Read More Spend Less My Guide To 100 Books A Year

I love holding a book in my hand. I love going to the bookstore. I love going to Half-Price Books. And I never thought I would enjoy reading on a Kindle. I actually vividly remember a friend a couple of years ago coming home from a business trip, reading her Kindle nonstop on the plane. I was like, what is happening?

How is she doing this? This is amazing. And that planted the seed for me with the Kindle. I got one for free a couple of years ago and never even opened it. I almost gave it away so many times, but I kept it. So finally, one day I opened it up, charged it, and thought I'd just see what this was all about.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. And honestly, at first I was still reading a lot of physical books and Kindle, going back and forth. But once I went all in on the Kindle, my reading upped its game like crazy. Do you know what an anti-library is? This concept was coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb when commenting on Umberto Eco’s massive book collection. Eco had thousands of books, and his library mainly consisted of books he hadn’t read.

An anti-library is a collection of books you have not read. As Eco commented, this was a constant reminder of how much he didn’t know, helping cultivate a mindset of openness and humility in thinking. Think about it. All the books on your shelves that you have not read. A reminder of all the things you don’t know. All that is unexplored.

As Eco himself put it: “It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will... It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.” I have an extensive library. And I keep buying more and more books. I love spending time in my study room, surrounded by my shelves — works of fiction, non-fiction on different subjects, books in different languages. It is a source of inspiration and ideas.

Sometimes, a book will sit on a shelf for years, and then it catches my eye. When the timing or circumstances are right, I go for it. Again, back to Eco: “We understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose... Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That’s why you should always have a nutrition choice!” Well, for one, there is so much interesting stuff to read!

Reading is fun, sure, but it is also the single most important activity you can engage in if you aim to grow as an individual and as a professional. If you want to make a positive impact in the world, you have to make sure to elevate yourself — reading is the most obvious way to do that. Reading improves your vocabulary, makes you more articulate, improves your focus and ability to summon attention at will. I could go on and on, but I have written several articles about reading — see links at the end of the article. By 2024, as my library grew, there were more and more books that I really wanted to read but couldn’t get to. So, I decided to make a bit of a dent in my long list of books I wanted to tackle.

I wanted to read a lot of sci-fi. I had promising non-fiction books that drew my attention. Week after week, month after month, as I kept reading, I ended up reading 100 books despite slowing down at the end of the year. You can see all the titles in the picture above. Todoist makes the world’s #1 task manager to organize your work and life. Tell me more

Each January, I think: this is going to be the year I read a lot of books. And each December, I wonder why I didn’t. I’m not alone. Reading more is one of the most popular New Year's resolutions. And, like so many other resolutions, it often gives way to life’s other demands. Last year, I decided to take a different approach to how I think about reading.

In the past, I had it in mind that I should read more because it’s a good habit — I’m a writer, and I wanted to be more like people who read a book... This time around, I focused less on the “should” aspect of reading and more on how to make time for it and how to actually enjoy it. I reconnected with why I most want to read: I learn new things, it improves my writing, it inspires me creatively, it helps me connect with people. I also wanted to spend less time doomscrolling on social media and news apps, which — opposite from books — leaves me feeling like I’ve overloaded on information without remembering any of it. My strategy paid off. I read 40 books, compared to 12 the year before.

This total included several books in French, thanks to my French book club; several novels I read in book clubs, like Homegoing and Rebecca; and one long-time goal-read (and one of my first audio... This article was co-authored by Grant Faulkner, MA. Grant Faulkner is the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the co-founder of 100 Word Story, a literary magazine. Grant has published two books on writing and has been published in The New York Times and Writer’s Digest. He co-hosts Write-minded, a weekly podcast on writing and publishing, and has a M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

This article has been viewed 65,434 times. One hundred books in a year may seem like an impossible accomplishment. Where will you find the time? If you really examine your daily life and your schedule, you’ll probably find that you actually have quite a bit of time that is spent on activities that can easily be turned into reading... If you truly have a passion for reading and want to achieve the goal of at least 100 books in a year, you can definitely do it. "Audiobooks are a great option if you want to read more classics.

Shakespeare’s plays, for example, are meant to be performed or read aloud, so audiobooks truly enhance the experience. Hearing the narrator’s tone of voice and emotional performance also makes the language easier to comprehend and more accessible for a modern audience." The first question people ask when I share that I read 106 books in 2024. My recipe for reading a lot of books was equal parts luck and effort. I am a speed reader by nature, so this definitely made this goal more doable. I can read a book cover to cover in mere hours and often have to force myself to slow down while reading.

But beyond speed-reading, I also gave up quite a few things this year to make time to read. Like nearly all television for half the year, a decent chunk of my social life, and incidentally even my job when our family moved to Hawaii. Hitting this goal also required habits like reading my kindle while walking my dog, using audiobooks to continue chapters in the car when I had to set physical books down, and reading way past... Will I read 100 books again in 2025? Probably not! I usually read around 40 to 50 books a year, and doubling that was a huge investment of my time and energy.

I want to focus on other endeavors this year like writing more, enjoying more of beautiful Hawaii without my head buried in a book, and hopefully finding a job I love. But reading will always be important to me, and I’ve found a few consistent habits have helped to easily implement reading into my daily routine. Here’s what I recommend: Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. As the end of the year approaches, many of us begin writing down our New Year’s resolutions.

Among these goals, reading more books often makes the list—but it’s also one of the hardest to accomplish. Why do so many people struggle to reach their reading targets? Let’s break it down and discover practical strategies to help you read over 100 books in just one year. The first reason we fail to meet our reading goals is that the goal itself can feel overwhelming. For my 2024 resolution, I ambitiously decided to read 100 books. It sounded impossible at first, but I made it happen by breaking the goal into smaller steps.

I began by setting a much smaller target: just 10 books. Achieving this felt manageable and gave me the motivation to set another goal of 10 books—and then another. By focusing on incremental progress instead of the big picture, I was able to maintain my momentum and end the year with over 100 books under my belt. A common mistake when setting a reading goal is sticking to one genre, author, or type of book. To keep things exciting and avoid burnout, explore different genres and styles. Don’t limit yourself to bestsellers or the works of a single writer—give lesser-known books a chance, too.

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