How to read more, according to the Booker Prize 2024 judges

Does your TBR pile fill you with guilt every time you glance at it? Do you pick up a book, only to find yourself distracted, a few pages deep? If this sounds like you you’re not alone. We all know that reading can be a balm for the soul, but finding the time – and motivation – can often feel like a Herculean task. 

But fear not! For some, breezing through stacks of books is all in a day’s work. Take the Booker Prize judges, for instance – a panel of creative peers, selected every year, to read well over a hundred books in about seven months. And while reading for the prize is a serious endeavour, trust us when we say that your day-to-day reading doesn’t have to be nearly so daunting. 

Here, we asked each of the Booker Prize 2024 judges how to read more, and above all, read more effectively. Their top tips will help you conquer your own TBR pile and most importantly – enjoy the process along the way. 

Edmund de Waal, Chair of judges

‘My advice, for what it is worth, is to find a book buddy. Talking about books is a generative act – it makes reading more a natural part of everyday life. ‘Where have you got to with X? What is next?’ It is the perfect strategy for more and more. And carry a book. Everywhere. It is in all those small interstices of time that you can read.’

Sara Collins

‘It helps to stick to a disciplined reading schedule, treating it like work to be done at appointed times and giving it priority in the diary. Having said that, I know I’m on to a potential winner when I come across a book I can’t bear to put down. There were a few that I ended up propping in front of me while doing dishes or on the Stair-master, or that caused me to miss my Tube stop several times. I can’t wait to be able to tell everyone which ones they were.  When a book is that good, I find it’s never a struggle to fit the reading in; it’s a struggle to fit everything else in! Anyone who loves reading will know what I mean.’

Yiyun Li

‘I have always advocated for slow and steady reading. I don’t suppose we live in a busier time than people in the past, but we live in a time with many more distractions. I always tell my students that instead of getting online or looking at their phone first thing in the morning, they can spend 15 to 20 minutes reading a chapter of War and Peace. If they do that, by the end of a 12-week semester, they can finish reading the entire book. For readers who want to fit more reading into their lives, perhaps set up a reading corner where screens of any kind (phones and tablets and computers) are not allowed?’

Justine Jordan

’Reading and concentration are increasingly difficult: I read a listicle about it. Tip one, I guess, is to put your phone in a different room, and to replace scrolling with a book when eating, commuting or being stood up on dates. We swim in a sea of words, these days, so I’d also recommend turning to the classics – a voice from another time can cut more clearly through the contemporary verbiage. But mostly, the phone thing.’

Nitin Sawhney

I find that, as much as possible, adhering to a schedule of reading is the best way to work through so many books. Personally, I like to read between 5am and 9am, when I have a clear mind, before I properly begin my day. It’s important to approach each book one page at a time until you find yourself unable to put it down. A great book compels you to keep reading until the end.