How can I read more books?

You can read more books by making reading small, daily and easy: a fixed ten minutes in the same place, with the book in sight and the phone out of reach. If you used to read and now cannot seem to, or you keep failing to start, the good news is that the problem is almost never you. It is the setup. Reading lost to a more available, more stimulating competitor, and you can win it back not with willpower but by changing the conditions. Here is how, and why it is worth the small effort.

Is it my fault I can’t read like I used to?

No. Reading a book is a demanding act of sustained attention, and that capacity is trained. The cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf describes the deep-reading circuit, the network that lets you follow a long argument or sink into a story, as something built through practice and weakened by disuse.^[1] Years of skimming headlines and switching between apps train the opposite skill: fast, shallow, restless attention. So when you sit down with a book and feel your mind twitch towards your phone after a paragraph, that is not a character flaw. It is a trained reflex, and reflexes can be retrained.

Does willpower help you read more?

No, not much. The most useful insight from habit research is that lasting behaviour comes from context and repetition, not from feeling motivated. In her 2019 book on the science of habits, the psychologist Wendy Wood shows that the behaviours we repeat are cued by our environment far more than by our intentions.^[2] The practical translation: do not try to want it more. Engineer the cue.

• Fix a time and place. Same chair, same ten minutes, every day. The repetition is what turns it automatic.
• Lower the bar absurdly. Ten minutes, or even a page. A target you cannot fail removes the resistance to starting, and starting is most of the battle.
• Make the book the easy option. Leave it on your pillow, your kitchen table, wherever you idle. Put the phone in another room. You are not resisting the phone, you are removing it from reach.
• Let yourself abandon books. Finishing every book you start is a school rule, not a reading life. Drop the dull ones. Momentum matters more than completion.

Does reading books improve your attention span?

Probably, but the direct evidence is thinner than most articles suggest. The strongest data comes from children: a 2023 study of more than 10,000 young adolescents in the US found that those who had started reading for pleasure early in childhood had lower attention symptoms at follow-up, after controlling for factors including socio-economic status.^[4] That is an association, not proof that reading caused the difference, and there is no comparable trial showing that adults who take up books gain a longer attention span. What is well argued is the practice effect: sustained, deep reading is a skill built by doing it and weakened by disuse.^[1] So the honest answer is that reading trains the very kind of attention it needs, and the habit gets easier the more you keep it. This is general information, not medical advice.

Does reading books actually do anything for you?

Yes, and the benefits seem to run deeper than focus. A study following older adults over 12 years found that those who read books had a measurable survival advantage over non-readers, even after accounting for education, wealth and health.^[3] Correlation is not proof, but it is a remarkable finding for an activity this gentle. This is general information, not medical advice.

What are the best books for short attention spans?

4 kinds of book work best when your attention feels thin. Short novels you could finish in a weekend. Short story collections, where each story is a complete win. Essay or column collections you can dip into in ten minutes. And page-turning genre fiction, a thriller or a mystery with short chapters, where the plot does some of the holding for you. The caveat: pick for pull, not prestige. Finishing a book is what rebuilds the habit, so the right first book is the one you will actually finish.

What are good books for adults with short attention spans?

Short, well-loved novels are the easiest way back. A few that many readers find they can finish in a sitting or two: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. If none of those appeal, a collection of short stories or essays by a writer you already like works just as well, because each piece is complete on its own. Read on paper, with the phone in another room, and let the next book be slightly longer.

How many books should I aim to read?

1 page a day is a better first target than fifty books a year. The number that sticks always beats the number that impresses. Build the small daily habit, protect it from the phone, and the total looks after itself, often landing somewhere around a book a month. If your attention feels too far gone to begin, that is the strongest reason to start, and it is the case made in Why you can’t finish books anymore.