The sidebar of this blog reads:

Mostly a place where I write down things I repeat often so that instead of repeating them so often, I can just send a link.

Well, today, I was asked three times some variation of the question, “I follow you on GoodReads/your blog/your newsletter, and I know you’re busy, so how do you find time to read so much?!”

So, here’s my reading “cadence” so to speak.

At any given time if you check out my GoodReads profile, you’ll probably find I’m currently reading five books. Five is a pretty stable number because specifically, it’s five slots:

• One physical book. Nowadays, this is usually non-fiction or graphic novel.
• One fiction audiobook. I usually listen to some kind of fiction while driving, showering, or doing some particularly routine chores, like breaking down cardboard boxes. These are tasks that require basically no thought, so I can mentally really invest in the story.
• One non-fiction audiobook. I like to listen to non-fiction books specifically while doing things that require me to be a little cognitively present in the world, like cleaning the fish tank, doing evening chores, shaving, etc. Since non-fiction is more straightforward in what it’s saying, I feel more comfortable listening to it while semi-distracted because it’s more apparent when I’ve missed something and need to bounce back.
• One kids’ audiobook. I take my kids to school each morning, and it’s about a 20-30 minute drive depending on traffic, so we usually have an audiobook series going—so far we’ve done Mystwick, Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians, Skyward, Story Thieves, Arlo Finch, Wishes and Wellingtons, and the first few Harry Potter books.
• One Kindle book. Ideally I’d read my current Kindle book instead of doomscrolling. In practice, I rarely have time for either nowadays.

So, the short answer is: it’s a lot of audiobooks while doing other things. There are some people that don’t consider audiobooks to really be “reading”, and that’s fine—to each their own. But I do, so I include that in my recommendations. Honestly, for fiction, I often prefer the audiobooks—especially with a busy schedule, a good narrator voicing different characters can go a long way toward helping keep track of characters that would run together in text. I originally switched from paperback books to audiobooks for the Discworld series because I had so little time to read paperbacks, but once I did I wish I’d listened to the entire series that way—the narration was significantly more immersive, and the ease of popping on an audiobook meant that I rarely went a day without listening to at least a little, which made it easier to keep up with the story. Multiple times I had to go back a couple chapters when reading a physical book because I had been away for a week and couldn’t remember what the heck was going on.

I enjoy my non-fiction audiobooks more than my physical copies too, although that might be more sampling bias: if a book has an audiobook available, I’ll read it that way, and I’m guessing better books are more likely to have audiobooks available.

It wasn’t always like this, granted. When my daughter first got me into reading, I almost exclusively read physical books because I found that reading was a really convenient hobby to have with young kids: there were so many empty 5-10 minute spots throughout the day that reading a physical book was easy to squeeze in. But as they got older, there got to be fewer windows where I knew I had a brief bit of free time, and so time for physical books waned.

I’ve also been asked, “You listen while showering? But that’s when I have my best ideas!” And, yeah, I’ve had that thought, too. I originally started listening to audiobooks in the shower and other medium-attention times of day during COVID when I just didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts for any period of time whatsoever, but I’ve stuck with that because… well, I enjoy it.

Now the one thing that might throw people off is that when I post a list of the books I read each month, it’s always a picture of physical copies. I’ve heard this referred to as “shelf trophies”, and that’s part of it; having the physical book is sort of motivating, too. But the bigger part is that it’s hard to go back and skim an audiobook for a favorite part or a specific quote or a refresher, but that’s easier to do with a physical book. I very often revisit books I’ve listened to through the audio version.

And most of the Kindle books I read are books we already have a physical copy of because it’s what my wife read.

So, to answer the question of how I read so much: mostly audiobooks while doing other things I would need to be doing anyway.

Obligatory current shelf picture: