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Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?

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11–20 of 27 posts

Re: Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?

#11
15 to 20 hours a week give or take.

I’m at 117 books read on the year.

The only tip is that if you actually want to read more you’ll do it. If you don’t do it, you’re only telling yourself you want to read more and you’ll continue to prefer to watch hour long documentaries/TED talks/programming tutorials on Youtube.

Re: Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?

#12
post #5

With a rule of no phones in the bedroom, reading a book at bed time becomes a habit. I read about a time in history which interests me, classic novels, some modern fiction. You would need to find your own niche. Don't read self help books, it's meant to be enjoyable!

I need to get back in the habit, but we have a sitting room with no television. I used to have a "no screens" (except e-ink ereaders with just books/PDFs/etc.) rule in there for myself, made for a great reading space. I broke it while working on a masters degree and needed a quiet space to study and work on projects, once I'm done with the degree I plan to go back to that rule though.

Re: Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?

#14
The biggest tip is to read fun books. Pick up an easy dumb page turner like The Da Vinci Code, and reading won’t be a chore. Save the non-fiction and literary fiction for when you get more in the habit. Also, it’s ok to give up on a book if it’s not interesting.

Re: Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?

#15

The biggest tip is to read fun books. Pick up an easy dumb page turner like The Da Vinci Code, and reading won’t be a chore. Save the non-fiction and literary fiction for when you get more in the habit. Also, it’s ok to give up on a book if it’s not interesting.

I'm going to second this: if a book doesn't grip you and get you to be curious, then this indicated it is badly written (applies to both fiction and nonfiction). Give yourself permission to skim books or stop reading halfway - life is too short to read something that's not enjoyable or useful.

Re: Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?

#16
Since I started working night shifts, I have read on average two books a week.

As others have said, the amount of time spent reading depends on the book in your hand. I recently picked up two books by David Baldacci for this week and just finished the second one tonight - His style is stellar, keeps me hooked and I can read for 5 hours solid some nights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innocent_(Baldacci_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Target_(novel)

Re: Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?

#18
You can read a lot if you read things you enjoy, instead of things you feel you ought to read as a goal/achievement.

I used to read a lot in high school and then lost the habit as I went through undergrad. The way I got back into it was by ignoring best sellers and hype titles and the feelings of "I should read this because all my hacker friends keep referring to it".

I started reading a lot more fiction, especially stories from my country and culture. I stopped forcing myself to finish books that bored me. And because this is expensive to do, I bought physical books from a used books store instead of 1-click-buys on my Kindle.

Eventually, this built enough reading muscle for me that I moved to reading more ambitious things and I was able to persevere longer and battle through some really boring stuff (on topics that I cared about).

Re: Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books?

#20
post #18

You can read a lot if you read things you enjoy, instead of things you feel you ought to read as a goal/achievement. I used to read a lot in high school and then lost the habit as I went through undergrad. The way I got back into it was by ignoring best sellers and hype titles and the feelings of "I should read this because all my hacker friends keep referring to it". I started reading a lot more fiction, especially…

> I stopped forcing myself to finish books that bored me.

This is the solution. If a book is boring you, skip a few pages, skip a chapter, put it away and get another book, or delete it / throw it away.

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