How to Read a Book a Week

Let's kick this off with three facts:

1) Reading is good.

2) Despite the near infallible wisdom of Mick Jagger, time is not on our side.

3) Thankfully, loopholes exist. Reading a book a week isn’t as hard as it sounds, especially if you cheat. A few years ago I set out to read 52 books and I made it to 60 by exploiting a few loopholes in the system. I shall now discredit myself and help you to read a book a week for a year, if you want to.

Loopholes. Audiobooks. Audiobooks will bolster your book count while simultaneously reducing your road rage and curing unwanted insomnia, all by approximately 25%. There aren’t many forces on earth that can lessen the anger that even the pope feels when behind the wheel of the papal-Benz, so this alone should win you over. Also, there are so many good audiobooks out there, some read by actors, others by the authors themselves. Audiobooks upped my book count significantly and are still the only reason I can sleep on airplanes or at all really. There are purists out there that will not accept the inclusion of audiobooks on their reading lists. They are Roald Dahlian characters. You will drive past them in traffic and smile while they give you the finger.

Strategy. I always have about three books lined up. If I'm busy with a classic or something heavy, I'll have an easy read lined up next. Literary inertia is serious, take it seriously. I love Dostoyevsky, but I don’t love him after Tolstoy. There's no shame in the page turner, they get you up to speed and only when you are moving fast enough do you tackle a 1000 page Russian novel that wouldn’t fit in your mouth if it were a sandwich.

Time. You have it, you just don’t realize you have it. 20 minutes twice a day will probably do the trick. You might have to miss an episode of that TV show about yet another serial killer, but sacrifices must be made.

Cultivate some excitement. When Pacific Rim came out at the movies I loved it – not because it was so great, but because I decided to. I went into that big, silly film expecting to relive the days when my brother and I played with action figures, narrating the epic battles with those sound effects which all boys know but are never taught, and that’s what Guillermo del Toro gave me. I approach my book list the same way except that I am older now and have forgotten half the sound effects. I research all the books and get excited about them. Don’t be that person that has to look at the front cover to remember the author’s name.

That's my advice. Take it or leave it.