- I've got a question from a reader a few days ago that I really want to address. I really want to read more books, but I dislike reading. What do I do?
And as somebody who definitely enjoys reading, but also who has gone through periods of life where reading hasn't been the biggest thing that I want to do, I wanted to address this question, especially since the answer is very simple, and very easy. First thing you're gonna want to do is read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kaheman. It's a very, very light, easy breezy read, only about 497 pages of research findings, and after that you're gonna want to follow things up with The Owner's Manual for the Brain by Pierce J.
Howard Phd. Again, an easy read, only about 1,097 pages, and once you read these two books, you're going to understand your brain, and you're going to be able to change it on command, and just tell yourself to like reading. Sound good?
Alright, video over. Okay. I do kind of wish that I could end the video like that, because it would be pretty funny.
But as it turns out, I do have some actual tips that will be helpful if you want to become the kind of person who likes to read, or at least the kind of person who doesn't absolutely dislike reading, and who can get through the occasional book once in a while. So let's get into it. So the first thing that I want to mention here, which is something that comes from my own personal experience, is that reading is a habit that gets easier to do, and more pleasant to do the more you do it.
A couple of years ago, I made a bet with my friend Martin that I was gonna read 25 pages a day, every single day for three entire months, and to really force myself to stick to this bet. I told him I was gonna give him $100 if I failed to read those 25 pages even once, and during the first month. Sticking to that goal was difficult.
And the threat of losing that money, and being embarrassed was my main motivator, but about a month into the challenge, I started to notice something profound, which was that I found it easier to start reading, and I also found it easier to keep reading for longer, and longer periods of time. So I discovered through this challenge, that reading is very akin to working out actually. When you start doing it, it's very tiring.
It's exhausting, it's not a lot of fun, but when you get into the habit of doing it, it gets easier to do, and it gets more enjoyable. That being said, I'm not just gonna leave you off of the tip to brute force a reading habit by making a bet with a friend, because there are definitely some other things you can do, one of which being to start with material that's easier to get through, and I do have a few suggestions. So on the really easy end of things are comic books, and stick with me, even if you're not typically into comic books, because these can really help you get into the habit of reading overall.
Comic books are number one, usually very easy to finish in one sitting. And issue of a comic book is not very long. And because of all the art on the page, there's really not a whole lot of room for a ton of text.
Now if you walk into your average comic store, you're gonna see a lot of stuff on the shelves, and you're probably not going to know where to start. So let me give you a couple of recommendations here. First, and foremost, I'm gonna recommend the Avatar Last Airbender comic series, which actually pick up right where the series left off.
Avatar is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. If you haven't watched it, you probably should. And the comic series is just as good as the television series, so that would be a great place to start.
Also, there was an app called Comixology, which I believe is owned by Amazon now, and they have a ton of different comics for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, lots of Manga as well. And one thing that I discovered after I went, and watched Alita Battle Angel in the theaters, and wanting to read the Manga afterwards, is that you can get a free 30 day trial with basically unlimited reading, without even putting a credit card into the app. So that's a great way to at least start doing things.
You didn't have to go to a comic book store, and buy paper comics. You can just read them on your computer, and that can get you into the habit of reading. You don't even have to stick with comics afterwards.
It just builds that habit. Now, if comics just aren't your thing, there are definitely other options out there that don't come with a whole lot of pictures, one of which being short story anthologies. So one of the things that I have found has been sort of a roadblock to getting back into my reading habit at times, is the fact that books are usually very long.
And if I stop in the middle of a book, I often feel like I have to go back, and read the entire thing again just to figure out where I was, and that can be discouraging. So the great thing about short story anthologies is that again, you can sit down, and you can usually finish an entire story in one sitting. And that feeling of accomplishment, that feeling of sitting down, and finishing something can encourage you to keep reading in the future.
Now just as with comics, there are a ton of short story anthologies out there, and you might not know where to start. So I do want to give you at least one recommendation in this video, and that is going to be for the anthology called Rogues, which was edited by George RR Martin, and which actually contains a brand new Game of Thrones story alongside other stories by authors like Patrick Rothfuss, and Neil Gaiman. And again, just like with comics, treat these as an entry point to building your reading habit.
You don't have to always stick to short story anthologies, or comic books. They can just get you back into that daily habit of reading books, and then you can move on to bigger, and possibly better things, one of which would be fiction books that are still novels, but that are written for easier consumption. So the one book that comes to mind for this tip is The Hunger Games, because a few years ago I remember reading an article by the blogger, Jeff Goins about why the hunger games was so successful.
And one of his main arguments is that the book uses very short packed sentences. It doesn't use crazy frilly prose. It's kind of written for today's more easily distractable audience.
Here's just a quick snippet of what he said about her writing. Collins writes short sentences that pack a punch. They are disturbingly terse, like a Hemingway novel.
This way of writing builds the suspense, which works perfectly with the culture addicted to constant interruptions. Now, some people might interpret that as a criticism against her writing, but I see it a little bit differently. Yes, it's not the most amazing pros ever written.
It's not war, and peace. But Suzanne Collins knows her audience, and she knows that choosing to write in this way is gonna help them get through the books more clearly, and keep coming back for more, and to a somewhat lesser degree. I've noticed this in the books that I've had an easier time getting through as well.
