52 Books

One book a week is more doable than it sounds if you pick books that pull you forward.

Most people who hit 52 do not read faster. They just keep a book open more often and move toward that goal. Ten or fifteen minutes a couple of times a day and you will be there. Of course lots of people count listening to audiobooks on the drive too.

The goal is simple: finish a book, check the box, start the next one.

Track it like this:

How people actually do it

• Keep one fiction and one nonfiction going at the same time. When one stalls, switch.
• Audiobooks during walks, chores, or the commute remove a lot of friction.
• If a book is not working by page 50, drop it. The week does not care which book you finished.
• Short books and re-reads are allowed. The streak is about finishing, not about difficulty.

Miss a week? Just start the next one. The chart does not care about perfect.

25 Easy, Fun Fiction

These are the kinds of books people who read a lot keep recommending when someone wants something that moves.

1. Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir
2. Lessons in Chemistry — Bonnie Garmus
3. The House in the Cerulean Sea — TJ Klune
4. Remarkably Bright Creatures — Shelby Van Pelt
5. The Midnight Library — Matt Haig
6. Legends & Lattes — Travis Baldree
7. The Martian — Andy Weir
8. Where the Crawdads Sing — Delia Owens
9. The Hunger Games — Suzanne Collins
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone — J.K. Rowling
11. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams
12. A Man Called Ove — Fredrik Backman
13. The Thursday Murder Club — Richard Osman
14. To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee
15. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time — Mark Haddon
16. Anxious People — Fredrik Backman
17. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — Gabrielle Zevin
18. The Night Circus — Erin Morgenstern
19. The Book Thief — Markus Zusak
20. Station Eleven — Emily St. John Mandel
21. The Rosie Project — Graeme Simsion
22. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine — Gail Honeyman
23. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society — Mary Ann Shaffer
24. All the Light We Cannot See — Anthony Doerr
25. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry — Gabrielle Zevin

25 Easy, Fun Nonfiction

Narrative, practical, or just easy to stay inside. Most of these have strong audiobook versions.

1. Atomic Habits — James Clear
2. Educated — Tara Westover
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — Rebecca Skloot
4. Born a Crime — Trevor Noah
5. The Body — Bill Bryson
6. A Short History of Nearly Everything — Bill Bryson
7. Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell
8. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
9. The Power of Habit — Charles Duhigg
10. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone — Lori Gottlieb
11. The Glass Castle — Jeannette Walls
12. Shoe Dog — Phil Knight
13. Endurance — Alfred Lansing
14. The Devil in the White City — Erik Larson
15. Into Thin Air — Jon Krakauer
16. Quiet — Susan Cain
17. Grit — Angela Duckworth
18. Hidden Figures — Margot Lee Shetterly
19. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry — Neil deGrasse Tyson
20. The Year of Magical Thinking — Joan Didion
21. Unbroken — Laura Hillenbrand
22. The Boys in the Boat — Daniel James Brown
23. Seabiscuit — Laura Hillenbrand
24. The Wright Brothers — David McCullough
25. In the Heart of the Sea — Nathaniel Philbrick