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10 Easy Books to Get You Out of a Reading Slump FAST
Matt Karamazov
December 01, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 37 minutes
Reading slumps are not uncommon whatsoever, and if you’re in one right now, don’t stress about it. They happen to everyone.
Not to me, but you know, to normal people (I’m kidding).
Reading demands effort though, and time. So if, for whatever reason, you’re not reading as many books as you want, or reading as often as you’d like, these ten books I’ve selected for tonight will certainly help.
I’m actually in a tough reading spot myself! I have 30 days to read 19 books, or my streak of reading 100+ books a year for the last 10 years is going to come to an end! Nobody really cares except me, but damn it, I don’t want my streak to end!
A couple more quick things before we get into the books though:
Every month, I donate $1 to First Book (an amazing literacy charity) for every Premium Member of The Reading Life, and this month’s $39 donation brings the grand total up to…
Thanks everyone for contributing! And we’re just getting started!
I also used to do this Charity Reading Challenge (also in support of First Book) a while ago, but never really stuck with it. Things always seemed to get in the way, and I just kinda let it slide. I might bring that back in January…
Anyway, I’ve also got two more new YouTube videos up if you’re interested:
Now, before our coffees get cold, let’s hit the books!
Tonight, Inside The Reading Life, We’ve Got:
“I am passionately pro-education. There are few things I care more about than reading and learning constantly. Yet, the lives of the people profiled in this book show conclusively that education is most certainly not the same thing as academic excellence. We’ve conflated them, at great cost to ourselves, our children, our economy, and our culture.”
“Sometimes we spend so much time trying to find how to win at life that we miss the entire point. Maybe you need to look for why to win in life. Did somebody humiliate you? Did somebody manipulate you? Is there a teacher or family member who made you feel ashamed? We’re all driven in different ways, but the right enemy can drive you in ways an ally never can.”
Inside my private business mastermind, Creator Launch Academy, we’re tackling one nonfiction book per month and implementing its lessons inside our businesses.
This month’s book is Choose Your Enemies Wisely, by Patrick Bet-David, a great business book about getting strategically emotional, selecting an enemy that you can use to focus all your energies on success, and going all-out.
Click here to claim your free trial, and join our business book club for educational content creators!
After achieving my (somewhat meaningless) goal of reading 1,000 books before I turned 30, I set a new (also meaningless but cool) goal of reading 10,000 books. As of today, I’ve read exactly 1,433 books, including 81 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
“And here’s a secret: most audiences aren’t invested in seeing you fail. Most people are aware that to get up in front of a crowd and talk takes a certain amount of nerve, and they sympathize with you. So before you say a word, you’re starting from a position of strength. Remember this and let confidence flow from it.”
Before I say anything else about this book, I have to mention that I’m actually featured in here too! I mean, I’m actually written about inside the book, which feels insanely cool. If you buy a copy for yourself, look for me on page 109 and again later on!
As you can imagine, this is a book about communication skills, but it’s all the more powerful because of where the author came from, and how he arrived to where he is today.
John A. Brink fled the Second World War to come to Canada, and he showed up with just $25.47 in his pocket (which, not coincidentally is the price of the book), not speaking a word of English, and suffering from a number of learning disabilities as well.
In fact, during his very first public speech, he completely froze, and found himself unable to utter even a single word.
Today, he’s an extremely successful entrepreneur, with business interests in a variety of industries, a popular podcast, and a media empire that he built through the power of words.
John also happens to be (as of this writing) the oldest competitive bodybuilder in North America, at 85 years old! He’s just a powerhouse, and over the last half a century he’s picked up more than a few speaking tips that he shares in this book.
Billion-Dollar Communication Skills covers a lot of ground, from the history of communication and technology, to discussions of digital communication tools, manipulation and disinformation, speaking with confidence and grace in front of large audiences, and communicating complex ideas with precision and power.
I may be a bit biased because of all the nice things he said about me in his book, but if you want to level up your speaking and communication skills, start here!
