How To Encourage Others To Read

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly series hosted by Rukky at Eternity Books and Danie at Literary Lion. The full list of September topics can be found here.

This week’s topic is How To Encourage Others To Read.

I’m using the prompts from the original post on Literary Lion to guide my thoughts this week.

Do you encourage other people to read?

Yes! I love to read and will always want to share that with others. I truly believe that books can be life changing because they have certainly changed my life for the better.

What strategies do you use?

I don’t have any specific strategies for getting others to read. Everyone is different and not only will they have different tastes, but they will have different experiences with reading that may have impacted their relationship to books. For example, I was extremely turned off from reading after high school because I didn’t like any of the books I was forced to read. It took a long time for me to fall in love with reading again. I think the key to getting others to love reading is knowing that it will (in most cases) take some time for it to happen naturally.

How do you get someone who “hates” reading to read?

This is tricky because you really can’t (or shouldn’t) force someone to read. I think the biggest thing is educating someone about how many different types of books there are. I don’t just mean nonfiction versus fiction, but genres like mystery, historical fiction, crime, as well as different formats such as e-books, graphic novels, etc. I think people tend to equate reading with the classics like Pride and Prejudice or To Kill a Mockingbird and in reality the classics are such a small portion of the literary world.

Do you find certain genres or types of books work better?

Yes! In my experience, nonfiction book recommendations go further than fiction recommendations. I have always had success in connecting readers with nonfiction books that align with their personal interests. For example, if someone is interested in television, I’ll recommend a book about their favorite TV show, or television in general, cinema history, etc. If they enjoy comedy, I might recommend a biography or memoir about a comedian. There is a nonfiction book out there for everyone !

It’s harder to get into fiction because everyone’s tastes are so different. I think the best way to connect someone with a work of fiction is to use the same approach as above, but with TV shows or movies. If you liked Stranger Things, you might like such-and-such title, and so on. There are so many book and movie readalikes shared online these days, that you can pretty much refer someone in that direction and let them have at it!

What about you? Do you encourage others to read and if so, what are some of your strategies? Tell me in the comments or drop a link to your post so I can check it out!