10 Ways to Read More Books in 2021

I read 70+ books in 2020.[1] Below I’ll tell you how.

“If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” I don’t think you should cheat. Cheating is wrong. But you should, however, make the most of every advantage you have as best as you can.

That’s what I seek to do with reading. I take advantage of everything I can.

I read all sorts of books for all sorts of reasons. Depending on the reason for reading and the type of book, I will read it in a different way. Some people shun audiobooks. But, I personally don’t get that. There are all sorts of reasons for reading and all sorts of ways that people retain things best.

As I said, I think we should wisely take advantage of everything we can as best as we personally can.[2]

Here are nine things I’ve used to my advantage:

1) Time

Time is the most precious commodity there is. Even little bits of gold have value, how much more small slots of time!

You can get a lot read when you make the most of small time slots. Waiting can easily turn into productive reading. I always have a book on hand. And my wife often listens to audiobooks while doing dishes or laundry.

2) Old fashioned books

Always have one with you. You never know when you’ll be able to get a few paragraphs or a few pages read.

3) Kindle app on my phone

It’s always with me. I always have a book I’m reading on Kindle.

4) Hoopla or Libby

Hoopla and Libby are free apps and one of them should be available through your local library. I’ve used them both at different times to listen to tons of books.

5) Audible

Audible is an audiobook service. My wife and I had a membership for a long time. It was great.

6) ChristianAudio

ChristianAudio is an audiobook service that provides Christian audiobooks. You can signup for a free audiobook a month.

 7) Speechify

Speechify is an amazing app. It was created by Cliff Weitzman, someone with dyslexia, to help people with dyslexia.

With Speechify you can take a picture of a page in a book and it will convert it to audio. I will sometimes buy a book on Kindle and take a screenshot of each page of the Kindle book and load it on to Speechify. In this way, I can listen to the book.

I can also still make notes. If something sticks out to me that I want to capture I’ll take a screenshot on the Speechify app. Then I’ll search the keywords from the screenshot on the Kindle book and highlight and make any notes I want to make.

Speechify has been a huge blessing to me. I read very slowly but when I use Speechify I can read over 650 words per minute. Speechify probably triples my reading speed but I’m still able to retain what I read and make notes.

8) A community of book lovers

I have multiple friends (including my wife!) that love to talk books and encourage the reading of good books.

9) Goodreads

Goodreads is a social media site for reading. Goodreads allows you to track and review books you’ve read as well as receive recommendations from friends. You can see my Goodreads account here.

10) Pocket (very helpful but not for books)

Pocket is an app that allows you to save articles to your “pocket.” It’s a great way to save and organize articles. But, the thing I enjoy most is that it has a function that allows you to listen to articles.

[1] The largest book I read was God’s Empowering Presence at 992 pages. As a pastor I sometimes read as part of my job. For example, I taught on the 10 Commandments this year and so I read four books on the 10 Commandments. As a pastor in order to lead and shepherd well I believe reading broadly and deeply is vital. Different people, however, have different callings. Expectations and recommendations should be adapted accordingly.

[2] I personally will basically only ever listen to fiction. Fiction is entertainment for me and less study and so I don’t take notes. And so I listen to fiction or something that is just for fun when I mow, jog, or drive and I save my concentrated reading time for dense nonfiction.