6 Hacks For Reading More Books In The New Year

One of my new year's resolutions for 2015 is to read 40 books. I thought this was ambitious until I stumbled across a Life By Experimentation blog post in which globe-trotting web designer Zane Claes recommends his top five books out of 100 BOOKS HE READ in 2014. While Zane's job appears more flexible than most of ours (and certainly mine), this is still quite an admirable accomplishment, particularly since we determined that reading is not a waste of time.

Zane's 100 books got me thinking that perhaps I can and should shoot for more than 40 books. My to-read list is huge and keeps growing longer despite finishing more books every year for the last five years (6, 20, 27, 28, and 36). I want that to-read list to get shorter - I've got a lot of great stuff on there that I can't wait to get to. But where should this extra reading time come from, especially while retaining the same job and striving to maintain the same hobbies, exercise regimen, and social life of a fun-seeking twenty-something?

I've identified some simple, subtle habits I've gradually adopted that have continued to improve my reading efficiency, quantity, and enjoyment over the past five years - literary life hacks, if you will:

1. Keep a running list of books to read.

There's something romantic about wandering the shelves of a library or bookstore and randomly reading the first book that seems interesting. There's also something a little unfulfilling. When I choose a book to read I want to know that one of my respected peers liked it, or be relatively sure that I will get some sort of personal benefit out of it, e.g. historical knowledge, entertainment, or appreciation of great literature. Learning from and/or enjoying a book ensures a greater chance that you will want to keep reading, that you'll be excited and passionate about reading. Sites such as Goodreads and Shelfari are outstanding for curating a to-read list, and both have great communities of readers reviewing, discussing, and rating books. Or employ another method to keep track. Zane Claes keeps his list in a Google Doc. My mom keeps hers on a legal pad. Whatever you decide to use, get excited about tackling your list.

2. Strategically read multiple books at a time.

Over breakfast peruse a few quick pages of an interesting coffee-table-type book. Stuff a Kindle loaded with light fiction into your pocket or purse for small bits of downtime in lines and waiting rooms instead of mindlessly scrolling through your Facebook feed. Keep the new hardcover historical novel next to your couch or bed for dedicated reading at home. The bottom line is that having multiple books going at the same time allows one to be flexible and efficient. I wouldn't get much out of reading two pages of Tolstoy or David Foster Wallace over morning coffee and eggs, but breakfast is a perfect time to read snippets of 30-Second Philosophies or The Atlas of Remote Islands. Squeezing a few extra minutes of reading into each day adds up quicker than you might think.

3. Put down your damn phone.

Turn off the TV. Shut your laptop. Disconnect your Kindle's wifi. I doubt it needs to be reiterated how distracting social technology can be. Light a candle. Put on some classical music perhaps. The rewards of getting completely lost in a book are many. From a 2013 Time article entitled Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer:

The deep reader, protected from distractions and attuned to the nuances of language, enters a state that psychologist Victor Nell, in a study of the psychology of pleasure reading, likens to a hypnotic trance. Nell found that when readers are enjoying the experience the most, the pace of their reading actually slows. The combination of fast, fluent decoding of words and slow, unhurried progress on the page gives deep readers time to enrich their reading with reflection, analysis, and their own memories and opinions. It gives them time to establish an intimate relationship with the author, the two of them engaged in an extended and ardent conversation like people falling in love. 

This is not reading as many young people are coming to know it. Their reading is pragmatic and instrumental: the difference between what literary critic Frank Kermode calls "carnal reading" and "spiritual reading." If we allow our offspring to believe carnal reading is all there is — if we don't open the door to spiritual reading, through an early insistence on discipline and practice — we will have cheated them of an enjoyable, even ecstatic experience they would not otherwise encounter.

Note that your pace may slow, but that you are getting more satisfaction and personal benefit out of the experience. You are therefore more inclined to keep on reading and less inclined to get distracted - ultimately resulting in increased quantity and quality of reading.

