As we start 2025, many of us have made New Year’s resolutions. If your resolutions include a reading resolution, meaning you want to read more and do other things less, then keep reading (pun intended).
Why should you listen to me on this subject? In 2024, I set a New Year’s reading resolution to finish 85 books in one year. I surprised myself by far surpassing that goal and reading 100 books, and I want to share some secrets to my success with you.
Before I get started, I’ll mention some barriers to achieving a reading resolution. The first is the cost of books, which may conflict with another common New Year’s resolution – spending less and saving money.
The second is the amount of time and sitting involved with reading, which may conflict with popular resolutions to exercise more or to spend more time with family and friends. The steps and resources I provide below will address all of these barriers and more, allowing you to succeed in multiple resolutions at once. I mean, they helped me, so they could help you too!
Here are ten steps, complete with bookish resources, that helped me blow past my 2024 reading goal:
1. Decide why you want to read more.
In my opinion, having a purpose for your reading resolution – a solid “why” – creates the motivation for following through with it and can guide the books you choose for your reading journey. For example, do you want to read the latest and greatest so you can dazzle your bookish friends? Or do you want to read the classics that you never got around to picking up?
Maybe you want to read books written by authors with diverse identities and voices to gain perspectives distinct from your own?
Regardless of your why, set your intention, write it down, and share it with others – friends, family, adult children, colleagues, whomever. This process creates accountability and will help you achieve your reading resolution. Who knows, you may even inspire and build a community of readers around you!
2. Set a (realistic) reading challenge goal.
If you want to stick to your reading resolution and not abandon it as we do many New Year’s resolutions, it’s important to set a goal of how many books you feasibly want to read this year.
The more realistic the goal, the more likely we are to succeed in achieving it.
For example, if you read five books last year, it’s probably not realistic to set a goal of 100 books this year, but it’s also important to stretch a little. I usually try to add 5 more books to my reading challenge each year, but let’s acknowledge that everyone’s reading resolution is uniquely personal. Reading one more book each year is a win and accomplishes a resolution. You do you.
3. Create and use a system to track books read to monitor your progress.
While a well-known management quote is attributed to various individuals, it also applies to a reading resolution. To summarize, if you don’t measure progress toward a goal, then you can’t know if you are achieving it.
There are many ways to track yearly reading progress.
Potential book trackers include digital apps and websites, basic spreadsheets or word-processing documents, and good-old analog methods of keeping handwritten lists and journals.
The important thing about book trackers is to choose or create one that works for you.
4. Reflect on and develop your reading preferences.
It took me a long time to figure out my personal reading preferences because the books put in my hands early in life came from mandatory reading assignments, gifts I received as a child, and the mishmash of options on my parents’ bookshelves.
If you have not yet clearly defined your reading preferences, you will increase your chances of succeeding in a reading resolution by doing so. Why? Less decision fatigue and more enjoyment.
Through trial and error in my own reading journey and through conversations with others about which books resonate for me and feel like magic versus which books feel like invaders in my mind or chores, I discovered my likes and dislikes.
For example, I generally avoid books written by male authors due to the jarring sense of a male voice occupying my mind. There are notable exceptions, namely Fredrik Backman and Steven Rowley. I also shy away from historical fiction, mysteries, and horror as genres most of the time.
If you like to stick with one set of characters or a particular setting, maybe you’d enjoy a series. Do you want to read every book by a certain author? Or recent books about a specific topic? Go for it!
5. Gather book recommendations that align with your reading preferences.
Listen to your intuition or your knowledge about books that appeal to you, and start seeking out book recommendations for your reading resolution. Here are a few ideas for sources:
- Ask your friends and family members who know you best what books they recommend for you or, better yet, what their favorite book is.
- Go to independent bookstores and browse the titles recommended by store employees.
- Visit your local library and engage a librarian to help you find a book that matches your preferences.
- Find social media posts or reels reviewing books and choose some that pique your interest.
- Join a reading challenge (see below) and choose books from the recommendations listed for the challenge.
6. Join and commit to a reading challenge.
We all love a challenge, right? Harness your competitive nature to create momentum towards your reading resolution.
I attribute my success in exceeding my annual reading goal for 2024 and reaching my first 100-book year to The Book Girls’ Guide 2024 In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) Reading Challenge. As part of this challenge, The Book Girls provide reading recommendations covering all genres of literature for the prior 12 years with each month assigned to a backlist year, i.e. 2012 in January, 2013 in February, and so on.
This challenge allowed me to tackle my TBR (to be read) pile, and access some amazing new books I would never have found without The Book Girls’ suggestions. (I’m looking at you, Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley.)
7. Get your hands on your chosen books to read at no or low cost.
Here’s the irony of my reading hobby: it pains me to spend more than $5 on a hardcover book, more than $3 on a paperback or eBook, and any amount of money on an audiobook.
So, how did I read 100 books in one year on that strict of a budget, you may ask? Fair question. Omitting gifts and the occasional borrowed book, here are the resources I regularly use to find books at low or no cost, which could help support your other resolution to save money:
- My local libraries
I am privileged to have direct access to three local libraries, one in my town and two others through my place of employment.
Most local libraries in Vermont also have a seamless interlibrary loan system, allowing residents in one town to check out books from a library in another town using this system.
I frequently visit my libraries – both in-person and virtually – to scan the New Releases shelves and to seek out books from my recommendation lists.
