How to Read More Books This Fall
marginalia on expanding your reading life
Curate Your Stack
If you’re trying to read more, give yourself plenty of options to choose from. Collect a stack of 5-10 books that excite your reader brain.
My current TBR stack is filled with spooky season books—I’ve got haunted houses, ghosts, occult thrillers, witches. Anything that screams fall vibes, I want to read it.
If you’re having trouble finding books to add the stack, ask friends for recommendations, watch BookTube videos, check out the books section in newspapers like The New York Times or The Guardian.
Go down to your local independent bookstore and ask for recommendations based on other books you’ve liked. Or check out the award nominees for prizes like the National Book Award, the Booker Prize, or a genre specific prize like the Edgar Awards (mystery) or the Hugos (Sci-Fi/Fantasy).
Pick a theme (like fall) or pick books from your favorite genre or curate a stack that’s eclectic and filled with bookish serendipity. Try to choose books that sound good to YOU, not books that you think you SHOULD be reading.
Create A Cozy Corner
Once you have your stack ready, I highly suggest carving out a proper reading nook for yourself. It doesn’t have to be a big space. Is there a closet under the stairs? An unused corner in the guest room? A window seat in the breakfast nook? A haunted attic going to waste?
Reimagine your space and see if there’s room to add mood lighting, soft blankets, and a chair all your own to curl up in.
Ideally this cozy corner would be in a room away from the television, with a door that closes. But alas, we can’t all live like royalty. The key here is to have a space to return to that feels comfortable to you, a space that gets you in the mood to read. And don’t forget to keep your curated book stack within arm’s reach of your cozy reading nook!
Turn Off Your Phone
If you want to read more, you have to actually read. And nothing stops reading in its tracks like smartphone distractions. There’s a simple solution for this: turn your phone off. Or put it in another room.
The separation doesn’t have to last for very long. 30 minutes. You can sit quietly with a book and no phone for 30 minutes. Perhaps you’ll surprise yourself and get lost for hours in a story the way you used to when you were a little kid
Join a Book Club
Gather a group of friends, virtual or in person, and start reading together! The combination of accountability and good conversation will enhance your reading life immensely! Plus, you’ll probably read books you would have never picked out on your own and who knows what gems you’ll discover that way!
If you aren’t ready to start your own book club, connect with your local library or independent bookstore. Often these places will have book clubs that meet on a regular basis and would be happy to have new members. Additionally, you can find book clubs to join in your area using apps like Meet Up.
Remember my motto: reading is more fun with friends!
Listen to Ambient Music
Put on some noise cancelling headphones and set the mood with some instrumental music, lo-fi beats, nature sounds, or YouTube ambience videos playing in the background. For an extra layer of interesting, pick a playlist that matches the tone of your book, but keep the sound low enough to not be too distracting. When I read, I typically love a good rainstorm with moody instrumental music playing in the background. But the other day I listened to some instrumental Irish music because I was reading a book set in Ireland!
Read in a Coffee Shop
Romanticize your life. Be the main character. Take yourself to your favorite cozy coffee shop, treat yourself to a special drink, and read for a while. By getting out of the house, you’re less likely to be distracted by your looming to-do list and all the clutter that needs picking up and all the other things you could be doing and and and.
It’s good to make time for yourself and your favorite hobbies. Plus, you’ll be contributing to you local economy and maybe if someone at the coffee shop sees you reading, it will inspire them to do the same.
Replace Your Screen Time with Reading Time
When I say screen time here, I’m specifically talking about phone screen time, scrolling social media and news feed screen time. I’m not talking about the screen time you have to do for work because if we replaced that screen time, we’d never sleep again.
Here’s the gist: Review whatever digital wellbeing app your phone uses to track your screen time and then for whatever length of time you use the phone each day, that is the same amount of time to set aside for reading the next day. You can either use the total screen time or the screen time from your most nefarious apps.
So for instance, yesterday I had a screen time total of 2 hours and 16 min. Which means today I would try to read for at least 2 hours and 16 min! Alternatively, I was on YouTube and Instagram for about 1 hour and 6 min, so that could be my reading time instead as the rest of the time was using google maps, finding songs on Spotify, and other less toxic uses.
You’ll either be reading more or racking up less screen time and both sound like a win-win to me.
Embrace Audiobooks
I get it. We’re busy. We have jobs, we have kids, we have errands to run, a house to take care of, a body that needs exercise. We can’t just lounge in our cozy reading nooks for hours reading novels (but oh, does that sound lovely).
Audiobooks count as reading. Full stop. So if you haven’t already tried it, why not give it a go now? You can check out audiobooks through your library using the Libby App. You can get a trial of Audible or use Libro.fm. Spotify premium users now have 15 hours of audiobook listening included in their subscription price—don’t let that go to waste!
Sample several books and find a narrator you like, then listen to the book while you’re walking the dog or grocery shopping or washing the dishes or knitting a scarf. I will often switch between the physical copy and audiobook depending on my mood, and it’s helped me get a lot more reading in than if I just stuck to one format!
Stop Reading Books You’re Not Enjoying
Seriously. Give a book 50 pages or less. If you absolutely hate it, please, I beg you—stop reading. Put it back on your shelf or return it to the library. Pass it on to a friend or drop it in a neighborhood little free library. Keep it if you think you might want to try reading it later, but it’s also okay to just let it go and move on to something new.
There are so many books in this world and so many more on the horizon, and life is too short to read books that you aren’t connecting with on any level. You don’t have to love every book you read, and sometimes it’s good to push on with a book that feels challenging at first, or a book that maybe isn’t “fun” but is offering a new experience or educational insight. But if you’re getting nothing out of a book, absolutely nothing? Ditch it and pick up another one from your curated stack!
What books are you looking forward to reading this fall?
wander on, my friends…
