I love to read and to learn. I generally read between 24 – 40 books per year. I skim or reads chapters of another 50+ books per year.

I usually read books based on recommendations. The recommendation may come from a friend, business associate, priest, blog or business magazine. I have found I don’t want to waste time reading something that may not be good.

Reading for learning. When I read to learn I choose nonfiction books. They are usually business related or based on a certain topic to learn about. Here is how to read a nonfiction book.

• Read the cover flap and about author. This gives a good synopsis of the book and you learn about what other books the author has written.
• Skip the endorsements.
• Review the table of contents to see what topics interest you.
• Read the 1st and last chapter first. You can learn about most of the book in these two chapters.
• Go back and read the chapters on the topics you want to learn or interest you.
• You do not have to read the whole book. Read only what you want to read.

Reading for Entertainment.

Fiction books are great for entertainment and to escape. Pick a genre that interests you and find authors that are good in that genre. If don’t like the book stop reading it and pick a different book. There are so many books available that there is no need to finish a book you don’t enjoy just to say you finished it.

There are fiction books that have great research and historical information. You can learn as you read.

Listening to Books.

Some people don’t like to read books. I highly recommend Audible.com for those of you who do not like to read books.  It is also a great way to get more books read in a year. You can listen while you are traveling or while working out.

Paper books versus ebooks

• It is easy to get to different parts of the book
• You can mark the book up and write in the margins
• There is just something about having the book with turnable pages in your hands

Ebooks versus paper books

• You never loose your place in an ebook. The book automatically syncs on your device
• You can use multiple devices to read a book like a Ipad, Iphone or Android device. The book syncs across your devices
• With ebooks you save space. When traveling you can take multiple ebooks to read without the space a paper copy takes.
• If you have books on Audible.com and on Kindle Reader you can use Whispersync. This is a really cool function. If you are listening to a book it will automatically sync with the book you are reading on your Kindle app and vice versa.

Create a reading program.

• Set a goal to read 1 chapter or set a time frame to read per day. An example would be to read 15 minutes per day.
• Create a book list of books on subjects you would like to learn
• Read several books at a time to have variety in what you can choose to read. I tend to read 4 -5 books at a time so I have choices on what I feel like reading.

Be Great!