The other day, as I was wearing my socks and shoes, a gym buddy of mine asked, ‘Do you really read so much?’ I chuckled and replied, ‘Yes.’ ‘How?’ she asked. Then we had a couple of minutes chat before our trainer came in and I told her ways she could incorporate reading into her daily life. This conversation made me think that there may be so many people who want to take up reading as hobby but don’t know where to get started. So why not I write a post about it? I have 10+ years of experience of Reading, plus this year I have been reading like a maniac, so I do have a few things up my sleeve that might help you out.

Let me show you the way to enter the wonderful world of Books and Reading.

Why do you want to read? – This is the first question you want to ask yourself.

For entertainment? To escape? To live a world other than yours? To learn? To understand something better?

Knowing the answer to your Why will help you pick the right books to indulge in.

Plus, there are so many benefits to Reading that makes it so more important to adopt as a hobby:

Now, this is the big question – How? There are so many types of books. There are so many brilliant authors. And, of course, there is so little time. How do you do tackle Mission Reading?

Let me break it down for you, so that it doesn’t look and feel so overwhelming.

GENRE

In the good old days, there were three broad categories – Play, Prose and Poetry. The Play and Poetry are more or less the same but the Prose has gone through a lot of changes through the centuries. I know what I’m talking about, people, I’m a English Literature Major.🤓

Now we have the following categories when we come to Prose, now known as Novels:

These can be further broken down to sub-genre, which have now become genres of their own:

Mystery -> Mystery, Detective Fiction, Crime Fiction, Whodunnit

Thriller -> Thriller, Espionage Thriller, Adventure, Psychological Thriller, Horror, Gothic, Supernatural

Romantic -> Romantic, Erotic, Romantic-Comedy, Women’s Fiction, Contemporary

Also, you’ll notice that genres can be mixed with each other. Therefore we have – Historical Romance, Historical Drama, Historical Mystery/Thriller, YA Fantasy, YA Science Fiction, Children’s + Mystery, etc. You’ll, most of the times, find elements of one genre blending into another. The more creative our writers go, the more genres we get to read.

Don’t get confused! It, again, comes down to your Why.

Want an action packed ride? – Pick Thriller

Want your brain to go bonkers? – Pick Psychological Thriller

Want to have sleepless night? – Pick Horror

Want to use your brain? – Pick Mystery

Want to feel gushy and mushy? – Pick Romantic

Want to visit another world? – Pick Fantasy

Want to play with Science? – Pick Science Fiction

Want to go back in time? – Pick Historical Fiction

Pick what you think will interest you. That will make it easy for you to read and develop the habit of Reading. Later in the post, I’ll recommend you some books to get you started. Don’t you worry, I got your back.😊

FORMATS

Here you have four medium of indulging in the act of Reading. They are: Paperback, Hardcover, Ebook, Audio Book. Let me give you a quick overview of all the four.

Paperback

Pros:

Cons:

Hardcover

Pros:

Cons:

Ebook

Pros:

Cons:

Audio Books

Pros:

Cons:

Hopefully, this will help you choose which format works for you. I personally prefer Paperback and Ebook.

LENGTH

Not many think about this, neither did I, but when starting to just pick up Reading as a hobby you should keep the length of the story in mind too.

When going down into the Reading rabbit hole, you’ll find there are four kinds of lengths when it comes to fiction.

They are:

When starting off, you absolutely don’t trust yourself as a reader, as the person who’ll complete the book, I would suggest start small. And if you trust yourself, then you can start of with an average sized novel, i.e. 60,000 – 90,000 words / 200 – 300 pages.

TIME

It’s the same with Beyoncé, Oprah, Queen of United Kingdom, David Beckham, Kevin Feige, Robert Downey Jr., JK Rowling and You. 24 hours. You might say to me, ‘Rubina, I already feel like I have less hours in my day. How will I put in extra time for reading?’ Well, this is how you do it.

Have a two-hour commute to work? – Instead of spending the whole time scrolling through the phone, spend one hour to read, because let’s be real we are addicted to social media.😝

Read a couple of pages before to get off of bed and before you go to sleep.

Have a few minutes between lectures? – Squeeze in a couple of chapter’s read in between. I was one of those crazy readers who would keep her novel in the text and read during the lecture is on. If your book gets confiscated, don’t blame me!😁

Want to avoid people? – Put earphones on with/without music and put your head into a book, act as if you can’t listening what others are saying or see what they’re doing around you.

Don’t get time to read during the weekdays? – Binge read during the weekend.

If you want to make Reading a habit, you’ll make time for it. Start with a couple of pages or a chapter at a time and grow your capacity from there.

Quick note – I read my first book (366 pages) in six months. Now I can finish 300 page novel in two-three days, sometimes even a day and half. This didn’t happen overnight, took me ten years. Have patience.😊 Also, a good book will make you read it, you’ll never need to force yourself. Such books will finish way quickly than others.

ACCOMPANIMENTS

This may not be necessary all the time, I sometimes do without them, but there are things that can increase the enjoyment of Reading.

Here we go:

Don’t feel the pressure to do everything in this list. You can do without them too. I sometimes just have the mindset and the bookmark. There’s not set rule here.

As I said, there’s no set rule but then there are some things that you should keep in mind while taking up Reading as a habit.