What 185 Books Taught Me About Building a Reading Habit

I read 185 books in 2025. That number sounds extreme, and I get it. Part of it comes from my work teaching literature. But the larger shift happened when reading quietly replaced other leisure activities. I used to play video games or watch movies. Now I cannot sit through a football game without reaching for a book during commercials. The habit has become so automatic that skipping a day genuinely irritates me.

Students often tell me they wish they read more. My advice stays the same. You have to train yourself, the way you would train for anything else. Show up every day, or every other day, until the friction disappears. The goal is not to hit 185 books. The goal is to make reading feel as natural as checking your phone.

I track everything with The StoryGraph. If you want a clear picture of your reading life, I recommend finding a tracking tool that works for you. My count includes graphic novels, comic trade paperbacks, plays, and the rare poetry collection. Graphic novels are not a shortcut. They demand a different kind of literacy, one that asks you to read images and text in constant conversation. I do exclude single-issue comics, which would inflate the numbers without adding meaningful insight.

The growth has been steep. I read 44 books in 2022, 79 in 2023, 142 in 2024, and 185 in 2025. Even if I strip out every graphic novel and comic, I still read 100 books. Three graphic novels appeared twice on my list because I read them in the spring and again in the fall before teaching them.

Those numbers put me in a tiny slice of the population. A recent YouGov survey found that 40 percent of Americans read zero books in 2025. Another 27 percent read between one and four. That means two-thirds of the country finished fewer than four books all year. Only 10 percent read more than 20 books, and just 4 percent passed 50.

The survey also surfaced patterns worth noting. Education level matters. Postgraduates averaged 13.6 books, while high school graduates averaged 4.6. Age played a role too. Readers 65 and older outpaced every other group. Political affiliation showed a gap in averages, with Democrats at 10.7 books and Republicans at 7.7, but the median for both parties sat at just two books. The real divide came from a small number of heavy readers on one side. Independents trailed both groups, averaging 5.9 books. People who follow public affairs and government also read more than those who tune out.

I know I am an atypical reader. My job creates space for it, and I have the luxury of free time outside work. But I also treat reading as a deliberate practice. It is how I engage with ideas I agree with and ideas I do not. It is how I connect with people and understand experiences far from my own. That conviction shapes what I pick up. I move across genres on purpose, shifting between literature, graphic texts, history, and nonfiction. I read across ethnicity, reaching for European, Asian, African, Mexican, and American voices. I aim for gender balance too, though 2025 was uneven. I read 52 books by women, one by a non-binary author, and 132 by men. That ratio needs work.

I also chase rabbit holes. In 2025, I read four books by Claude McKay and fell back in love with his depictions of Marseille and Harlem. That deep dive started with a paper I was writing and ended with a desire to teach him again. In May, two of Annie Ernaux's memoirs pulled me in and left me wanting more. I revisited parts of Chip Zdarsky's Batman run before finally reading the fourth volume, Dark Prisons, and found myself thoroughly engaged with his psychological take on the character.

An upcoming study trip to Belfast sent me down an Irish path. I started with Marc Mulholland's Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction, a crisp overview of the region and the Troubles. Louise Kennedy's novel Trespasses followed, and I plan to teach it during the trip. Claire Keegan and Sally Rooney joined the stack, and more Irish reading is already lined up for 2026.

A course idea that never materialized led me to music writing. I read two entries from the 33 1/3 series. Nick Attfield's volume on Dinosaur Jr. captured the strange beauty of writing about sound, and Michael Stewart Foley's book on the Dead Kennedys mapped the historical pressures that shaped their debut. That thread connected to heavier nonfiction. Robert Fitzgerald's Hardcore Punk in the Age of Reagan examined punk as a response to its political moment. Jean Guerrero's Hate Monger traced Stephen Miller's life and agenda. Kathleen Belew's Bring the War Home charted the white power movement from post-Vietnam America to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Other books left deep marks. Mary Berg's diary of surviving the Warsaw Ghetto. Hans Massaquoi's memoir of growing up Afro-German in Nazi Germany. Omar El Akkad's One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, an unflinching look at complacency in the face of genocide. I closed the year with Seth Wickersham's American Kings, a fascinating biography of the quarterback as cultural icon.

For early 2026, my stack is already forming. More reading on Ireland and Northern Ireland, including Fearghus Roulston's Belfast Punk and the Troubles: An Oral History. I also have Mariann Edgar Budde's How We Learn to Be Brave, John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed's In Search of Paul, Hika Harada's Dinner at the Night Library, and Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox waiting on my shelf.

The numbers matter less than the practice. Reading is a trainable habit, a political act, and a way to sit with perspectives that are not your own. If you want to read more, start small, track what you do, and let curiosity lead you down strange and rewarding paths.