How to Read More Books

For being a fancy published author, I read far fewer books than you'd think (and probably should). The reasons are myriad: I write a lot myself, I read a ton of journalism, comic books, and graphic novels, I have a variety of unrelated hobbies and interests, and, pound for pound, my children are two of the loudest and most disruptive human beings on the planet.

Said constraints notwithstanding, I'm off to a hot reading start in 2026. At my current blistering—though likely unsustainable pace—I'm looking at finishing between sixty to seventy books by Christmas. I typically range from thirty to forty per year, so such a figure would be a personal best.

What have I been doing differently?

Many things!

Scroll on for some semi-serious, half-humorous suggestions for how you, too, can bolster your reading consumption.

Ignore and Disgust Your Family

Following breakfast on a recent Saturday morning in the deep freezer known as Chicago, my kids started bickering and whining and begging to watch some shitty Pokémon show on Netflix.

Me and my wife glanced at each other, channeled our inner Marie Kondos, and wordlessly agreed these monsters no longer sparked joy. I was up for doing the adoption paperwork, but her mommy guilt was too strong, so we thanked the kids for their service and sent them to watch television in the playroom for twelve straight hours.

Serenity restored, my wife sipped her coffee, eyed me with derision, and realized I, too, no longer spark joy in her life. She then disappeared into her phone and spent the rest of the day bingeing Miss Scarlet on PBS Passport.

Blissfully discarded, I luxuriated in a novel for six hours, breaking only to replenish my tea and walk myself like a dog.

The strategy is clear: If you have kids, ignore them. If you have a partner, make being near you utterly miserable. In no time at all hundreds of hours of annual reading time will magically present themselves.

Jettison Your Job

Neoliberalism is nihilistic and dehumanizing and in your heart you know your job is bullshit. Rather than make pointless PowerPoint slides and slog through lifeless Zoom meetings, just fucking quit.

Don't consult a financial advisor or ask an advice coach or get therapy or do anything rational. Find your most indulgent family member—I chose my wife—move into their dwelling, and announce yourself as their new dependent.

They'll be stuck with your financial dead weight, and you'll recover eight to twelve hours per day which you can use to read life-affirming books.

Pro Tip: Declare yourself a "novelist" and you can pretend reading is a crucial part of your "career." Better still, your beleaguered benefactor can write off your freeloading as a business expense.

Terminate TV

I've harped on this many times before, but television series are written to be inefficient and make for sluggish, unsatisfying storytelling. Netflix actively produces crappy shows because they know you'll be scrolling TikTok on a separate screen.

First of all, if you're gonna watch something, pay attention.

Secondly, why spend time with those lifeless narratives when thousands of amazing books beckon? Do you really think you're gonna get more out of Squid Games or Stranger Things than The Sympathizer or The Sellout?

The exception here is a proper film. A novel has more in common with a movie than a television series (e.g., number of characters, total scenes, plot structure, etc.) and great cinema is arguably the apex of human storytelling. I mean, seeing Mad Max: Fury Road on the big screen was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

So, if you're not reading books because you're mainlining The Criterion Channel, you know what, keep living right.

Surrender Sports

I love sports: the amazing feats of athleticism, the pageantry and the traditions, the crucible of competition.

In a vacuum, athletic games are arguably my favorite aspect of human culture. But, as always, money cocks up everything.

College sports writ large are, to put it mildly, a fucking mess. Combine the cynicism of "free market" capitalism with the bureaucratic incompetence of municipal government and you're halfway to the current paradigm.

Professional sports offer a simpler fan experience, but because the franchises are all owned by kleptocrats and nepo-babies and the leagues are all run by soulless sycophants, the end-products are little more than bloated vehicles for pharmaceutical ads and degenerate gambling.

Beyond the specific problems plaguing each sport, the common denominator is they all soak up a shitload of time.

Nowadays I fully cop to being a fair-weather fan and highly recommend this approach. For example, once Michigan football stopped cheating winning and returned to its core strategy of fielding elite scandals and mediocre teams, I stopped paying attention and once again found myself with four extra hours each fall Saturday.

Likewise, the NHL's been dead to me since the 2012 lockout, I consider the NBA an illegitimate league at this point, and I recognize regular season baseball is supposed to be boring and rightfully ignore it.

Unfortunately I still spend an inordinate amount of time watching the NFL, but after my former favorite franchise went all-in on a washed anti-vaxxer I became a full mercenary and dumped any and all tribal affiliations. This much saner approach is a lot more fun, too, since I now get to delight in the agony of 31 racist fanbases per year.

All told, when I think about how much of my precious life I've invested in these broken leagues, I don't feel regret, but I am kind of shocked. Happily allocating those future hours to reading books will provide a much richer ROI. Join me.

