“One of the most helpful discoveries I have made is how much can be read in disciplined blocks of twenty minutes a day. Suppose that you read slowly, say about 250 words a minute (as I do). This means that in twenty minutes you can read about five thousand words. An average book has about four hundred words to a page. So you could read about twelve-and-a-half pages in twenty minutes. Suppose you discipline yourself to read a certain author or topic twenty minutes a day, six days a week, for a year. That would be 312 times 12.5 pages for a total of 3,900 pages. Assume that an average book is 250 pages long. This means you could read fifteen books like that in one year.”
~ John Piper (HT: Girl Talk)
John Piper on Reading
On the reading of books
Some time ago Al Mohler posted some excellent thoughts regarding The Reading of Books. You can check it out HERE.
Pastoral Reading – Alister Begg
Alister Begg offers the following book suggestions in his booklet “Preaching for God’s Glory.” (HT: Adrian Warnock)
“READ YOURSELF FULL
The pastor should read widely and regularly. There are certain books we should return to routinely. Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor, Augustine’s Confessions
, and as daunting as we may find it, Calvin’s Institutes
. I also find great profit in reading biographies. The two
volumes
on Lloyd-Jones should be a prerequisite for all pastors, as well as at least the first volume on Whitefield
by Arnold Dallimore.”
Twelve principles for how to read a book
It is not enough to own great books, one must read them, and read them well.
Doug Groothius has posted twelve hints for how to get the most out of your reading. You can check them out HERE.