tips, save I don't listen to audio books and I do get most of my
reading material from my public library. In my case, I'm fortunate to have a
great library with a substantial budget for new books and an easy to use
reservation system to request books that aren't available at the time or are
on order.

I'd add the following tips

* Don't narrow your focus onto books whose topic you know and are already interested in. If you expand your range to related topics or completely new topics, you'll benefit greatly.

* Don't weigh yourself down with meaty, dense books. Read some lightweight fiction just for the pure enjoyment. I got into reading detective stories a couple years ago and am delighted working my way through authors like Connelly, Grafton, and Parker. There are many more waiting to be explored, as well.

* Make time during your day to do nothing but read. Schedule it like any other activity for which you budget time. Never believe that it is wasted time.

* If you have young children, read to them. I can't stress this enough. Give them a good habit they can follow for the rest of their lives.

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Dowwie
Is there a post, "How to read 1 book a year, work 70 hours a week, and still
have a life"? I think I need to read that one. If I'm going to read a book,
it's going to be read carefully and contemplatively.

~~~
abhiyerra
One way to help with this is to take reading breaks when stuck on a problem.
If I am working on something and I can't seem to figure out the issue I stop
and pull out my book or Kindle and read for 5-10 minutes to let my brain
ponder. Usually, by the time I get back I have figured out the problem. Works
better than just staring at the problem for hours. Gotten through about 30
books this year using that method, while also bootstrapping my business.

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forrestbrazeal
For anyone interested, the full list of 100 books (actually 101) is here:
[https://forrestbrazeal.com/2017/12/03/the-100-books-
challeng...](https://forrestbrazeal.com/2017/12/03/the-100-books-challenge-
full-reading-list/)

I'd appreciate thoughts and additional recommendations!

~~~
defen
How much time did you spend on _Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid_?
Be honest.

~~~
forrestbrazeal
I think I read about 50 pages a night for a couple of weeks. Definitely a
heavy book and difficult at times, but worth taking slowly.

------
pmoriarty
_" Read before going to bed."_

By doing this you'll train yourself to associate reading with sleep, and it
may get harder and harder for you to stay awake for long after cracking open a
book at night.

~~~
forrestbrazeal
I'd call this a feature, not a bug. Going to sleep at night is good. If I can
come up with a reliable life hack for putting myself to sleep at night, maybe
I can start getting up earlier and reading in the morning!

~~~
zaptheimpaler
Yup! I often have trouble falling asleep, but reading a book before bed has
helped tremendously. Clears out all the loose ends and thoughts in my head.

~~~
veritas3241
Ditto, though I have to mainly read fiction. I've tried reading non-fiction
before bed and I think too much about the text which stymies actually falling
asleep.

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j7ake
Maybe we should stop trying to maximise the number of books we read a year and
focus on reading, critiquing, and meditating on a few good ones ?

I would be happy to read a single volume from knuths art of computer
programming book per year

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ohjeez
I do something similar... though I haven't had reason to set myself a goal. I
usually read 2-3 books per week, though. (I count a re-read, because some
stories are mental comfort food.)

Actually I have books that I read in different places. There's a copy of All
The Songs (the story of every Beatles song) in the bathroom, for instance. I
only read a few pages at a time... which is just fine with me. I wouldn't be
inspired to bring that book into the living room. On the other hand, I read
cookbooks most often when sitting at the dining room table. (And I read a lot
of cookbooks.)

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_nh_
This. > Did I have to give things up in order to find 100 books’ worth of
reading time? Sure – I didn’t watch as much sports this year, and I wound up
__deleting the Facebook app off my phone. __

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cconroy
To meet this quantity you will by definition have to read mediocre / non-new
(i.e. _new_ in the Alan Kay sense) stuff. Books that are mind-augmenting
require time commitments that make getting to 100 impossible in a year. Any
decent math text cannot be read in a week (or month even) and take time from
reading other books to get to 100.

~~~
alkyon
German philosopher Schopenhauer remarked that it is much better to read less
then more exactly for the same reason - quality over quantity.

Apart from this setting such goals as 100 books a year is a real killjoy (as
if todo lists had not enough items to check off already).

~~~
nileshtrivedi
Schopenhauer on Reading:
[https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/08/schopenhauer-on-
rea...](https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/08/schopenhauer-on-reading/)

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aNoob7000
I'm just asking and trying to get a better understanding, but how can someone
read roughly a book every four days for a solid year? I'm reading one book
about every 30 days.

