A Beginner’s Guide To Reading Books | Start Reading Books

Have you stumbled on our book blog by accident? Or have you been exploring book blogs to start reading books again after a long hiatus? Or maybe you’ve never read at all and want to start reading books so you looked it up on google? Whatever the case is, you have come to the right place. In today’s blog, we’ll tell you exactly how you can find the perfect book that will get you addicted to reading. This is a beginner’s guide to reading books.

We have crafted a list of three broad things to do before you start reading – with many small tips and tricks within them. This list will give beginner readers an idea about exactly where to start. So without further ado, let’s begin.

Spend time introspecting and soul-searching

No one likes reading everything under the sun – not even the most seasoned of readers. You can’t expect to like reading if you don’t know what you will like reading. Ruminate on your objective for reading – are you doing it for fun? Or does your profession require you to do it? Maybe you’re bored sitting at home? Or do you just want to make it a habit or lap up some knowledge? What has propelled you to take this decision? Once you know your objective, you can tailor your TBR (to-be-read) according to it.

Take some time out to think about exactly what you love doing – what are your passions, interests and hobbies? What sets your soul on fire? It’s very likely that you will love to read about that. If you love painting, you will probably like Da Vinci’s autobiography by Walter Isaacson. If you love science, you might like science fiction about time travel perhaps. This isn’t something anyone else can tell you – you must find out for yourself.

A good place to start might be thinking about the movies or TV shows you tend to gravitate towards. Do you enjoy mysteries and thrillers the most? Do paranormal movies charge you up? Or so simple rom-coms move you and make you happy? Your favourite genre in movies is also probably your favourite genre in books.

Also think about various aspects of books. What length would you like? Would you like books that go on and on that you will read over months and slowly take in? Or would you like short stories or crisp novellas that will hit you like a hurricane and jar you? What themes and settings and tropes would you like? Enemies to lovers, or a love triangle maybe? Are you interested in futuristic speculation or a burial into the past – or are you more interested in contemporary events? And what is a country, a culture you’re particularly interested in – South American or Japanese maybe?

Another important thing to ponder is languages you’re comfortable with. Is English your first language? If not, what languages are you fluent in? Or would you like to improve on your linguistic skills in a specific language?

All of these will affect what books you like and why.

Get information from all possible sources

The next crucial step to finding books you truly adore is to find information according to what conclusions your introspection has led you to. This process may sometimes go hand in hand with the introspection – such as reading up about various book genres. If you haven’t been exposed to books, you may not know about genres outside the conventional romance, thriller and horror. For instance, have you heard of Cli-Fi – an intersection of science fiction and climate or eco fiction? Historical fiction, contemporary fiction, magical realism, graphic novels – all of these are genres you should know before you start nitpicking your books. So hit up that search engine right away!

Another thing you can do to get information is look up book blogs and book websites like ours and read their book reviews. This will help you understand what other people are reading and liking (or disliking) and will help you in your selection process. There are book vlogs/websites for almost every genre, so once you know what genres you might like, you could start searching for individual books in the genre. Bookstagram, booktube and book twitter are also very helpful. These are communities within Instagram, YouTube and Twitter respectively and consist of people who are passionate about reading. They discuss, review and rate books. Goodreads is an app made specifically for readers. You could even check out top lists such as the New York Times Bestseller list.

The last thing to do is ask people for recommendations. Books that have moved others are likely to be liked by you. Ideally, you should have people around you who are interested in the same things you are. These people would give great recommendations and they also personally know you – so the recommendations would be personalized. If you don’t know of anyone in your social circle who loves books or shares your passions, speak to a local librarian or any professors you know.

Make a TBR and BEGIN READING!

The last thing to do after introspecting and getting information is trying out books based on them. You could start off with obvious favourites like Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice because they’re universally loved across all types of readers. Try books in different formats – audiobooks, hardcovers, paperbacks, e-books, kindle books and so on. Maybe you’ll be comfortable with a particular format more than the others.

Also try out some local favourites – books set in the country/city you live in that classics of that region. Say, Rabindranath Tagore if you live in Bengal or Arundhati Roy if you stay in Kerala. Conversely, you could try out top contemporary authors in your country – Amish in India for instance or Murakami in Japan .

Obviously, you should try out bestsellers in the genres that you know you will like. For example, Looking For Alaska by John Green in romance and young adult genres or One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez in magical realism. If you don’t want to read the whole novel, you can read a sample of it on Amazon.

The information you have gathered will be useful here. Wade through all of it, filtering whatever is useful and discarding the unnecessary to create your very own TBR. This like your book bucket list. The point is, get out of your comfort zone. Be open to everything and test everything before you narrow your horizons. You never know what you might like. There’s no such thing as a bad reader or a non-reader. There must be some book, some genre, some author, some form of literary art that will move you and change your life. Don’t stop searching until you find it. And once you do, there’s no going back. You’ll go crazy reading and reading and reading until you find more such books. Don’t give up. Reading is beautiful. Reading is magical. It is the most pristine reflection of life in its truest form.