500 Books: A Journey of Life, Learning and Growth

Aug 24, 2023

Introduction
Why do I read?
How has it changed me?
How do I do it?
Other Questions
Goodreads Stats
Related Links

Introduction

On the 11th of June 2023, I read my 500th book since setting myself the goal of reading one book a week in January 2016. This is a huge achievement for me, and I thought I'd write about why I read, how it's changed me and how I’ve managed to keep it up.

Before we start, I'm aware that not everyone enjoys reading or has the time to read, and this post is not meant to upset or offend anyone by suggesting otherwise.

Let's get into it...

Why do I read?

As a teenager and in my early 20s, I’d always struggled to find the motivation to read. Even if I got going, I would rarely finish books I had started. I just wasn’t interested in reading, and didn’t see the point, why would I read when I could play video games or watch films/TV? (often at the same time, but we’ll come back to that later.)

I got through my Software Engineering degree at university by reading just enough to make a start on the topics, then figuring out the rest using trial and error with the help of YouTube videos, friends and eventually the year I spent on placement. I was always jealous of people who could sit and read, and would then be able to explain what they’d read in a logical and succinct way.

This all began to change at the end of 2015. In October of that year, one of my best friends died of cancer. My world shifted and whilst I dealt with the grief of knowing I'd never see Liam again, I felt that I had to make the most of my life for him. I was also working on my Masters dissertation (as my course was an integrated Masters, I didn’t do a Bachelors dissertation), which required reading and writing at a level that I’d not had to do before. My social media consumption was also changing around this time, and I was consuming a lot of ‘self-help’ content from people like Tim Ferris and Ty Lopez, who were endlessly discussing the importance of reading to improve yourself (in hindsight, this was not good for my mental health and I think people should be very wary of content like this, but that’s for another post!) I read a handful of books in the last couple of months of 2015 but didn’t have the discipline to sit and read or get through books at any real pace.

Then in January 2016, my brother told me he was going to attempt to read 52 books that year (1 book a week.) Tom and I have always been very competitive, and this was the catalyst I needed (we learnt to ride bikes on the same day after he did it first and I thought “I’m not having that”). Fast forward to August 2023, and I’ve met that 52 book target each year (and almost doubling it with 101 in pandemic-hit 2020). I’ve managed to keep reading despite the life changes, travelling and changing work commitments of the last 7 and a half years.

My brother and I in 1999 on the first day we learnt to ride bikes. Nothing motivates quite like a sibling rivalry!

How has it changed me?

Knowledge

As I’ve written about in previous reading yearly round-up posts, I have one fiction and one non-fiction book on the go at a time. I’ll then switch between them depending on how I feel. This keeps me getting 'stuck' on a book that is a struggle to get through. My strategy with non-fiction books has been to read as widely as possible and over the years I’ve read books on Philosophy, Economics, Astronomy, Business, Finance, Self-help, Memoirs, History, Science and Religion (to name a few.) This has given me a breadth of knowledge that I never would have developed otherwise, and it has given me an appreciation of the complexity of life and the world around us, despite our human instinct to simplify topics into more manageable binaries (right or wrong, good or bad, us and them, etc.) It has developed my self-awareness and an appreciation of where I fit on the almost unimaginable scale of the universe.

I’m also far more critical than I used to be of arguments made without data to support them. We are surrounded by opinions presented as facts, often made based on anecdotal evidence that is not representative of what actually happens most of the time. Reading has taught me to look beyond those clickbait articles and the range of books I've read presents a far more optimistic (if not infinitely more complicated) view of the world.

Perspective

There’s a theory that the creation of the printing press was an essential precursor to the Enlightenment (without which we would not have all the freedoms we take for granted today.) Before this period, books were a precious commodity as replication had to be done by hand. This meant that they were only owned by individuals or institutions that could afford them, who could then gate-keep that knowledge from the general population. This was then used as a method of control. The printing press radically changed how ideas, thoughts and perspectives were shared. This meant that for the first time in human history, anyone could see how others saw the world. Even in the 21st century, books are still really the only media that provide such a deep connection, and transfer of ideas, between the author and the reader.

I've found this in my own life, reading has exposed me to many different (and often conflicting) perspectives and opinions. It has made me a much more empathetic person, as I’m able to better see how and why people react to different situations. Reading has also helped me develop my own philosophy, which has helped me to make sense of the world. I think this is particularly important in an age where ‘engagement’ of media (clicks, views, etc.) is the main driver of what content is pushed to us. Our inbuilt bias towards ‘outrage’ content means that news outlets and social media get more traction from negative content than positive content, which in turn negatively skews our view of the world. We are constantly shifting our perception of the world based on what we interact with, and having a philosophy that sits above this has been important for me when we’re bombarded with the worst aspects of humanity every time we unlock our phones.