Sure, I can read the 400-page sci-fi novel in about a week, but I recently
started to read a history book, and my page reading rate dropped dramatically.

~~~
Retric
For junk reading I often read over 100,000+ words after work. At a casual
400ish wpm that's only ~4h. 8 hour workday and 15 minute commute means I have
around 6 hours most evenings.

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trey-jones
I'm guessing the author doesn't have children.

I read every day and I get through probably no more than 1 or 2 books per
month. Obviously books can have extremely variable lengths and difficulties,
and I would say my average book is probably longer than "average".

~~~
forrestbrazeal
Two kids, actually.

~~~
trey-jones
My mistake!

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iokevins
For me, installing the free Overdrive app and linking to my public library
account--boom, 60-70 audiobooks listened to in one year:

[https://app.overdrive.com/](https://app.overdrive.com/)

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briga
I haven't had the time to read that many books a year since high school, but
I've also realized that I'm better off reading fewer books more slowly. This
sort of arbitrary pace of 100 books a year is probably going to prevent you
from really taking the time to digest books that deserve to be read carefully.
Case in point, when I read War and Peace in high school I ploughed through the
whole thing in two weeks. Can you guess how much of that book I still remember
today?

You're better off not worrying about how much you read and worrying more about
how _well_ you read.

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byproxy
I set a book-a-week goal for myself this year and hit the reading pretty hard
up until June-ish. I was able to get though about ~2 books a week reading ~3
hours a day (mostly fiction). I basically afforded myself no free time on the
weekdays as I would get home->exercise->eat->read->sleep. On the weekends I
rise early, get my reading in, and feel like I still have the whole day ahead
of me. Overall, I'd recommend it. An added benefit is that by sticking to such
a regimen you're likely to save some money. I know I did.

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aestetix
While the list of books is fantastic (I've read many of them) I'm skeptical of
reading them all within a year while not having that be the primary focus of
your life.

How did you read them? Did you just speed read them all? Some of them (like
Anna Karenina) in my opinion deserve months if not years of reflection. It
seems like the point was to just get through the books as fast as possible,
rather than appreciating the beauty they all offer. But I could be wrong.

~~~
icodemuch
...yea if your goal is about a quantity of books and doesn't include some
qualitative goal how do you ensure that you are fully absorbing each book and
not just racing through them without learning anything.

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calvinbhai
I read not more than a book or two a year (but I do read o lot of blogs).

I find it kind of pretentious to claim “I have read X number of books in a
year”

Trying to read so many books, leaves very little time to contemplate.

So I’m not sure why is there a craze of reading X number of books, and later
bragging about it (either literally or by “book-name dropping” in
conversations).

I hope there are more readers out there who enjoy slow reading !!

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dcole2929
I like reading, so I'd guestimate most years I end up somewhere well north of
100. For me the key has always been in binging. I might read 6-7 books in a
week and then not again for 3-4 weeks.

Two caveats being that a) I naturally read pretty fast and b) I'm not trying
to reach any given number for the year. I read when I find something
interesting

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glorkk
Another solution for certain type of books is to have the audio version read
at 1.5x speed during your commutes. 100 books in a year is totally feasible
(assuming it’s not textbooks or anything that would require you to look at
illustrations)

I got an Audible subscription 3 years ago and it has been one of the best
investments I have ever made.

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rurban
I do 200-600 movies a year, for decades. Lot of fun. My wife goes with me.
Cannes, Sundance, Berlinale, Karlovy Vary, ...

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LeoJiWoo
Lately I've been avoiding reading full books. I do mostly skimming to get
information, figure out if something makes sense or not, and cross reference
it with other sources of similar information.

Though I don't read fiction this way.

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evo_9
I'm wondering if there is a different between actually reading a book and
listening to a book... I use Audible.com to listen to books commuting to/from
work, it's a great way to not care about traffic.

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toblender
I was able to read about 100 books in a year by using "Voice Dream" at 360
words per minute.

I started off with Audible but their selection is a bit limited, especially
for technical books.

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dominotw
whats the rush?

How much are you absorbing. How do you define "read" .

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potbelly83
What's the point? There are some 3 page papers out there with ideas that could
take years to fully absorb.

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ivanche
I wonder why people refer to listening to audio books as "reading"?

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LeicaLatte
As someone who re-reads his books again and again for years, I have never
understood this mad rush of reading as many books as possible. The same books
mean different things to me at different points in my life. This gamification
of how many books a year have you read is so dumb.

~~~
stuxnet79
Not sure of the downvotes but I also agree with this. I find it also helps to
really internalize the contents of a book, by reading it multiple times in
different contexts and at different time periods. Books which I value highly I
tend to purchase a hard copy and put in a visible location to facilitate this.
A book has to be really good to be put in this category though.

