It is day three of uploading daily and we're already filming at quarter past midnight so
disappointed but not surprised.
On tonight's program ladies and gentlemen, we have something that's gonna make you sick.
Hello there, my name is Jack Edwards and welcome back to my youtube channel.
A couple of days ago
I made a video talking about the 100 books that I read in 2019
and in that video I said I wanted to make a follow-up video explaining how I actually did that because
100 books in a year is quite a lot of books. It's quite a lot of reading.
I think it works out as like two books a week and I just wanted to make it like abundantly clear
I guess that
reading 100 books in a year was like a challenge that
I'd set myself and something that I at the beginning of last year
kind of almost like researched and did a bit of reading into to see how I could get better
at reading and it sounds so silly
you know like this is not a year two literacy lesson
like this isn't how to read but it's how to read
effectively, efficiently and proactively and ultimately I guess how to read more.
So today I thought I'd basically share with you what I've learned from trying to read that many books in a year
and the (misspeaks) little tips and tricks that I learned along the way because I know for a lot of people
reading more might be your sort of New Year's resolution for 2020 and so I wanted to share how you can actually do that.
So over the course of the last year of my life, I have been writing these tricks down.
Yeah, this video is actually a whole year in the making and I didn't even shower for it. I'm sorry about that.
So without further adieu
These are my top tips by how to read more in
2020 number one is to set up a Goodreads account!
Now I set up a Goodreads account this time last year in order to track...um you can basically set like a 'Reading Challenge'
for yourself and that challenge could be to read 5 books in the next year or it could be to read 100 books in the
next year like it you can put anything that you want
and then basically what you can do on Goodreads is just keep track of what you want to read what you're currently reading what you've
read. You can update your progress. So say you sit and read 15 pages right now
you could log that on the app
which to me feels like progress and it feels like I'm actually working towards something and like achieving something
just from reading. So I think for me that's a really good way of feeling like it's an actual
challenge and it's actually something that I'm like working towards. Also when you then finish a book
I felt like there's a sense of achievement because you're almost ticking it off and um
you can leave a ranking and a review if you wanted to.
You don't have to and also you can read what other people have written.
So I think it's a real cool kind of community. I'm a big fan of that app.
I will leave the link to my profile down below if you did want to follow it and keep up with my
sort of reading challenge over the next year because my plan is to try to read a hundred and fifteen books this year
which I don't know if I'll be able to do that, but I'm going to give it a bloody good go.
But yeah
I think Goodreads is a really great place to start and make it feel like an actual
challenge. Now the next few tips the sorts have more to do with keeping focused when you're actually sitting down to read. So when you
go to read a book like for example this one, how convenient is that...
that was there waiting for me. When I'm reading a book sometimes
I do find that my brain starts to wander and I'm thinking of other things and so a few things that I've found really useful
are to...so number one is just to like trace
um
the lines as you're reading them. I know it sounds really silly but like it genuinely does help
I feel like it just keeps me in the zone and because I'm moving my finger along with the words and
I feel like I just focus on them a bit more.
Alternatively, you could use a card or a bookmark to like cover the next line
so as you go down you sort of keep revealing the next line and again
that's some sort of movement that you're doing whilst reading. And obviously those movements aren't complicated. They're sort of second nature
so I think it gives you a lot more concentration on what the words are on the page.
Alternatively use a pencil or a pen and because I study English literature at university
I find that the best reading I do is when I sit with a pencil and if there's something that I think is
interesting
I like underline it or circle around a keyword or something and
I've actually tried to sort of start doing that when I'm just reading for pleasure as well
because you know
sometimes there's a line in a book that is just
exquisite and you want to remember it or you think it's particularly good and even if you never refer back to it
I think that because you're sort of going through all of the words with a pencil you sort of really really
concentrate on them and absorb them. The final thing that I've written down that I use
is something I do probably more in private than in public, bet you're wondering where the hell this is going,
it's actually just to read aloud as I'm reading through the book to myself or
to mouth
the words just because I think it makes me really hone in on all the little details and I don't know I think there's something
about reading aloud that you just read in a different way.
I do that especially for plays or poetry or things which are quite complicated and the words are a bit
difficult to understand because it's sort of...I think reading it aloud makes you understand the tone a little bit better
however
if you do that like at the bus station people might think you're a psychopath
especially depending on what you're reading because some things are definitely not that appropriate to be reading aloud in a public so
be careful with that one. Now moving away from like focusing on the book something that I've been using a lot
this year is audiobooks. Now
I started off with an audible subscription but since cancelled that and I just use audiobooks that are free on YouTube.
There are some really really great ones and it's always worth
just quickly searching it, literally you just type in the title and then audiobook at the end and usually they'll come up.
