For The Love of Reading

Issue No. 4 : How to read one hundred books a year

A few of the hundred books this year that I’ve either finished, am currently reading, or plan to read next.

"It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else." – John Waters

There are few things better in life than to get deeply absorbed in an interesting book on a sandy and secluded beach somewhere in the world after a morning surf or a swim, and completely forget the sense of time or place.

The last time that happened was yesterday, although not on a beach but after a swim, when I discovered The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson while reading The Guardian, downloaded the book, started reading, and quickly got lost.

It’s the story about how a working class kid from Ilford, East London, gets accepted against all odds to London School of Economics and then lands a very coveted job as a trader at Citibank right before the financial crisis in 2008.

It’s a fun read, fast-paced and very interesting, especially if you’re interested in the art of trading and in how financial markets really work. It’s similar to Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis but twenty years later, and in London, not New York.

This year I’m taking the surplus of time, attention, and creative energy that I’m granted by completely abstaining from all forms of social media – deleted everything from Bezos to Zuckerberg the other day – to read one hundred books.

My simple theory is that this intensive book reading will improve my overall wellbeing, expand my imagination, and make me a better writer by exchanging the extreme short form practice of social for the long form practice of reading.

It was through reading books like The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, On The Road by Jack Kerouac, and Jack by Ulf Lundell (Swedish) that I became interested in exploring the world through adventurous and wild travels.

It was by reading Insanely Great by Stephen Levy about the Macintosh and A Toda Máquina by James Wallace about Microsoft on a beach in Spain, that in the early 90s lead me onto the Internet revolution and working in Silicon Valley.

And it was by reading books about cryptocurrencies in the early 10s where I discovered Bitcoin and learned how the Blockchain worked which lead me to both invest in, experiment with, and teach crypto across South America.

But I haven’t always been a bibliophile. I was born dyslectic and with ADHD which made it really hard to sit still and concentrate for longer periods of time (or at all). But over time, once I got into it, especially in English, I got really into it.

The idea to read as many as hundred books this year emerged from my desire to get rid of the time-consuming social media. Last year I felt I needed to find a replacement for the iPhone and thought that a book would be a great solution.

So today, instead of carrying around an iPhone, I always carry around a book wherever I go. I even walk and read, something that seems to delight people and spark interesting conversations with fellow bibliophiles.

But it doesn’t need to be hundred books, of course. It can be fifty, twenty-five or twelve. I picked hundred because that’s what I read last year and it worked out really well, and I like to set tough goals to deepen the commitment to myself.