How to Choose a Good Book to Read

At the beginning of this year, I decided that one of my New Year’s Resolutions would be to start reading more. If you know me, you know I love to read. As a fulltime college student with a parttime internship, juggling school, work, family, and friends can make it tough to find time to sit down and just read. I decided that this year, I would carve out at least 30 minutes before going to sleep every night to lay in bed and read. If I’m being honest, I haven’t managed to stick to it every single night, but most nights I end up reading for far longer than just 30 minutes, and I genuinely look forward to this part of my day.

Now that I have allocated more time to reading, the hard part is deciding what to read. There’s an abundance of books out there, and now with e-Reading, most books are quite literally always at our fingertips. Sometimes I think it takes me more time to find a book I want to read than it does for me to actually read it. Is everyone this indecisive? If you’re like me, I’m hoping this post can help you.

One of my biggest tips is finding a particular genre you like. It can help to narrow down your search if you are looking for a specific genre. Now, it’s important to keep in mind that I don’t mean you have to read only this genre for the rest of your life. But if you’re like me, sometimes you get on a kick with one particular genre and may enjoy sticking with it for a little while. On top of this, if you find a particular author you like, you can check out other books they’ve written (and have a good chance of enjoying them!).

Another tip I have is to see if you can find a series. Sometimes it can seem daunting to start a book when it’s part of a big series, but when I really enjoy a certain book there is nothing better than knowing I can pick up the next book and continue on with the story. It takes all the decision work out of finding out what to read next, it’s already right there for you! Of course this only works if you actually enjoy the series and want to continue it.

Lastly, and possibly the most important, I say just start reading it! If you have a book sitting on your shelf that you think might interest you, just start reading it. The worst that can happen is you don’t get into it and you move on to something else. I need to work on this myself. I have a collection of books at my house that I haven’t read yet and I spend entirely too much time deciding which one to start and trying to figure out if I will like it. You’ll never know if you’ll like it until you read it. So just read it.