For example, I binge read the entire Miss Bourne series by Brandon Sanderson, and while that series is amazing, the writing is little less complex than other series like The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, or especially anything by Neil Stevenson, both authors that I really, really enjoy, but who have had a little bit of a harder time getting into than with Sanderson's work. Now, I do want to stress that I'm not advocating you avoid more complex books, but if you are the kind of person who believes that you dislike reading, or the kind of person who has been out of the habit of doing it for a while, starting with easier, or more digestible books is again, a way of building that habit, building that base, and once you have that base, then you can branch out into the more difficult material, and in addition to that more difficult material, realize that you could also branch out into areas that you don't think at first glance are for you. For instance, young adult novels, or middle grade fiction novels.
I remember a few years ago I was on goodreads. com, and I noticed that Patrick Rothfuss, the author of The Name of The Wind, and Wise Man's Fear had reviewed, and given five stars to a children's book called The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and due to his positive view, I went and read the book, which I found to be fantastic. I also found it to be full of a lot of vocab words that I did not understand, so not quite sure how this made it into the children's categorization, but that should just be more evidence that books that are considered to be for children, or for teenagers might be for you as well.
The categorization is to help people who are in those groups to find more things that they might like to read, or that might be at their level, but it is not meant to exclude people who are outside of those groups. So from all that, I want to move on to talking about something which may potentially have killed your love of reading at an early age, and you might be able to guess what it is, because it's school. I remember back when I was in high school, I used to have English classes, and composition classes, and reading classes where I was assigned reading, sometimes fiction reading where we were assigned specific chapters every single week.
And were actively discouraged from reading ahead. Now I get what the teachers were trying to do. They were trying to keep the entire class at the same pace.
But here's the thing, if you have 50 kids in the classroom, not every single one of them is going to fit into this same exact specific mold for how they should learn to read. And yes, we should be teaching people how to read analytically, how to critically think. But more importantly we should be teaching a love of reading.
So if your experiences in school made you kind of not like reading like they did for me in certain cases, then realize that there are other ways of reading, and the the way they force you to read in school isn't the way that you have to read yourself. So give it a try again. And one last, but important tip that I want to share here, which I think is gonna apply to a lot of you, because it definitely applies to me, and it definitely applies to my best friend Martin, who helped me write this video, is to ditch your TBR, your to be read list, if it is becoming an obligation.
I know that on many occasions in the past, I have seen a really interesting book on the bookstore Shelf, or a library shelf, and thought, I really want to read that, but I've already got a bunch of books on my to be read list over on good reads that I got to read first. So I dutifully put that book on the bottom of the list, and then proceed to, of course never read it. So instead of doing that, instead of holding yourself to this really nonessential obligation to go through books, and the order in which you discovered them, follow your interest, if something looks really interesting right now, then pursue it, read that book now, and go to the TBR later.
Don't put it at the bottom. You have to remember that interest is really tied up in emotion, and emotions are really tied up in the moment, and it's kind of a delusional belief to think that you can just put a book on a to be read list, and conjure that same level of interest, that same level of emotional attachment later on when you get down to that position on the list. So realize that while the TBR concept is not inherently bad thing, and that it can be useful in some circumstances, it can really hinder your emotional attachment to things that you are interested in right now, and if that's the case, then you should probably ditch it at least temporarily.
Now, earlier in the video we talked about how starting with bite sized content, comic books, short story anthologies, things like that can really help you to graduate to the more in depth, and lengthy books out there. And this is a concept that doesn't just apply to reading books. It can apply to everything.
For instance, if you want to learn math, or science, or you want to get better at solving complex problems, a great way to get yourself into the habit of doing that is by starting with bite sized problems. Things that you can solve in five minutes, or 10 minutes. And that is exactly what you can do with the daily challenges feature on Brilliant.
Every single day they publish new problems in math, science, and computer science that you can sink your teeth into, that you can solve in five, or 10 minutes, and that might possibly pique your interest in a new subject that you haven't considered before, and once that flame of interest is lit, you'll be happy to know that the Brilliant also has a ton of in depth courses that you can use to continue learning, ranging from calculus to math for quantitative training in finance to gravitational physics, to python programming, to computer algorithms, and much, much more. The best part is that Brilliant builds all of their courses, and their daily challenges with the principle of active learning in mind, you're not just gonna be sitting there passively intaking material the entire time. You're gonna be actively encouraged to solve problems on your own, and, because their bite sized, when you get stuck, which will happen from time to time, you're gonna easily be able to go find the information you need possibly from their very in depth, and detailed wiki with lots of concept explanations, and example problems.
You're gonna be able to find that information, come back, and solve the problems with minimal frustration. Now with Brilliant free tier you get new daily challenges every single day, along with access to that Wiki, and their community discussion area, where you can talk with lots of other learners. And if you do decide to go for their premium subscription, you also get access to the entire daily challenges archive along with full access to all their in depth courses.
So if you wanna start learning for free today, and building that learning habit, and growing it in the future, then head over to brilliant. org/ThomasFrank to get started. And if you're one of the first 83 people to use that link and signup, you're also gonna get 20% off your annual premium subscription.
Big thanks as always, to Brilliant for sponsoring this episode, and being a supporter of my channel. And also thanks to you for watching. If you enjoyed this video, maybe give it a like to support this channel, and also click right there to subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos.
You can also click right there, and get a free copy of my book on how to earn better grades. Click right here to get one more video on this channel, or check out our latest podcast episode right over here. Thanks again for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
