How to read more books

How to read more books: the short version

1. Decide your daily reading time, not just your yearly number. Minutes a day is what the total comes from.
2. Read every day, even briefly. Twenty minutes a day finishes about 23 books a year at the average speed.
3. Mix in shorter books. A 200-page book counts the same as a 400-page one and takes half the time.
4. Use more than one format. An audiobook fills time you can't spend holding a book.
5. Stop books you aren't enjoying. A book you dread opening costs you the days you don't read.
6. Keep a record. It shows whether you're on pace while there's still time to catch up.

How much do you need to read a day to read more books?

The time you read each day decides how many books you finish in a year. At the average adult reading speed for fiction, 260 words a minute, and with 300-page books read every day:

These figures assume 275 words a page and the reading speed from Marc Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies. For your own speed and book length, use the reading goal calculator.

How do people read 50 books a year?

Reading 50 books a year takes about 44 minutes a day, if the books average 300 pages and you read every day at the average speed. Few people do it: in a December 2025 YouGov poll, 4% of the US adults surveyed said they read 50 or more books in 2025, and that 4% accounted for 46% of all the books read.

What makes it possible is time. Most Americans don't read on a given day, but the ones who do read for a long time: in the 2023 American Time Use Survey, people who read for pleasure on the day they were asked about read for a median of an hour. An hour a day at the average speed finishes about 69 books of 300 pages in a year, well over 50. Reading speed varies much less than reading time: most adults read fiction at 200 to 320 words a minute, while daily reading time runs from nothing to hours. So the gap between a reader who finishes 50 books and one who finishes 5 comes mostly from time.

Does the length of the books matter?

Book length matters at least as much as reading speed. A goal counted in books is really a goal counted in pages, and a 400-page book asks for twice the time of a 200-page one. Minutes a day for common goals at three lengths:

None of this means you should pick books by their length. It means a goal of 50 books in a year of long Russian novels is a much bigger commitment than 50 books of short fiction, and it's worth knowing which one you've set.

Do audiobooks count as reading more books?

Whether audiobooks count toward a reading goal is your call, and it depends on what the goal is for. If it's the stories, the ideas and the conversation about them, an audiobook delivers those. Apple Books counts them: its yearly goal tracks "how many books and audiobooks you finish each year". In Pew Research Center's October 2025 survey, 26% of US adults had listened to an audiobook in the past 12 months, against 64% who had read a print book.

Audiobooks don't add to the time you have for reading. They add time you couldn't read in, such as driving, walking or doing the dishes.

Should you finish every book you start?

You don't need to finish every book you start. A book you don't want to open can stall a reading habit: you don't read that day, then you don't read the next. In a 2024 review of habit research, Ben Singh and colleagues found that how much people liked a behaviour was one of the factors that shaped how strong the habit became. Keeping your reading enjoyable is part of reading more of it.

A useful rule is to give a book a fixed trial, such as 50 pages or three sessions, and stop without guilt if it hasn't caught you.

How do you find more time to read?

Tie reading to something you already do every day, and take the time from somewhere specific. Americans aged 15 and over spent 2.6 hours a day watching TV in 2025 and 16 minutes reading, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so for most people the time exists. It's spoken for.

The research on building a reading habit covers how to claim it, including the if-then plan that makes a daily slot stick. A timer helps with the start: the Pomodoro Technique for reading is a 25-minute commitment that's easy to begin.

How do you keep track of how many books you've read?

Log each book when you start and finish it, and check your pace once a month. By the end of March you should be about a quarter of the way to your goal. If you're behind, the reading goal calculator explains how to work out what each day needs for the rest of the year. How to track your reading has a free spreadsheet template that counts it all for you.

Sources

1. YouGov, David Montgomery (2025). Most Americans didn't read many books in 2025. Checked 22 September 2026.
2. Bone, Bu, Sonke and Fancourt, iScience 28 (2025). The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey. Checked 22 September 2026.
3. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily (2026). Americans age 15 and over read for an average of 16 minutes per day in 2025. Checked 22 September 2026.
4. Pew Research Center (2026). Americans still opt for print books over digital or audio versions; few are in book clubs. Checked 22 September 2026.
5. Marc Brysbaert, Journal of Memory and Language 109 (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Checked 22 September 2026.
6. Singh, Murphy, Maher and Smith, Healthcare 12 (2024). Time to Form a Habit: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Health Behaviour Habit Formation and Its Determinants. Checked 23 September 2026.
7. Apple Support. Set reading goals in the Books app on iPhone. Checked 23 September 2026.