I don’t know about you but I love reading and I especially love reading books.

Unfortunately I don’t spend enough of my actual reading time with a book in my hand, too often distracted by social media, newspapers and articles.

If there’s one habit or skill I need to work on, it’s getting my ‘reading books to skimming-the-internet’ ratio from a frankly terrible 40:60 to a more respectable 75:25.

Yep, it’s that bad.

If I do this I have no doubt that the effect on my intellect, my income, my vocabulary, my writing, my ability to empathise and listen will increase exponentially. All solid upside.

The fact is, most people don’t read. And if they do, they don’t read enough. If you read 20 pages of a book per day, you’ll plough through at least a book per month. This will put you ahead of 90% of the population in terms of being exposed to ideas, theories, stories and language.

Total amount of words read annually by someone who reads for 15 minutes a day: 1 million.

Source: Read Faster, Reading Stats (2014)

 

This year I’ve read somewhere in the region of half the books I should’ve. Of those that I have read, these are the ones I’ve derived the most value from – my top 5 books of year (so far).