This is my first attempt where I’ve cowritten a post with ChatGPT and text suggestions from it are interspersed with my own writing.

This is a collection of the strategies that have helped me dive into the world of books and significantly increase my reading habits over the years. While saying I’ve read “a lot” might be a stretch, I’ve managed to average around 10 books per year for the past four years, according to my Goodreads account. However, I usually end up reading a bit more than that.

Background

Back in school and college, you wouldn’t catch me with a book in hand. Instead, I’d idly flip through colorful magazines, while wondering how anyone could find joy in those monotonous black-and-white pages filled with text. Probably the only reading I did was the obligatory English-Malayalam-Hindi chapters in our school language books. It was more of a chore than a choice. These wernt too long, but I never found them engaging enough to read for pleasure. I was more interested in the explanations that the teacher would give us – the reading between the lines, the hidden meanings, the cultural context – that made those chapters come alive. I was more of a listener than a reader.

My first real foray into reading came when I picked up “The Alchemist” in college. Everyone was raving about it, and seeing my peers engrossed in its pages made me curious. That’s when I discovered a whole new world within those covers.

In 2010, I met my now-wife, who was (and still is) a “voracious reader” – true to its definition, averaging around 50 books a year! To avoid looking stupid in front of my wife, I decided to give reading another shot and amassed a vast collection of ebooks, mostly through less-than-legal means. I pirated like a maniac, and manged my collection with Calibre, a powerful e-book management tool. I had amassed a huge collection of ebooks, but realized we have too little time to actually read them all.

My wife and I would swap e-books and spend hours reading on our laptops. However, reading PDFs and EPUBs proved to be a challenge for me. The sheer volume (narrow margins and wide screen) of text on each page was overwhelming. In addition, finding books that grabbed my interest was another challenge. I just didnt want to read a book because it had 4.99/5 stars on Goodreads.

There are more great books in the world than I’ll ever have time to read in this lifetime, so I’ve given up the vain pursuit of reading everything and instead focus on enjoying discovering what catches my interest.

Becoming of an unintentional reader

Here are a few things that have helped me become an unintentional reader and develop a love for books, even though I never set out to be one.

  • Finding the gateway drug: For me, that was The Alchemist. A short, fable-like novel that was easy to dive into and had an intriguing premise. It showed me reading could be an adventure and sparked my imagination. What’s your gateway novel that opens the door to reading for pleasure? We all have to start somewhere, and having that first experience of a book transfixing us is so pivotal. Until then just pick up one and try it out – if you dont “feel it”, try another one. The key is to find that first book that clicks with you and makes you want to read more.
  • Following recommendations: Seeing what others were reading on Goodreads and book blogs led me to discover many books I might never have found on my own. Don’t be afraid to embrace the power of recommendations to broaden your reading. Other readers can be incredible guides, exposing us to books we might never discover through algorithms or browsing shelves alone. Whether it’s a favorite booktuber or a prolific reader friend, pay attention to whose tastes overlap with yours and dive into their recommendations. You’ll likely find some hidden gems and new favorites that way. Dont be forced to read what your partner reads – I would never read the same books as my wife currently reads, but I would read books that she read when she started out.
  • Mixing up genres and styles: Once I got into a regular reading habit, I started exploring different types of books. Everything from sci-fi to self-help to mysteries. If one book isn’t grabbing you, try another style. Variety keeps things interesting. As your reading muscles develop, don’t get stuck in a rut reading the same types of books over and over. Switching up genres and styles keeps reading fresh and exposes you to new perspectives and ideas. If you’re finding a particular genre isn’t capturing your interest like it once did, swap it out for something different rather than abandoning reading altogether. I was for a while stuck in a self-help book rut, but then I started reading more fiction and it was like a breath of fresh air.
  • Making it a daily habit: The most important change was prioritizing reading every day, even if just for a few minutes. Like any habit, reading daily compounds over time into something transformative. Even reading a page or two a day adds up dramatically. It has also happened quite a few times that I start with some book at a slow pace and suddenly around 60% of the book I find the book very interesting and cant let it down.
  • Not agonizing over what to read next:
    I’ve learned to stop fretting over picking the perfect next book. When I finish one book, I simply pick another that appeals in the moment rather than spending ages deliberating. More reading, less debating is the way to go. One of the biggest reading barriers is overthinking our choices and worrying we’ll pick the “wrong” book and end up wasting time. If you dont like it, stop reading and pick another one, just as the first tip – dont guilt trip yourself into finishing a book that isnt resonating with you.

