How a Self-Proclaimed Slow Reader Finishes One Hundred Books Yearly

Author Ryan Holiday has some excellent advice to help you do it, too

Jim Farina
6 min readDec 5, 2023
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

“The road to knowledge begins with the turn of a page.”
Abby Marks Beale, author of 10 Days to Faster Reading

I was shocked that prolific writer and author Ryan Holiday is a slow reader. At least, that’s what he says in this article. He declares that one of his goals is to read one hundred books yearly.

People assume that Holiday is a speed reader based on the many book recommendations he lists in his newsletter. Not only does Holiday claim to be a slow reader, but he purposefully reads at a slower pace.

The truth is, even though I read hundreds of books each year, I actually read quite slowly. In fact, I deliberately read slowly. But what I also do is read all the time. I always carry a book with me. Every time I get a second, I crack it open. I don’t install games on my phone — that’s time for reading. When I’m eating, on a plane, in a waiting room, or sitting in traffic in an Uber — I read.

We don’t have to read with superhuman speed to get through more books

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