Pare Your Parasocials

As previously mentioned, I've been on an extended break from social media and the time away has proved productive and restorative. Once I stopped gnashing my teeth together and attempting to enjoy TikTok, CuckStack, Bluesky, and the like, I suddenly had a lot more time to nourish rather than poison my brain (Beware: Breathtaking hypocrisy below).

At the end of last year I broadened this lens further and took a hatchet to the entire Parasocial Relationship Industrial Complex.

Follow these footsteps to freedom.

Nuke Social Media: Delete—or at least deactivate—your accounts. All of them. Don't overthink it, just do it. You'll feel a tinge of FOMO at first, then a metric fuckton of relief, joy, sanity, virility, clarity, hope, and much much more.

Ghost Your Hosts: You know that super popular podcast you listen to with that charismatic host who seems like your best friend? That person is not your best friend. In fact, you're nothing to them but a data point they can sell to a brand manager.

If that charismatic host saw you in the airport, they wouldn't stop and excitedly give you a hug and dap you up and ask how your family's doing. They'd look at you, feel repulsed, immediately avert their eyes, and hope to Christ you didn't recognize them.

Stop helping this charismatic shithead monetize their smooth-brained meanderings and start listening to audiobooks instead. Your soul will thank you.

Napalm Your Newsletters: We've reached—and possibly surpassed—peak newsletter and the ecosystem has become oversaturated. There are simply too many of these email blogs in existence, and while many feature outstanding material, if you're spending all your time reading newsletters, when are you supposed to read any goddamned books?

I made the admittedly uncomfortable decision to cull two-thirds of my newsletters at the end of last year because I needed to create more bandwidth for reading and writing. While I'd love to support all my friends and fellow creators, the deluge of material had become overwhelming.

So far, my plan is working. I'm not wasting time in CuckStack Notes, my email inbox is much lighter, and my working hours are far more focused.

Obviously, I recognize that reading my newsletter deprives you people of potential book reading time as well. That's why I work very hard to deliver something entertaining and interesting every time I show up in your inbox.

Nonetheless, if you'd rather spend the two-to-three hours it takes to read my nonsense each year—or the two-to-three minutes it takes to delete every post sight unseen—with your nose buried in a book, I bid you farewell and wish you nothing but the best with your literary endeavors.

Might I recommend a batshit crazy novel called Leverage?

Conclusions and Parting Thoughts

By taking these steps you'll—like me—reject every facet of modern civilization and create the archaic conditions required to read more books. Godspeed.

To wrap up this module, here are some reading-specific tips which will further enhance your experience.

• Audiobooks: Listening counts as reading! As with all things, balance is key, and I split my time ~60:30:10 between paper, audio, and e-books. Find massive audiobook selections at Libby, Hoopla, Libro.fm, Audible, and Spotify.
• Go Short: Short books still count and are often superior to lengthy tomes. There are slim novels called Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby, and Treasure Island you may have heard of and might want to check out.
• Riveting Rereads: Revisiting an old favorite can get you back into the reading habit and make the process more familiar and enjoyable. I used to be a strict reader of new books only, but in recent years I've started re-reading and loving the experience. Rewatching beloved movies is customary, so why not books? Also, if you stumble upon a shitty book that makes you question the value of reading altogether, go reread a book you know is awesome to remind yourself.

In sum, reading books in 2026 requires unreasonable lifestyle choices but pays incredible, life-changing dividends.

That reading is in precipitous decline tells us everything we need to know about the pitiful state of our world. Alas, since we're all gonna die one way or another, and perhaps sooner than expected, I know how I'll be spending my remaining time on this increasingly inhospitable planet.

Instagram Redux

After all the proselytizing above, you'll undoubtedly find what I'm about to share as shockingly hypocritical as it is utterly baffling.

I've rejoined Instagram.

Believe me, I'm just as disappointed in myself as you people. I've concentrated my sadness and vitriol into a blog post which articulates my thinking and, more importantly, eviscerates Mark Zuckerberg. If you're interested, you can read that piece HERE.

Otherwise, I'd like to connect (or reconnect) with anyone who's active on the site. My handle is @amrangowani and my verified profile can be found HERE. Looking forward to seeing you in one of the worst places on the internet!

Upcoming Events

In better news, back in the corporeal world, I'll be doing all kinds of cool shit this year. I'm attending the Midwest Mystery Conference in Chicago in April, ThrillerFest in NYC in May, and Bouchercon in Calgary in October, plus I'll be supporting the launch of my friend Kathleen Rooney's excellent new novel Man Overboard! this July (much more to come on this front).

You can keep abreast of my various goings on by checking the Media and Events page of my website. All pertinent information is HERE.

As always, I appreciate your time, interest, and support.

Stay frosty out there.

—Amran