4. Stop subvocalizing.

Many techniques exist that claim to triple or quadruple reading speed. These include "fixating" on every third word, reading multiple lines at a time, and even reading in an S-shaped pattern down the page so as to eliminate the time it takes for the eyes to jump to the beginning of the next line. However, many research studies and personal experience forums are quick to refute the efficacy of these techniques, citing that they often cause a nearly complete loss of comprehension and that the process itself exhausts the reader and takes the joy out of reading. One technique that passes most scrutiny, however, is eliminating subvocalization. Most children learn to read by memorizing alphabet sounds and then stringing them together into words they read aloud. Unfortunately, whether we realize it or not this tendency of a younger reader often persists into adulthood as subvocalization, or mentally "saying" each word as you read it. Subvocalization decreases the speed at which we can process text by two or three times. Try training your mind to eliminate this latent bad habit by occupying your mouth while reading by humming or by chewing on gum or a toothpick.

5. Listen to audiobooks on the go.

Per the US Census Bureau, the average one-way commute time of an American is 25 minutes. The Center for Disease Control and the American Heart Association both recommend 30 minutes of physical activity 5 times per week. That's 6 hours and 40 minutes per week that your eyes can't focus on a page (assuming you don't take public transit or ride a stationary bicycle for exercise). While the audiobook industry was widely considered doomed around the turn of the century, a recent resurgence in popularity has occurred likely because people are recognizing that listening to audiobooks is a way to maximize the productivity of such stretches of time. iPod Shuffles are amazing little devices for listening to audiobooks while running. Sites such as Audible, SimplyAudiobooks, and others send users new audiobooks for a small monthly membership fee; the former does everything by download whereas the latter also offers the option to ship CDs to your house (a la Netflix). Check out this comparison of the top ten audiobook services. Also, most libraries support a host of free popular audiobook (and ebook) downloads through sites such as OverDrive, Freading, Hoopla, and Libravox. Which brings us to our last little hack:

6. Borrow.

The price of books (both physical and digital) continues to rise with inflation but this obviously need not shy the reader away. Use the crap out of your local library, to which you of course contribute tax money. If they don't have a certain title, often they will buy it if a patron requests it. Or borrow from coffee shop shelves. Swap books with a friend. Pay a tenth of the price in a charming used bookstore. Whatever the method, don't let price be a factor in reading less. As a bonus, often just having the book lying around your house or apartment is enough to drum up your excitement for reading it. It is for me, anyway.

Thrikeball: How to Play Spikeball with 3 Players

Your fourth player baled. Your fourth player broke an ankle two minutes into the first game. Your fourth player is so insufferably bad that you broke his ankle for him.

Don't let the lack of a fourth player ruin your Spikeball afternoon. Here's how to play Thrikeball.

Thrikeball is Spikeball for three players. The format is 2-on-1. But here's the catch: the teams change every time the ball contacts the net - so a lot. It's easier to track than you might think.

Before we elaborate, the assumption is that you already understand the flow of standard 2-on-2 Spikeball. If not, here are the Official Rules and also a great video tutorial.

In Thrikeball, instead of playing and scoring points as a team, it's every man for himself, and after every rally there is exactly one winner (who gains 2 points) and two losers (who each lose 1 point). The winner is the first player to 10 points, or the player who is in the lead when another player hits -10 points. That's right, negative points.


Gameplay:

1. Decide who serves first. We will call this solo player the Spiker. The other two players comprise a team that we will call the Setters.
2. The Spiker serves the ball into the net (** see Notes on serving).
3. The Setters are allowed exactly two touches to return the ball to the net (not one, not three), one by each member of the team.
4. THE SWITCH: The moment the ball hits the net on the return is when the teams change: the Setter who hit the ball second (i.e. into the net) becomes the incumbent Spiker, while the other two become the new Setters (** see Notes on switching).
5. Play continues until the Setters fail to legally return the ball to the net in two touches, at which time the current Setters each lose 1 point and the Spiker gains 2 points.
6. To begin the next rally, the incumbent Spiker serves to the Setter who has more points. If they are tied, the Spiker serves to the player of his choice.
7. Repeat from Step 3 until a player has 10 or more points or until a player has -10 or fewer points. In the latter case, of the remaining two, the player with more points wins (** see Notes on scoring).

Notes on serving:

• As in regular Spikeball, in Thrikeball the server (incumbent Spiker) always gets two chances to serve. 
• If both serves are missed (double fault), no points are won or lost but the serve switches to the player with the fewest points. If this player misses both as well, the third player gets to serve. If this player misses, probably just call it a day.
• Remember that the Spiker always serves to the Setter with the most points. This gives the currently losing Setter the chance to score first (assuming the serve wasn't an ace). 
• If the Setters are tied, the Spiker serves to the player of his choice. We usually just alternate, but it's ultimately up to you.

