Reading a lot of books is a skill, not a personality trait

By the end of 2025, my social feeds were flooded with book-count roundups. Fifty books. Eighty-seven books. One hundred books, neatly stacked in Canva graphics and celebratory captions. Mixed in among them, especially on Threads, I kept seeing the same question pop up again and again: How are people able to read 100 books in a year?

The tone of the question always felt half-amazed, half-defeated—like asking how people finish marathons when you can barely make it around the block.

Here’s the thing that rarely gets said plainly enough: reading a lot of books isn’t magic, luck, or moral superiority. It’s a skill.

Reading is something you get better at the more you do it. The more time you spend with books, the faster your brain processes text, the longer you can stay focused, and the less effort it takes to settle into a story. Just like running, you don’t wake up one morning able to go ten miles without training. You build stamina slowly, page by page.

People who read 100 books a year have usually spent years building that stamina. They know how to sink into a book quickly. They know which distractions to ignore. They know how to read for long stretches without burning out. That doesn’t make them better readers—it just makes them practiced ones.

It also means they prioritize reading in a very specific way. Reading doesn’t just “happen” in the margins of their lives; it’s scheduled, protected, and chosen again and again. Some people read instead of watching TV. Some read during lunch breaks. Some read late into the night when the house is quiet. Time doesn’t magically appear—they decide where it goes.

And not everyone wants to live that way.

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Some readers are marathon readers. Others are casual readers. Some people happily dedicate every spare moment to books, while others want time for hobbies, relationships, rest, and doing absolutely nothing. Being more well-rounded—or simply more tired—doesn’t mean you’re doing reading wrong.

There’s also no prize for racing through books you didn’t enjoy just to hit an arbitrary number. A single novel that lingers with you, changes how you think, or reminds you why you love reading in the first place can matter far more than a triple-digit total posted online.

If you want to read more, read more. Build the habit. Build the stamina. Let yourself improve slowly. But if your life only allows for a handful of books a year, that’s not a failure—it’s just reality.

Read in a way that fits your life, not someone else’s highlight reel. And stop worrying about how many miles everyone else is running.

What’s your reading goal for 2026? Or do you even have one? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Now that Jack has been forced to reflect on everything he has to lose, he resolves to do better. He’s determined to spend more time at home with his family and repair the relationships that have suffered over the years while he’s been so focused on work. But as Callie’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, Jack realizes he has a lot more room to improve than he realized – and it might be too late to save his daughter after all.

For fans of We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Push, and Baby Teeth.