How Do You Read So Much?

Now that the new year has started we have all shared our reading goals. This often involves how many books we want to read throughout the year. Mine for instance was to read 120 books this year as I read 112 in 2015. One must be hopeful. Once I posted on various places how much I wanted to read (for instance on instagram and facebook) I was very quickly asked by different people ‘How do you read so much?’

People are often envious of those that read more books than themselves. I’ll be honest, I can be a little jealous of those that can read 300 books a year. But that is just not realistic for me and one must do what fits best with their situation.  So I wanted to make a post where I repeat some things that I have told people that feel bad when they don’t read as much as others.

• We all read different kind of books. Let’s be honest, young adult books tends to read faster than adult books. Especially when it comes to the fantasy genre. Adult fantasy tends to be longer and written denser in most cases (though of course there are exceptions as there are exceptions with young adult fantasy). I know adult fantasies take me longer to read than young adult fantasy.
• We all have different reading speeds. Everyone reads at a different speed. I think you can train yourself to read more by incorperating reading more in your daily life. Like set aside 30 minutes reading time every day. I noticed that when I started reading more daily, I started reading faster again. And I went from 11 books in 2013 to 112 in 2015. Also our daily life does affect our reading speed. When I was younger I easily finished books in a day. Now that I’m older and have more responsibilities my concentration has wavered and I still can’t read as fast as I did back then.
• Your mental and physical health in combination with your work/school life affect your reading. It does. I know stress or my physical health affect my reading a lot. Right now I haven’t been feeling well since December and it shows in the amount I’ve been reading (I’m already 3 books behind on my reading challenge, insert loud wailing). But for some in those situations reading is an escapism and it fuels them to read more. A full time job or studying can also easily cut into your reading time.
• Childeren. Especially when you have young children it can be hard to find the time for yourself, let alone read.

Bottom line I wanted to point out, we all have different situations in our life that affect our reading. If you want to read more then strife towards it, but don’t stress yourself out about it. Don’t compare yourself to others because we are all in different situations. Whatever the amount you read this year will be a great amount as long as you discovered some great new books