Today, there is a seemingly endless sea of books.
Which is great, because it means you’re never without another book to sink into, and benefit from.
However, such an endless array of options does introduce one difficulty—the challenge of deciding what to read next. With so many choices, it’s easy to find yourself caught, scrolling through title after title, struggling to select your next read.
In fact, a variety of tips, tricks, and strategies have arisen specifically to deal with this plight.
So, what I’d like to do here is lay out four of those strategies, in the hopes that one might provide the remedy you seek.
1 The List Strategy
This strategy is super simple.
Create a list of the books you’d like to read. Keep it somewhere that’s easy to access and update, like the notes section of your phone or Goodreads.
Whenever you come across a book that piques your interest, add it to the list.
Whenever you finish what you’re currently reading, go to your list to select your next book.
This strategy has its merits, for sure.
It helps you keep track of what you’d like to read, and to therefore be more intentional with your reading. It offers you the satisfying feeling of checking off books once you’ve finished them.
Plus, employing this strategy usually involves shuffling and sorting your list as you add books to it, mapping out your future reading. That’s something I’ve totally enjoyed.
However, there are some cons.
Those who’ve tried to keep a list of books-to-be-read typically share the common experience of seeing that list grow exponentially larger and larger, until eventually, because of its gargantuan size, it falls into a state of disuse altogether.
Or, sometimes the list becomes outdated, because you change. And all of a sudden, so many of the titles you once looked forward to no longer pique your curiosity.
I guess you could always trim the list when that happens. But in my experience, it usually just gets buried in deep in the memory of my phone, where it never sees the light of day again.
2 The Lightning Strategy
This strategy is even simpler than the prior.
Whenever you’re in need of a new book, go to where books are, and wait for “lighting to strike.”
This is essentially the “swipe left version” of picking your next book. You go where you can find access to a lot of books—like a library, a bookstore, or even somewhere online. Then you begin sifting through titles, waiting for some book to tickle your fancy enough, so that you choose it.
This strategy is easy to poke fun at, but it actually does have one huge benefit—whichever book you choose, you’ll be excited to read. So you’ll start with momentum.
And momentum is no factor to sneeze at.
On the other side, a downfall of this strategy is that sometimes lightning doesn’t strike. So you’re still left with the original problem of struggling between a thousand titles.
And even further, this doesn’t often lead to very intentional reading. Usually it amounts to pretty random reading list. Which may, or may not matter to you.
You could always test it. Follow this strategy for a year. Track your reading. Then, look back and ask yourself—are you getting out of your reading what you want to?
3 The Alternating Authors Strategy
I love this strategy. Mainly because it helps me to accomplish all that’s important to me in reading.
Select two authors
Alternate between them, reading one book at a time.
Once you’ve read 2-4 works by each, select two new authors.
Huge pros for this one.
It has enough variety, so you don’t get bored (which happens to me when I read multiple books by one author in a row).
But, you still make significant progress in reading great authors (which I don’t always feel like I’m doing when I jump from one author, to the next, to the next, to the next, etc.).
I did this with Ernest Hemingway and Louise Erdrich for a few months. Then also with Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. In both cases, I loved it.
If enjoying variety AND making progress matter to you, this is the way.
4 The Community Strategy
As you’ll see, I’m an obvious proponent of this strategy.
Find a group of people who are reading what you’d like to read.
Join them.
This is the book club route.
One huge benefit of this strategy is that it leverages the strength of relationships for the sake of your reading.
It’s easy to see that relationships impact our lives significantly. So much so that you could say, if you want to be intentional about your life, be intentional about your relationships.
So, why not apply that advice to your reading?
Now, obviously, not all bookclubs are created equal. It needs to be a bookclub that aligns with your own values and motivations in reading.
Are you looking to deepen your understanding of great and classic works? Or are you looking to get together once a month, chat about some light fiction, but mostly just hang out with friends?
Either way’s fine; just make sure you know what you want.
In the best case scenario, forces converge—with discussion deepening your understanding, and new relationships opening your mind to different angles on works you never would’ve seen alone—and both the quality and quantity of your reading explode.
And, the original problem is solved as well. Because you don’t even have to decide what to read next. Because the bookclub decides.
Which can be a drag if you don’t align with the clubs interests.
But if you do align, it can deepen your understanding of works you were already interested in, AND lead you to enjoying certain works you might’ve never even heard of otherwise.
For all these reasons and more, bookclubs can be great.
And they can be found in a variety of places. Local libraries, churches, many are even online. In fact, that’s what From Argyle Street is—an online, blog-based bookclub focused on understanding and enjoying great works of fiction.
If you haven’t already, you’re always welcome to join.
Conclusion
Many strategies exist for solving the difficulty of selecting your next book. If you’ve ever been plagued by the plight of indecision in the face of a thousand choices, hopefully you find something here that helps.
My two cents would be to pick the strategy that maximizes your enjoyment of the reading itself most. As the proverb goes, “different strokes for different folks.” People read for different reasons.
So find whatever works best for you, and go with it.
If you’re a visitor, first off—thanks for reading!
Second, if you enjoyed this, subscribe to The Reading Life (the free option) to receive articles like this one regularly—all designed to help you read better, so you can live better also.
Until next time, enjoy your reading!
-Trevor
4 Ways to Decide What to Read
Definitely a #1 guy. #2 sounds like pure insanity, haha. Will definitely have to try the #3 method!