I believe reading is a skill and a habit, and that building the habit matters more than trying to seem smart reading a technical book like I should.
TLDR: would reading Animorphs series or something stupid help me more than reading a technical book? Should I try to isolate and read quietly, or train myself to read with the TV on to a game or something to practice focusing? Does anyone have anecdotal evidence going from a non-reader to being a reader?
How do you go from here (illiterate) to there (reading books 24/7)?
I usually have 1-3 books stuffed in my (overpacked) backpack and read when I am on the bus, on the toilet, sometimes hanging around the house. I like reading and re-reading technical documentation on a tablet while doing cardio at the gym.
Personally I have to ration what I read because if I read too much I get anxious and I had an incident of rather troublesome "personality change" because I was deliberately loading myself with reading material intended to induce a "personality change". Personally I find games like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Wars_2:_Black_Hole_Ris...
which involve recombination of a limited number of elements are better for my mental health than reading at the maximum rate that I can.
2. Find a read that you are looking forward to. To me, this was some science fiction. I discovered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds via the adaptation of his Beyond the Aquila Rift story by Netflix' Love Death and Robots. I started with his short story collections which have an incredible reading-time-to-payoff ratio - some of the most satisfying world building in short form. It helps that he is an astrophysics PhD.
So basically find what you love reading and let the pleasure pull you into the experience.
I use dead time to read :
- toilet - waiting in line - transport - random breaks - before going to sleep
I also read on my computer to relax a bit.
I try to block time to read, but more often than not it does not work, because it’s not always a priority.
But I never fail to read when I always have a book with me. Few pages here and there, multiple times a day go a very long way.
I usually average between 40 and 70 books a year.
I usually read multiple books at the same time, a classic, something technical, a fiction, maybe a biography or a business book.
I never force myself to read something specific if I am not in the mood (but I always have something purely entertaining that almost always work : Terry Pratchett at the moment)
A daily habit of 15-20 pages a day will have you reading a very respectable number of books over months and years.