Notes on switching:

• The constant switching of teams may seem complicated at first, but after a few rounds it becomes intuitive. We swear.
• The easy way to remember who needs to be doing what is that the person who spiked the ball into the net is the only one not involved in the next volley!
• Again, teams switch at the moment that the ball hits the net on a return. However, the strategic switch effectively occurs after the first Setter sets the ball to his ephemeral teammate, whose inevitable spike he has to start thinking about receiving. Something interesting that you will start to notice right away.

Notes on scoring:

• There will always be three scores (i.e. X to X to X). Each player keeps track of their own score.
• The winning Spiker gets 2 points; the losing Setters each lose 1 point.
• When in doubt on a score, remember that the total of all three scores should always add up to zero. This is a tug-of-war style game in that whenever you win points, you are effectively taking them directly from the other players.
• No points are won or lost on a double fault.
• Below is a flowchart of all possible score combinations and changes. Note that the three scores in each box are positioned in order from highest to lowest, not predetermined by player order.

• As you can see, there is one exception to the game being over once a player has reached either 10 or -10: (5  5 -10) is not a victory because the other two players are still tied, necessitating at least one more rally.

We love Thrikeball not only because it finally facilitates Spikeball with three players but also because of the Nash-like game theory involved. For example, it will become readily apparent to a new player of Thrikeball that if you are on the Setters' team it is best be the second hitter so you can become the new Spiker (and possible points-earner). However, if both Setters hold out on being the first to touch the ball on their volley, they both lose. Thus, the elements of both selfish strategy and cooperative compromise are present in Thrikeball, and it is up to you to figure out the balance.

Good to go? We hope this helps, and if you get a moment please let us know in the comments how your first Thrikeball experience went!

I thrike it. I thrike it a lot.

Your most earnest trio,
Gavin, James, and Alex
Fort Collins, Colorado

Is Reading a Waste of Time?

In Moonwalking With Einstein, author Joshua Foer poses a slightly disturbing question: given the finiteness of our lives and given the amount of time it takes the average person to read any book of meaningful length, why do we bother spending countless hours staring at sequences of text when we could be experiencing the natural world, socializing with fellow humans, crafting lasting art/goods, or attempting to monetize our time and our talents? 

Foer wryly muses, "Looking up at my shelves, at the books that have drained so many of my waking hours, is always a dispiriting experience. One Hundred Years of Solitude: I remember magical realism and that I enjoyed it. But that’s about it. I don’t even recall when I read it. About Wuthering Heights I remember exactly two things: that I read it in a high school English class and that there was a character named Heathcliff. I couldn’t say whether I liked the book or not."

This is a potentially scary reality check for bookworms, and I for one scrambled to find an explanation, or perhaps more aptly a validation, of why I choose to read.

For starters, I had never considered looking at my bookshelf a "dispiriting experience" before, each of the colored spines a little Grim Reaper in its own way, a testament to days lost. I shuddered.

And then I tested myself. Surely I could remember verbatim a single sentence, any sentence from the previous page of Moonwalking, that I had read not two minutes before.

But I couldn't.

"Few of us make any serious effort to remember what we read. When I read a book, what do I hope will stay with me a year later? If it’s a work of nonfiction, the thesis, maybe, if the book has one. A few savory details, perhaps. If it’s fiction, the broadest outline of the plot, something about the main characters (at least their names), and an overall critical judgment about the book. Even these are likely to fade."

The terror-inducing thought here is the apparent immediate loss of anything that could be useful to oneself later on. I read for enjoyment, but I also read for knowledge and to admire and glean from authors' styles. Several centuries ago, before the real profusion of book publication and widespread availability, Foer discusses how depth over breadth was valued because it was the only direction one could go. Generations of intellectuals and laypeople alike read, reread, and memorized the Bible, Shakespeare, Homer, Socrates. But we don't have the option anymore to force memorization by repetition. We are blessed and cursed with breadth.