A journey that begins with a single book picked up on a whim holds untold treasures and transformations in store. All it takes is cracking that cover and beginning.

Miscellaneous tips

The first investment you should make, if you’re really interested, is to develop an interest in the author or the theme. The Alchemist caught my attention because of the title, the author’s unusual name, and because many people were sharing his quotes on Facebook and WhatsApp forwards.

Harry Potter was another interesting one for me. As a kid, I had watched all the movies and really liked them. I kept rewatching them whenever they came on TV, even as an adult. One day my wife told me the books had some different scenes, and I wanted to know what those were, so I picked up the first book. Then it became a non-stop reading marathon until the third one. I took a few months off, then read books 4, 5, and 6. I am yet to read the last one because I don’t want it to end. After each of those chapters, I would go back to the movies and compare what happened and how it was portrayed.

Then came the self-help era. The titles made me feel like something was lacking in me and I needed to fix it - pure FOMO. They were not difficult reads, they used simple language, and reading stopped feeling hard. The titles were marketed in a way that caught attention, and the covers were bright and fancy.

Once I got into it, small sections and short chapters were what hooked me. One such book was Atomic Habits, which used large fonts and felt very easy to read. This phase also came from watching many YouTube videos. I was influenced by Thomas Frank in the past – side note: not sure why he doesn’t make videos anymore. He once recommended an author who had given a TED talk.

One more thing was that the book felt practical. You can take the concepts and apply them the same day, and see them working right in front of you.

Another tip that helped me was getting the author’s voice: listen to a clip of the author speaking, maybe at a press conference or a book reading and get familiar with their intonations. It makes the words come alive in your head and you can almost hear the author narrating the story as you read. It adds a layer of connection to the text that can make it more engaging and enjoyable.

How it’s going

Even now, I still read a few self-help books when I want something quick and light on the go.

Soon I felt I could read faster, so I started playing with Kindle settings: bigger margins (to avoid my eyes wandering), tighter line spacing, and smaller fonts.

These all help once you reach that stage.

Kindle has some limitations though, and in some ways it still sucks, which is why I prefer Moonreader on my tablet these days. It allows much deeper customization.

One thing I really want to improve is reading Malayalam books. I haven’t read one in a long time, though I have recently been reading some light autobiographies. Reading Malayalam on Kindle is still difficult.

I realized it is okay to see how many pages are left in a chapter. I used to think that was cheating, but it’s absolutely normal. Getting a feel for it, and enjoying the texture and flow of the book, are things I like when my mind starts to drift.

Reading becomes automatic at this point. It is no longer something I debate in my head. I often read sections from multiple books before I go to sleep.

I make sure I balance a heavy read (for me, anything that requires a lot of imagination) with a light read (usually self-help). This split might be different for you, but it has helped me a lot.

At times I read multiple books in parallel, because I realized I’m not the kind of person who can stay interested in just one thing for too long. This creates balance for me. It applies to books, courses, and work. I like being put into different roles and tasks.

At this point, Goodreads is the only social media platform I really care about, and I’m constantly bombarded with new books. The downside is obvious.

Unlike before, what I do now is simple: I appreciate that a book exists, and then move on. I remind myself there are billions of books out there, and I cannot read everything in one lifetime. So I try to read as much as I can without dreading every unread recommendation feed.

One thing I’m struggling with still is the mind wandering off while reading. I have to keep reminding myself to stay present, almost like you would do during meditation – I’ve noticed that this happends mainly with fiction. I think its because my mind is already at an imaginative state and then it tries to bring some real characters into the story, or it tries to imagine the story that diverges from the text. Because when I snap back, I’ve read a few paragraphs but I have no idea what they were about. I have to go back and read them again, which is a bit frustrating.

This is still an everyday battle.