Savvy Library

Top Tips to Get the Most Out of Reading

Photo by Fabiola Peñalba on Unsplash

There is something fantastic about getting lost in a good book. Through reading, you can learn a lot about the world around you, as well as inspire some self-reflection and personal growth. Unfortunately, many people don’t read as much as they’d like to. With so many distractions in your daily routine, it can be easy to go days or weeks without picking up a book. If you’re feeling as though you’re not getting a lot of your reading experience or want to try and find ways to encourage yourself to pick up a book, here are some top tips to get you started. 

Sign up to a book subscription service

A great way to discover new books and encourage yourself to read more is by signing up for a book subscription service. Having new reading material delivered to your home each month will inspire you to pick up the books and get lost in them. It saves you the time of going into town and browsing through bookstores if you have a busy schedule, and you can tell the provider what kind of genres you like to make sure you’re getting novels or non-fiction titles you will enjoy. 

Read something new

Everybody has favorite authors and genres they like to read, but to get the most out of your reading experience, it’s important to try something new. You’d be surprised at how much you can enjoy a book that usually you wouldn’t think to buy. It’s also a brilliant way to expand your mind and learn something new, both through fiction and non-fiction titles. You might even find that you discover a new favorite writer! 

Start a book club

Another useful way to encourage more reading is by starting a book club. If you have friends or family that are also looking to enhance their reading experience or trying to read more in general, getting together to discuss books could be a good idea. You can take turns choosing a title for the group to read. This is yet another way to discover new writers and genres. If you all enjoy a specific genre, such as historical fiction, you could even set up the book club based around that. 

Swap books

Swapping books with friends can help you to encourage each other to read more, but there are also places dedicated to this where you can exchange books with strangers, for example, pop-up libraries. What’s more, in some bus and train stations, there are little book swap areas where people can offload books they have already read and pick up a different one if they choose to do so. It’s a lovely way to share literature with the wider community. 

Set a reading goal

Setting yourself a goal for how many books you want to read in a year and keeping a journal of your progress is a good way to improve your reading experience. Think about what you want to gain from this process – would you like to read more non-fiction? If so, include three non-fiction titles in your reading list. Setting yourself a target should hopefully give you the motivation to pick up more books and make time for reading! 

If you want to improve as a reader or are looking to fall back in love with books, use these tips to help you achieve your goal.