How to Make Reading Fun Again
Welcome to the Habit Chess newsletter where I talk about training everyday skills to make moves.
read time: ~2-3 minutes
If we don’t make reading fun again, we just won’t read.
And if we stop reading, it’s more than just losing a hobby. We lose access to empathy, perspective, and entire universes of knowledge that humanity fought hard to preserve. Our information diets become all sugar, no protein. We miss out on learning from the mistakes of others.
That makes me genuinely sad.
At some point, reading quietly turned into work. Somewhere along the way, we inherited a set of unspoken rules about how reading is supposed to look—and most of them don’t serve us anymore.
One of my personal missions is to get more people reading again. Doesn’t matter what they read, just getting people to enjoy the act of reading.
So instead of rules, think of the following as defaults I keep coming back to. You’re free to break all of them.
Principle #1 — Treat your bookshelf like a bookstore
This is the single biggest shift that made reading fun again for me.
When I’m in a bookstore, I’m excited. I browse. I pull multiple books off the shelf. I flip through pages without pressure. I’m not committed to anything. I’m discovering.
So I started treating my bookshelf the same way.
I don’t force myself to finish books cover to cover. I’ll pull three books that feel interesting right now, not what I decided to read three months ago. I flip until something gives me a charge. An idea that grabs me and I stay with it until that charge fades. Then I move on.
Because I read mostly nonfiction, there’s no spoilers I’m avoiding.
If you only adopt one idea from this essay, make it this one.
Principle #2 — Quit bad books (for now)
A “bad” book is often just a book you’re not ready for yet.
I’ve bought books, ignored them for years, given them away, then rebought them a decade later—only to love them. Timing matters.
Remember, there’s no award you’re getting for finishing books.
Principle #3 — Reading happens in seconds over hours
Most of my reading doesn’t happen in long, uninterrupted sessions.
It shows up in short bursts. A few pages. A few minutes. A single idea that sticks with me all day.
Instead of waiting for the perfect block of time, I started hunting for ideas that linger. Seconds scattered throughout the day add up faster than hours we keep postponing.
Principle #4 — Curiosity is your compass
As kids, we’re told what to read.
As adults, we forget that choosing is the best part.
Let curiosity lead. Follow what genuinely pulls you. Everyone will read different things when given that freedom.
Principle #5 — Attach reading to a project
If pure curiosity feels overwhelming, anchor your reading to a problem or project in your life.
I don’t sit around thinking, I should learn surgery. But I do love hearing how surgeons think. So instead of “Surgery for Dummies,” I’ll read something written by a surgeon that lets me live in that world for a few hours.
Projects give curiosity direction without killing it.
Principle #6 — Find books that become theme songs
Some books aren’t meant to be finished once and shelved forever.
They’re meant to be revisited. Yearly, monthly, even weekly. The same way you replay music that makes you feel a certain way.
For me, Mastery and Peak became theme songs. I own them in multiple formats. Not because I’m trying to extract more information, but because they reset something in me.
Reading doesn’t always have to move you forward. Sometimes it just needs to bring you back.
Principle #7 — Build a library
Building a library turns reading into a long-term project.
A shelf you’re proud of. A physical reminder of the worlds you want access to.
The act of building it pulls you toward reading before you even open a book.
There’s a line from Papyrus by Irene Vallejo that I come back to often:
“The books in the Library contain all possible combinations of twenty-two letters and two punctuation marks—in other words, all that can be imagined or expressed in every language, whether remembered or forgotten… somewhere on one of the shelves, the chronicle of your death can be found. And the story of the future, in meticulous detail.”
That’s what reading really is: access.
The final principle is that there are no principles. Break all of these. Reading is a space that belongs to you.
What kills the fun isn’t reading itself—it’s the invisible rules we’re still obeying, even though they clearly aren’t working anymore.
In your corner,
Misbah Haque
Founder of Pod Mahal & Habit Chess
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