Matthew Walter, the editor of The Lamp, calls it the “One Hundred Pages Strategy.” Here is how he does it:
Almost nothing I have written in the last few years has given rise to more correspondence than a throwaway column about reading, in which I alluded to what I call the “hundred pages strategy.” This is exactly what it sounds like: every day, come rain or shine, on religious and secular holidays, when I travel and when I am exceptionally busy, I read at least one hundred printed pages.
The most common question I have received regarding the hundred pages strategy is, of course, How do you do it? This has proven more difficult to answer than I thought it would. While I have chosen to refer to it as a “strategy,” the truth is that most of it, including the page target itself, is really something more like a post-hoc attempt at systematizing my own habits; I did not wake up one day as an infrequent reader and work slowly towards one hundred pages a day out of some inchoate desire for self-improvement. Rather, like many of us, I decided some years ago that if I did not take it upon myself to spend less time scrolling through Wikipedia or the AllMusic Guide or returning to my Twitter “feed”—the implicit image of a trough is appropriate—I would find myself losing one of my greatest pleasures to sheer indolence.
Statistics suggest that the “average” American reads something like twelve books a year. Upon a moment’s reflection it should be obvious that this statistic is useless. Millions of people finish school and never read another book in their lives: not long ago I spoke to a recent high school graduate (his grade point average was just below perfect) who had not read a book since elementary school. Twelve books a year is, I suspect, the kind of figure we arrive at because some people read nothing and others read several books a week. As it stands, enormous numbers of Americans say they wish they read more than they do, if only they could figure out how. It is to such persons that the following is addressed.
Before I continue I should say that this is not the place to attempt a defense of reading as such. (Those who find other ways to spend their leisure time are free to do so, though I have a hard time taking seriously the idea of people who write or edit for a living but do not consider daily reading of books within the sphere of their chosen profession.) Nor is it the right venue for a discussion of my own taste in books. While incidental references to things I have read will be unavoidable, everything I say here might apply to the reading of almost anything; even my distinction between “heavy” and non-heavy books will apply to almost anyone’s reading.
To start, then, I should say a few words about the rules, such as they are.Â
Read the entire piece here.