1) It's a habit.
2) Cultivate the garden of your interests.
- Find resources for reading recommendations (NY Review of Books, NYT Book Review, POD casts, NPR radio);
- Devise a system to collect reading recommendations and to revisit (ie. 3x5 cards, *.txt files you can grep);
3) Get books. Find a convenient and impulsive source for books.
- Visit your public library!
- Reduce the stress of putting down a book that's boring (unless you're wealthy, then Amazon to you heart's content).
- Most public libraries let you search online, reserve, call you when your book is ready, then just go pick it up.
4) Develop better reading habits (mostly for non-fiction):
- Can't get into a book? Start at the index (in the most xtreme cases I list my interests reading the index, then tally which chapters have the most points of interest and read those first!)
- Learn the vocabulary.
- Pencil marginalia. Limited set of what I call "sign-posts". A small check-mark to flag an important passage or line is sufficient. (Underlining is awful; don't do it. If everything is important, than nothing is most important).
- Keep a piece of scrap paper and write down a great idea you had while reading--this will clear your mind of your great idea, and let you get back to reading. And it also keeps your interest, because who doesn't like having great ideas?
5) Write a brief book review for every book you read for the rest of you life. Save this as a simple text file. MLA bibliographic entry. Few paragraphs about the book. Done.