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: John writes in a very clear, easy-to-understand style (which you’d hope would be true in a book on communication!), and it’s a fast, breezy read that’ll leave you with lots of places to get started improving your skills.
“The worst time to think about the thing you are going to say is in the moment you are saying it. This book prepares you for nearly every known eventuality and provides you with a fair advantage in almost every conversation.”
This is a fantastically useful handbook of words, phrases, and psychological tools that will give you a fair advantage in sales, business, and the world at large.
Sometimes - often - the difference between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ is knowing exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. What you never want to do, though, is head into any important conversation unprepared. And honestly, this book has something helpful for basically every situation that you could ever encounter in your life.
That’s quite an achievement for a 90-something-page book!
Having this knowledge of human psychology, effortless persuasion, and effective speech patterns honestly feels like some sort of cheat code.
My advice - after having been involved in hundreds (thousands) of important, high-stakes conversations, is to return to this book often, and practice bringing some of these words and ideas into one or two conversations of yours throughout the week until they feel natural. Until you just know…exactly what to say.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: This book’s the shortest on this list, and it doesn’t waste your time with a lot of fluff. It just tells you what you need to know.
“Bad habits are hard to kick, but good habits are too.”
This was a random book app find, and when I gave it a chance I ripped right through it to the end, taking copious notes as I went along, surprised and delighted again and again by wisdom and advice from a variety of people, most of whom I had never even heard of before picking up the book. It reminded me of Tools of Titans, by Tim Ferriss, actually!
Getting There is a collection of interviews with thirty leaders in diverse fields (you’ve got Warren Buffett, Muhammad Yunus, Michael Bloomberg, Hans Zimmer, among others), where they share some of their lowest moments, their fantastic wins and blazing successes, as well as their unique wisdom that I’ve never found anywhere else.
There’s career advice, life advice, relationship advice, money advice, and everything in between, and almost every single interview is one that I wish would have gone on for longer.
Basically what I’m saying is that I ordered about a dozen new books while I was reading this one, because the wise and impressive interviewees kept sending me off in all these different thought-provoking directions. I’m glad I found this one!
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: The structure of this book makes it super easy to skim and find something immediately relevant to your life and interests. It’s all interview-style, conversational, and parts of it are fascinating too. You’ll rip right through it.
“Once you decide the type of person you want to be, you can start acting like that person immediately.”
This book from entrepreneur and investor Anthony Pompliano includes 65 letters to his children, wherein he offers his best advice on how to succeed in business, invest in the stock market, invest in quality relationships, prepare for the future, cultivate resilience and fortitude, and basically just grow into a respectable, healthy, and happy human being.
He covers a lot of ground, and his wisdom is world-class.
Pompliano is definitely a list-maker, just like myself, and for the first four decades or so of his life he’s been taking note of the most transformational lessons he’s ever learned.
Which I believe is such a great thing to do, because you really cannot trust your memory. I’ve been taking notes on every single book I’ve read since 2014, jotting down every fantastic memory I could think of shortly after they happened, and recording as much as possible as I’m living, to help myself thrive in the future.
Again, you can’t simply trust your memory.
How to Live an Extraordinary Life features such fantastic advice because Pompliano’s life actually measures up to the title. He’s lived in a war zone, invested in more than 200 businesses, started (and nurtured) a loving family, and much more besides.
I got the sense too that he doesn’t view his recommendations as commandments. They’re simply what’s worked for him - helped him to find happiness and success - and now he’s simply passing it along.
He didn’t invent this stuff, and he won’t be the last to discover it, but by writing this book, and letting us into his private thoughts, all our futures will likely be brighter and more extraordinary.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: This one’s a super fast read, but with tons of “wisdom per page.” You can open it to almost any page and find something you can use immediately to make your life better. And more extraordinary.
“A person who builds a beautiful home has an excellent blueprint. A person who builds a beautiful piece of machinery has detailed engineering designs. People who want to make a lot of money have clear, written goals and plans that they follow.”