It's probably the video that's like ten hours long
So some audiobook recommendations that are on YouTube The War of the Worlds by HG Wells, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr
Ripley, I think all of F Scott Fitzgerald's major books are on
YouTube as audiobooks,
I've listened to all of them as as audiobooks. What else...Oh The Scarlet Letter, Americana, Things Fall Apart loads of absolutely
fantastic books that you can listen to and listening to audiobooks is kind of like a win-win situation because it can make mundane tasks
really fun... that sounds so lame
but like when I was doing the washing-up
I just shove my headphones in and listen to an audiobook while I did the washing up and because it's such a simple
boring task you find yourself really really focusing on the audiobook.
Similarly whenever I walk anywhere like when I walk to lectures I listen to an audiobook, whenever I, you know,
go shopping on my own
I'll plug my headphones in and listen to an audio book.
If I tidy my room, do my laundry
you know anything and it can take any amount of time and you might be able to just get through a chapter.
But yeah, that's a cool way of having multiple books on the go at the same time.
I also do occasionally listen to them in the gym
which I think like my brother said that's kind of a weird thing to do because most people listen to like
you know drum and bass music and like pumping iron. Whereas I've got like American Gods by Neil Gaiman in my ears
It's a really great way of
utilizing time that you don't even realize that you have and yet makes walking places, makes doing the dishes, makes time in your room a
lot more interesting.
so I really, I really recommend it and that actually does quite
smoothly lead me on to my next point, which is about reading multiple books at the same time.
This is something that I was very skeptical about
I am a person who likes to do one task
complete it then move on to the next task and I felt the same or felt the same with reading but actually by reading multiple
books and having multiple books on the go at the same time
I feel like I actually read more and that's because every book has a different tone, a different mood and sometimes you're just not in
the mood to read a book about like the plague so I found it good whenever I had like my dense heavy book to also
have a fun one on the side
so if I was reading something that had quite complex language and took a bit of
unpicking to understand then I'd also have something that was a bit more modern perhaps and maybe written
for a younger audience or like a more mainstream audience.
I think that's a good way of doing it
and also if there's like quite a big difference between the two books, you don't really get confused.
So just some ideas you could do two books which are set in different countries, two books which are written
from the perspective of a male and a female protagonist, books written in different time periods
so the language is sort of different.
I think that's a good way of not getting confused and suddenly having the plot of Moby Dick and
Robinson Crusoe like merging in your brain. Similarly
if you're reading a really long book get a few short ones in so kind of just take off some books and feel you're still
being productive because if you're reading a really long book and you've been reading the same thing for like two weeks
I sometimes you kind of find it a bit frustrating
You know
like how can I not get through this but reading a little bit of this a little bit of that sometimes actually makes you more
efficient with your reading. Equally though
if you are reading a book that you're just really not
enjoying don't be afraid to give it up. As much as I think it's really useful to read things that you don't necessarily
like because it kind of tailors your interest a little bit and your understanding of literature
like let them go let them go if you're not loving them.
It's definitely a good idea
if you're trying to read more to read books and buy books that you know
you'll be interested in to read them alongside maybe books that you're taking a bit of a risk with or you're not as sure so that you
are constantly enjoying
reading. My next tip is just to never be without a book, always have one in your bag
rr if you can't carry one around make sure you've got an audiobook that you could listen to because like I was kind of saying
before you can really utilize small amounts of time
to just pick up a book and read a couple of chapters or a couple of pages. One thing that I've been doing which I
think is really great is to have like a minimum amount that you want to read a day and that could literally be 20 pages
which is not a lot at all.
If you get it into your routine that say everyday
you wake up and you read 20 pages of a book at least then, you know
that's going to be pretty good going over the course of a year.
Or you could do it before you go to bed for me personally whenever I go to the library to study for the day
I always start by reading 20 pages of a book because to me that gets me into the right mentality
so I think getting into a routine and making reading part of your daily activities is
Super beneficial and alongside that one of the things I've been doing this year is using study spaces
Just to read even if I'm just reading for pleasure because if you're in an environment where everyone is working,
everyone is reading, everyone is doing their own thing
you do just sort of get on with it.
But yeah
I've been going to coffee shops to just read or you know using my
university's library just to read. So yeah with that I think that wraps up my tips for how to read more in 2020
Let me know down below what your challenge that you're setting for yourself this year is. How many books you want to read.
And there's absolutely no shame if you just want to read one book because last year you didn't read a single one.
That's still something to work towards and that's still an achievement
if you do it. Equally if you want to read 150 books
I would love for you to comment at the end of the year telling me how many you managed to do, whether you managed to
hit that target
and follow me on Goodreads if you want and we can all track each other and keep up with each other's progress.
Like I said, I'll leave my link down below. But for now, thank you so so much for watching this video.
This has been day three of Jackuary where I am uploading a brand new video every (misspeaks)
all of the words once it's come out of my mouth all at once just then, I'm uploading a brand new video
every weekday in January
So yeah
Follow along if you want you can subscribe give this video a thumbs up if it helped and I will see you very soon
buh, bye
In case I don't see ya good afternoon good evening and good night