But Foer's intent was not to be the bearer of bad news. His conclusion is satisfying and reaffirming, much to the reader's relief. He insists that whether one is consciously aware of it or not, what one reads has a way of working its way into your worldview. One's mindset is a pastiche of judgements based on personal experience, and an avid reader has the benefit of increased exposure to a vast range of opinions, ideas, and data (given an open-minded and diverse selection of literature, ideally). With a broader and/or deeper set of like and disparate opinions, the reader is more informed and better equipped to back up their opinion, whether or not they remember whence the opinion arose or strengthened. So there you have it.

I'd like to take this one step further, though. I don't like the reliance upon subconscious mental adoption as one's only hope that any wowing passage or idea will be internalized. If I love a paragraph or a particularly germane character quote then by God I make sure I underline it and dog-ear the page if the book is mine, or write the page and line numbers on my scrap bookmark if the book belongs to a friend or the library. I then archive these quotes online. I used to email them to myself after completing each book, but this quickly became cumbersome and disorganized. Now, after every completed book, I create a new entry on a separate blog I curate (Epihel, or Every Passage I Have Ever Loved), reproducing each memorable passage and adding a subject tag. I began this project after being persuaded to do so by Moonwalking several years ago and now, with only about 100 entries, it already feels like an customized treasure trove of fascinating wisdom. Perusing it at random is rewarding, and as a bonus I can use the tags feature to dig up forgotten quotes at the right time. For example, I am officiating a wedding in August and found a David Foster Wallace passage I will be incorporating into the ceremony (with the couple's consent) after searching all my entries on love.

Continually adding to Epihel has also turned staring at my bookshelf from a "dispiriting experience" into an almost holy one. This is what Susan Sontag was referring to when she wrote, beautifully, "my library is an archive of longings." 

Finally, just as important as a bolstered worldview and a personal archive of longings is the importance of sharing what one reads with other people. I love sites like Goodreads and Shelfari because they allow me to see what other friends are reading and then the next time I see them have a meaningful interchange of ideas on the spot. Again, a crafting of one's worldview through the transferring of ideas, but in this case with book discussion as the link between the most important sources of personal validation of truth: each other.

Right before his death in the Alaskan wilderness, Chris McCandless of Into the Wild reads the following passage in Doctor Zhivago: "And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness." Next to this line he scrawled "HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED." Author Jon Krakauer speculates that had Chris not fallen ill after this epiphany he would have immediately hiked out to rejoin society and partake in shared happiness once more.

And so it is with reading.

BOOKS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.

Patterns in the Daily Routines of Creative Geniuses

A well-read friend of mine recently posted this simple graphic from the software company Podio. The days of 26 unique authors, philosophers, painters, scientists, and composers are visually represented by different colors in a bar graph based on the time of day they spent on creative work vs. on sleep, exercise, and other activities. We know they honored their daily routines in this manner because of the diaries they left and letters they sent, in most cases.

There are a few ready observations that can be made from a cursory study of this chart. Voltaire slept an average of four hours and pursued creative endeavors an average of 15 hours every day. Strauss was only awake an average of 14 hours. Kafka was a polyphasic sleeper and had to work at an insurance bureau. Most slept at night. 

After these, another pattern becomes easy to discern: there is no pattern. Perhaps it could be argued that the creative minds represented here more often worked in the morning and leisured in the afternoon, but plenty counterexamples exist for each proposed pattern.

I take great joy out of this nonconformity. Primarily, it demonstrates the outstanding flexibility and inventiveness of creative humans working on their own time (for the most part). There is no one right way to approach creativity and learning. You know best what schedule your body and mind are best suited for - that is, if you're paying attention, and if you've experimented enough to know what truly works vs. what you're simply attuned to.

Another key point to be gleaned from a meditation on this chart is that each of these famous individuals, many whose very names are godlike in the reverence they command - Voltaire, Franklin, Kant, Mozart, Freud - were ultimately mortal humans just like the rest of us. They had to sleep, eat, and even reluctantly divert their attentions to a day job. Buzzfeed posted a similar series of pie charts depicting "the work patterns of a number of geniuses." It's intriguing to think of "geniuses" in such a quotidian manner, and I think doing so may give budding renaissance men some comfort in knowing that you don't have to be superhuman to create beauty. You just have to be excited and passionate about the creation.