Brian Tracy is a legend in the personal development space, and he’s one of the first authors I read in my early twenties who actually showed me what’s truly possible and how to get there. I owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude.
Make More Money is more of a high-level overview of some key concepts in his and other people’s work, and much of it isn’t strictly “new.” But it’s fundamental.
If you wanted to read one short, 70-page book that contained some of the most important things a person could know about becoming a self-made millionaire, this is one you should read. It’s also a great refresher on some of these ideas, which are so important that it really is a great idea to keep coming back to them.
The book is based on his intense personal study of self-made millionaires in all fields and how they became one. Some of the statistics he quotes can be taken with a grain of salt (some of them frankly seem made up), but the basic ideas are solid. Like I said, they’re fundamental.
Tracy covers the business strategies, personal habits and qualities, and mindsets and mental models common among high-achievers everywhere, and these ideas are supremely valuable. You can base your entire professional success and personal wealth on these ideas, and you probably should.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: Actually, this might be the shortest book on this list. Regardless, I took pages and pages of excellent notes, and it’s a fast, motivating read that will, like the others on this list, give you plenty of jumping-off points from which to get started and making positive changes in your financial life.
“Knowing these books can change your life and choosing not implement what you're learning is like knowing you're guaranteed to win the lottery but choosing not to buy a ticket."
It's said that the person who doesn't read books has no advantage over the person who can't read them, and this one's absolutely true.
Almost every single person you look up to, who have led great lives, accomplish magnificent things, and have elevated themselves above their initial circumstances have credited large parts of their success to a habit of lifelong, dedicated reading and a love of the profound ideas found in great books.
You almost literally can't read a biography, memoir, or even an article about someone influential and impressive in some way without hearing about how their parents read to them when they were younger, their teachers inspired a strong love of reading early on, or about how they were lucky enough to stumble upon that one book that "started it all." All three of those things happened to me too.
What I'm saying is that it can't all be a coincidence. There must be something in books, something you can't find anywhere else (at least not delivered in the same way) that propels these powerfully influential people forward in life.
The author of Rise of the Reader, Nick Hutchison, feels the same way, and he's written a wonderful book that captures the magic of what it's like to have the idea hit you that, by holding a book, you're holding decades of wisdom and experience in the palm of your hand.
Every page crackles with Nick's breathless enthusiasm for reading, and his story makes it clear that books and reading are for everyone.
You don't have to be intimidated by the "Great Books," or swayed by the "100 Books You Must Read to Be Considered Well-Read" lists or anything like that, and even though there are more Starbucks than libraries, everyone is welcome in the book stacks too.
Books are another kind of "Third Place" where everyone is welcome, everyone is equal, and everyone can return to for as long as they want to feel inspired to keep moving forward in life.
I won't oversell the book. It's very good, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the real selling point is Nick's sheer enthusiasm for the reading life, and as he explains in the book, we all need to surround ourselves with people who are dedicated to growth, learning, self-expansion, and fulfillment.
Basically, he's one of us: he's a reader, a passionate developer of human potential, and this book can serve as excellent encouragement for you build and maintain your intention to become a rising reader yourself.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: This is a beginner-level book on reading (but it’s not dumbed down!), and so it’s a breezy, motivating read. It’s one of the best books out there on building a stronger reading habit, and I can’t imagine a reading slump surviving first contact with Rise of the Reader!
“Flip burgers now, own the restaurant later.”
By this point, I’ve read a ton of personal finance books, and I’m in danger of thinking that I already know everything I need to know about money. But for one thing, that’s not true. Money is a complex subject, and even world experts have blind spots in their level of understanding. But the benefits of reading books like this go even deeper.
“Thinking rich” means thinking rich most of the time, and not falling back into old patterns of behavior. It means saturating your consciousness with thoughts of wealth accumulation, strategic investing, sensible frugality, and contentment. And it means returning to these ideas again and again, at least until they’re second nature.