Using your local library card, Libby allows you to access eBooks, audiobooks, and magazines from your smartphone, tablet, or PC. Many eBooks available on Libby can be transferred to your Kindle app and reader(s) for access during the checkout period (either 7 or 14 days). Sometimes, you are able to renew books, and other times you are not.
Libby allows you to put up to 10 books on hold and notifies you when they become available for checkout. You can check out up to 3 books at a time.
Hoopla gives you access to multimedia content (including movies) via your library card with some notable differences from Libby. Hoopla limits you to 3 borrows per month with the benefit of borrowing each title for 21 days and immediate access to available content without the need to maintain a holds list. Like streaming platforms, content moves on and off the Hoopla platform. Hoopla has a less extensive catalog than Libby or your local library’s shelves.
- Library book sales
Every year, I visit my local library’s book sale on the first day and as close to opening as possible. I annually come home with around 30 books, many of them new release hardcovers and books in excellent condition that I’ve wanted to read for quite some time.
The cost of my annual 30-book haul from my local library’s book sale? Around $78, meaning I spend an average of $2.60 per book.
I found the PaperBackSwap website back in 2009. In that year, my son allowed me to sleep just enough to entertain reading novels as a hobby again, but he was still too little to accompany me quietly to my local library.
PaperBackSwap allows you to join for a nominal annual fee and the willingness to trade 10 books you own to other members, to create a Wish List of books you want, and then both to mail out books other members request from you and to request books for other members to mail to you.
For the cost of the postage involved in mailing out a book a member requests from you (usually around $4-5), you can then receive a credit to request a book from another member (either from books currently posted to the site or from your Wish List when a book is offered to you in the future).
8. Exercise or do household chores while listening to audiobooks.
To be fair, it took me a long time to try audiobooks (and even longer to discover podcasts).
My mind tends to wander, and I assumed I wouldn’t be able to hold the thread while listening to a book. While that is sometimes true, I realized three things during my trial-and-error period with audiobooks:
- My mind wanders while reading print books, too. Just as I can backtrack through pages, Libby and Hoopla allow me to go back a few seconds, a chapter, or the whole book if I need to re-listen.
- Audiobooks require mental attention, but not physical attention. In other words, I don’t need to sit down and hold a book (or an eReader) for audiobooks. While on the move, I can use headphones, my car stereo, or a portable speaker for listening.
- With my physical resources freed up, audiobooks keep me mentally engaged while I do less preferred tasks, like exercising (primarily walking for me), folding laundry, doing dishes, cooking, baking, making the bed, etc.
Once I got the hang of audiobooks, I more than doubled my reading capacity while increasing my health-promoting physical activity and my household productivity.
For those intent on arguing about whether audiobooks “count” as reading, they do. End of discussion. The first and still best audiobook that got me hooked on this medium? Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, an oral history with a star-studded cast.
9. Form or join an in-person or virtual book club.
Book clubs offer multiple benefits in helping you stick to your reading resolution—book recommendations, intellectual socialization, alternate literary perspectives and interpretations, and accountability for reading the books prior to the club meetings.
Bonus: If you form your own monthly book club, you can invite friends and family to spend time with you and knock out a second resolution in one go.
10. Consider bonus investments that make reading more portable and enjoyable.
Remember how I said I am resistant to spending too much money on books to fuel my reading habit? (To be fair, 100 books in a year at $30 for full-priced hardcovers equals $3000 annually – ouch. My wallet just swooned and not in a good way.)
As my annual stack of completed books grew and grew and I gained mastery at acquiring them for free or under $5, I no longer needed to ask for books as gifts at the holidays. Instead, I asked my husband for two initially more expensive gifts that ultimately make my reading journey easier, more pleasurable, and more cost-effective over the long term.
If you or your gift-givers can afford the initial investment, I highly recommend the following two items for enhancing the experience of your reading resolution:
- Noise-cancelling headphones
We live in an area with a lot of airplane noise, and I work on a heavily trafficked road. When I listen to audiobooks outside near home or work using regular headphones, I frequently have to start, stop, and rewind to fight the noise interfering with my experience.
This year, my husband bought me over-the-ear noise-canceling headphones for $200 on a Black Friday sale, and they make ALL the difference in my audiobook listening experience.
Despite noisy planes or traffic, I can listen to my audiobooks while on my walks without interference, and this small luxury significantly reduces my frustration and increases my enjoyment.
- eReader that mimics paper and eliminates glare
When I started reading eBooks, I attempted it on a regular tablet with two major issues: glare and overheating when reading outside.
For Mother’s Day one year, I asked my husband for a Kindle Paperwhite (Barnes and Noble makes a comparable Nook GlowLight), and I’m in love.
Downloading eBooks from Libby to my Kindle Paperwhite means the books themselves are free, which allows for recuperating the cost of the eReader quickly through books not purchased and car trips to the library for hardcopy books not taken.
Additional benefits of my eReader, beyond glare elimination and overheating reduction, include:
- Backlighting (for reading in bed without disturbing my husband and at night in cars and on other forms of transportation)
- Lack of pages to ruffle in high winds on New England beaches in the summer
- Water resistant feature that allows for a few drops of rain without worry about water damage to paper books
- Adjustments of the visual landscape, including warm to cool backlighting and font size
I hope these steps and resources help you sustain your reading resolution this year. If you read a book you love, please drop the title and author in the comments as a recommendation. I’ll add it to my TBR. Happy reading, book friends!
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