Discipline

The main reason I’ve been able to keep reading is that I’ve turned it into a habit. I’m always looking for any opportunity to get out my Kindle and dive into a book, and I now do it almost on autopilot. For the first couple of years of reading, I would have to put my phone in another room, or I would quickly find myself scrolling through YouTube videos with the book discarded next to me. These days I’m much better at getting into that ‘flow’ state whilst reading, as long as I'm in a reasonably distraction-free environment. I also still have to have my phone outside of my peripheral vision.

The rise of algorithm-driven social media over the last few years has made it increasingly difficult to concentrate on tasks that don’t give us that same fast-paced dopamine hit. It also means we find ourselves back on our phones without really thinking about it, particularly if we have notifications on for every app. Whilst I was at University, I would attempt to multitask by playing Football Manager, scrolling through Twitter, doing University work and watching TV, often at the same time. I was never doing any of these tasks properly, and it severely impacted my ability to concentrate on a single task for years after.

Our attention is a valuable asset, and one of the only resources that we can't get more of. Hours and hours of reading (and meditation) have meant that whilst I’m not immune to distraction, I’ve been able to dramatically improve my ability to concentrate on a given task, a valuable skill in an increasingly distracted world.

Books stacked up with a desk in the background

Where it all began... the view from my reading chair in the flat I lived in from 2015 to 2019.

Behaviour

There are a handful of non-fiction books I’ve read that have had a huge impact on how I live my life. I’m a firm believer that who we are is not fixed. We can always improve ourselves, learn new skills and create new habits that can change who we are. For example, I’d never heard of meditation (or not least its practical application beyond Eastern religion) before I read Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Penman in late 2015. Almost 8 years later and it’s an important part of my daily life (In early September I will have meditated every day for 3 years.) In addition, books on diet and nutrition have changed how and what I eat, and books on human behaviour and psychology have changed how I see the behaviour of myself and other people.

Another area that reading has changed me is work and study. I started my PhD in September 2016 and shortly after that, I read Deep Work by Cal Newport. The crux of the book is that if you’re doing ‘deep work’ that requires problem-solving and original thought, 4 hours a day is the average that you can do this effectively. I’d always found myself getting burnt out when trying to work deeply for 8-hour workdays, so this really resonated with me. I spent the next 3 years completing my PhD only working 3-4 hours a day. As I’ve moved into professional life I’ve seen little evidence that a 40-hour workweek is productive, and I'm a firm believer that flexible working hours based on output should be standard across intellectual professions.

Writing

My writing has improved dramatically since I started my reading journey. I've developed an understanding of how sentences, chapters and stories should be structured to make them entertaining but also easy to read. This has served me well in my academic career, as well as my unofficial position as a proofreader for friends and family!

How do I do it?

There are three main things that have kept me reading:

Accountability

Goodreads, friends and family.

Goodreads has been essential in motivating me to keep reading. The reading challenge feature has kept me accountable to the 52 book target, and I enjoy looking back through what I’ve read, when I read it and the rating I gave it (which helps me write my yearly top 10 book posts!) It's rewarding setting a book to ‘Read’ and seeing my count go up. I also have friends and family who use it to track their reading, and this provides extra motivation to keep going, as well as an almost endless supply of books to add to my ‘Want to read’ list.

Goodreads homepage showing currently reading books, social feed and book count for the year

The Goodreads homepage keeps me motivated and gives me fresh book suggestions.

Making it easy

Kindle, a reading chair, peace and quiet.

If you want to form a habit, the task has to be as easy as possible. I read almost exclusively on my Kindle, it’s easy to carry, the battery lasts forever, I can highlight on it and it can hold thousands of books. For the first few years of my reading journey, I bought physical copies of non-fiction books. One of the reasons for this was that I could revisit certain ideas (if you’ve ever seen my book collection you’ll have noticed that each book has sticky notes that denote key sections.) However, after 4 years or so I realised I wasn’t actually going back and reading them, so decided to save space (and money) and switch to Kindle instead.

When I was forming the habit, I would mostly read on one chair in my bedroom without any other distractions. This meant no TV, no laptop and no phone. For me, reading requires silence (or my own music choice that I can zone out.) Getting into a book and properly taking in the words means I need to enter ‘flow’ state, which takes about 15 minutes to get into, but only a second to be snapped out of. Everyone is different, but for me, peace and quiet is a must if I’m reading.

Fear of failure/FOMO

What better motivator than not wasting your life?

I believe we only get one life. I want to be proud of mine: the people I loved, the places I went, the work I did and the wisdom I gained. Reading, both for learning and for enjoyment, is a huge part of this. I’m reminded of a favourite quote of mine from A Dance of Dragons by George R. R. Martin: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies […] The man who never reads lives only one.”