So yes, even though a lot of the material in this book was familiar to me, I resisted the urge to say, “I know that already!”
A major truth when it comes to good habits - financial or otherwise - is that many of the right actions are easy to do, but they’re also easy not to do.
It’s relatively easy to keep track of your spending and to review your credit card statements each month; it’s relatively easy to wait 24 hours before buying something (to give yourself a cooling-off period); it’s relatively easy to toss a few dollars per month into the stock market and to pick up a personal finance book every so often.
But all those things are also easy not to do.
Start Thinking Rich covers all the simplest, easiest, and most effective actions you can take to gain control of your financial life, but it also helps you act rich, which means something different than what most people think it does.
Real rich people, for the most part, aren’t flashy. In fact, they get rich in the first place (most of them, anyway) by living below their means, saving more than they spend, buying liabilities instead of assets, and more that the authors cover in this book.
What I also liked about Start Thinking Rich is their focus on earning more money - going on the offensive, not just skipping lattes and pinching pennies. There’s a limit to the amount of money you can save each month, but there’s no limit to the amount of money you can make each month, and the authors did a good job of proving that crucial point.
They’re also not scared to (politely) offend, by which I mean they are perfectly willing to take an unpopular position if it means helping you change your financial life.
All in all, Start Thinking Rich is a wonderful starting point for anyone desirous of a better life, and an excellent reminder of the financial principles and practices that will both get you rich and keep you rich for the long term.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: There’s a lot of personal finance books out there, but this is one that kept my attention pretty well from beginning to end. The authors don’t talk down to you, they’re not pretentious or all-knowing; they’ve been where (most of) their readers are, and they’ve written a book that’s extremely practical and useful without being preachy or overhanded.
“What we’ve done or failed to do doesn’t forever determine who we are or will be. In fact, I believe that we have no idea what we can really do. We may never find out, either – there may always be another level – but striving to reach the top is the most rewarding adventure life has to offer.”
I haven't been this impressed with a fitness book in a long time, and as someone who knows a thing or two about a thing or two when it comes to fitness, it is my pleasure to introduce you to this one. I really think that reading it could be the start (or continuation) of something great for you.
This is a thinking man's (and woman's) fitness book, and somehow...somehow...Mike Matthews finds a way to bring Epictetus, Solzhenitsyn, Teddy Roosevelt, Socrates, and more into a book about health and fitness and still make it accessible, easy to get into, valuable, and fun.
And fitness should be fun. It should make your life better, and not be seen as a chore, a fearful obligation, or something that's beyond your reach.
Mike and I also share the conviction that training isn't just about training. People think, "Oh, yea that's just the gym." But the gym is...Life!
And once you learn that you control what happens to your muscles inside the gym, you find out that there's a lot more that you can control outside the gym too.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: Somehow this book manages to be deep, useful, entertaining, and motivating, and so it’s perfect for breaking out of a reading slump. Or a workout slump, of course!
“We need to think about any stretch of time before we are hurtling through it.”
I first read Laura’s other book, 168 Hours, years ago (and loved it), and in this book, Vanderkam not only has some essential things to share about the nature of time itself, but she also gets extremely practical about how we can deploy ours better.
Time is one of the most fascinating subjects ever, as far as I’m concerned, because it’s so elusive, so difficult to pin down into “what it is” and “what it means.”
It’s eternal, but it’s also constantly slipping away; it’s endless, but we never have enough of it; and when we receive a gift of unexpected time, we struggle with how to use it most effectively.
Our perception of time also changes based on what we value and what we’re doing with it, and as books like Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time suggest, we don’t even know what time actually is. For all we’ve studied it and measured it and tried to expand it and use it better, we still have very little idea about even the fundamental nature of time itself.
Tranquility by Tuesday is based on her own study of 150 people who learned time management rules over a period of nine weeks. Each week, participants put one rule into action, and then were asked to reflect upon the results.
