On a day that I’ll spend mainly centered around a big-screen TV watching football, I offer some great reading tips I ran across this week by Tim Challies, author of
The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment (which I have
not read, by the way).
- Read
- Read Widely
- Read Deliberately
- Read Interactively
- Read with Discernment
- Read Heavy Books
- Read Light Books
- Read New Books
- Read Old Books
- Read What Your Heroes Read
I did read Tim’s
explanation for these tips and I heartily endorse them, beginning with #1:
Read - We start with the obvious: you need to read. Find me someone who has changed the world and who spent his time watching television and I’ll find you a thousand who read books instead.
Unless reading is your passion, you may need to be very deliberate about setting aside time to read. You may need to force 
yourself to do it. Set yourself a reasonable target (“I’m going to read three books this year” or “I’m going to finish this book before the end of the month”) and work towards it. Set aside time every day or every week and make sure you pick up the book during those times.
Find a book dealing with a subject of particular interest to you. You may even find it beneficial to find a book that looks interesting—a nice hardback volume with a beautiful, embossed cover, easy-to-read fonts and beautiful typography. Reading is an experience and the experience begins with the look and feel of the book. So find a book that looks like one you’ll enjoy and commit to reading it. And when you’ve done that, find another one and do it again. And again.