For reference, here are the nine rules:
1. Give yourself a bedtime. Go to sleep at about the same time every night unless you have a good reason not to.
2. Plan on Fridays. Think through your weeks, holistically, before you’re in them.
3. Move by 3 p.m. Do some form of physical activity for ten minutes in the first half of every day.
4. Three times a week is a habit. Things don’t have to happen daily to become part of your identity, and “often” can be more doable than “always.”
5. Create a back-up slot. Make a resilient schedule where your priorities still happen, even when life doesn’t go as planned.
6. One big adventure, one little adventure. Each week, do at least two things that will be worth remembering.
7. Take one night for you. Commit to an activity you love that is separate from work and household responsibilities.
8. Batch the little things. Keep most of your schedule clear from unimportant tasks.
9. Effortful before effortless. Do active leisure activities before passive ones whenever time opens up.
I don’t tend to take as many notes when I’m listening to audiobooks, but more than a few thoughts stuck out, and I made sure to record them here.
My favorite thought while listening to the book was that people spend all this money to be happier, but happiness is mostly free! I guess I knew that, as you probably do too, but it never hurts to be reminded of the blindingly obvious sometimes. The obvious is what we tend most easily to forget.
Something else that I kept returning to was the idea that instead of asking what could go wrong, it’s much more conducive to sanity to start asking what could go right!
At least something goes right in our lives every single day, and when we start looking for it, we’ll start noticing it more often.
It seems to me that it’s a much better use of time to go around looking for the good in life than fixating on the negative and what could be better.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: As you’d expect with a book like this, the author respects your time! It’s also written in a supportive, encouraging tone, and her strategies have been validated in the real-world where all these ideas are actually lived.
“This book isn’t about being reckless. It’s about understanding when and how to break the rules strategically to create opportunities.
Life isn’t a straight path with clear instructions. It’s a maze, and those who succeed aren’t the ones who wait for the main door to open. They’re the ones who find a side entrance, carve their own way forward, or knock the whole wall down.”
I’ve known Jay ever since he was sixteen years old, which wasn’t that long ago, by the way. The things he’s been able to accomplish between then and now has been nothing less than astonishing, and it’s mostly because of his life philosophy of taking “Permissionless Action.”
The world won’t wait for you to get ready, and life-changing opportunities don’t tend to come looking for you. In Jay’s case, years ago he sent a cold email to the founder of the newsletter platform Beehiiv and landed an internship before he was out of high school. He then went on to become the head of content for the extraordinary entrepreneur Noah Kagan, and then moved to Las Vegas after being hired as a social media strategist for Leila and Alex Hormozi. He chose himself for those roles - he didn’t just stand around waiting to be picked. He took Permissionless Action.
Most people (and I don’t often say “most people,” but in this case it’s justified) are following the exact same life-script: fall in line, wait to be told what to do, hold off until they’re “qualified” to do what they’ve always dreamed of doing. Permissionless Action is different. It’s all about going unscripted. It’s about rejecting the default settings of your life, and going all-in on your grandest ambitions.
The “script” might be somewhat reassuring to the average person (and I mean this: there’s nothing wrong with working a “regular” job, if that’s truly what you want to do), but it rarely - if ever - leads to the life you want. For that, you have to make some big moves, take drastic, Permissionless Action, and go out dream-hunting.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
Why You Might Like It: This is another short, small book with BIG power that will help you move quickly and move forward with speed and ambition. If this doesn’t destroy your reading slump, I don’t know what to tell you!
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
There’s also my YouTube channel, where I publish book reviews, reading updates, and more each week.
And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 180,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and scaling my profits in 2025, join us inside Creator Launch Academy and that’s exactly what I’ll teach you — we’d love to have you in the community!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Until next time…happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are two more ways I can help you:
Educational Content Creators: Book a 1:1 call and I’ll help you hit $5K/month with a plan tailored to your business.
Join Creator Launch Academy, my private business mastermind for educational content creators building real revenue and real freedom.
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