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The "Read30for30" Challenge Will Help You Build a Rock-Solid Reading Habit
Matt Karamazov
May 26, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 16 minutes
YOUTUBE đź“š CREATOR LAUNCH ACADEMY đź“š PATREON
I’m getting close to finishing my 1,400th book since 2014 (I’m on my 1,383rd right now, but who’s counting?), and in that time, more than a few favorites have jumped out at me.
It’s actually kind of ridiculous how many “favorite books” I have, and I’ll completely understand if you have a hard time taking me seriously anymore when I say that!
But even though I have so many “favorites,” when I call them that…
It means they’re damn good.
Spectacularly…incredible.
Awesome.
You get the idea. But what I’ve started doing is building a new page on my website that will contain all of my “favorite” books in one place.
The page isn’t even close to finished yet (I’m only on 2014/2015 right now, so, right at the beginning), but you can access it now, and I’ve included a few of them here in this newsletter.
I’m going to be filling out that page over the next few weeks and months, and I’ll let you know when I have more major updates completed.
But I also wanted to pass along a great reading challenge being put on next month by my friend Alex Wieckowski called Read30for30.
Here’s Alex…
What if I told you that for just $1 a day, you could transform your reading habits forever?
*Do you struggle to find time to read books?
*Is your reading habit inconsistent and lacking?
*Do you wish you had someone who could keep you accountable and help you build a lasting reading habit?
If so, my Read 30for30 challenge is for you:
The goal is to read for 30 minutes every day for 30 days.
But you won’t have to do this alone, you’ll have me to guide you and a community of readers to help you as well.
Here are a few perks you’ll get:
âś… Join weekly group video calls with me and fellow readers.
âś… Get accountability from me and a community of fellow readers.
âś… Get a printable worksheet to keep track of your reading progress.
All of this and more!
If you want to finally stop having your books collect dust and start reading them, and connect with cool people along the way, this challenge is for you.
It will officially start on June 1st and end on June 30th.
I was going to charge $97 for this, but…
Since it’s our first launch, I want to reward early supporters and lowered the price to just $30.
I loved Alex’s idea when I first heard about it and wanted to pass it along!
In my case, it’s more like a “240for3,650” (I’m half-kidding), but if you want to build a strong and healthy reading habit for life, Alex’s challenge sounds perfect!
I’m also working on the next Patreon book notes update, and so you’ll have my complete notes + summaries from at least 10+ other books coming your way soon.
Long-time readers of this newsletter know that I’m in the process of going back and re-organizing and updating many of them, and I’m making great progress!
But now, before our coffees get cold…let’s hit the books!
“The quality which had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe, the divine, magical, terrifying, and ecstatic reality in which we all live.”
The Fastest Way to Succeed (From a $151,000,000 CEO): Nine-Figure Mindset is one of the best business books I've ever read (out of hundreds of books), and Brandon Dawson dishes out some killer life advice too.
I took pages and pages of notes from Brandon's book (here for free), and in this video I talk about some of the best advice he gives about achieving success, and becoming the person you've always desired and dreamed of being. [Watch Time: 6:48]
If you enjoy the video, please consider subscribing to my channel and sharing it with a friend. Cheers!
“At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don't use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.”
Meditations was originally kept as a private journal by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who never intended to publish it. He was the last of the “Five Good Emperors,” and he’s also considered (rightly) to be one of the most important Stoic philosophers, right up there with Seneca and Epictetus.
Meditations is even more astonishing when you think of the time period Marcus lived through, which was characterized by constant wars, invasions, plagues, revolts, struggles…just on and on, and Marcus’s book is his impeccably honest attempt to understand himself and make sense of the universe with all this going on around him.
I honestly can’t recommend this book highly enough, and I can’t even imagine a world without it. To think that it was almost lost to the endless abyss of time is unfathomable to me, and I’m just extraordinarily grateful every time I think about it that it wasn’t.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
This is THE book that got me hooked on learning about space, and Carl Sagan has been my go-to every time I want a triple-shot of wonder, beauty, and awe.
Cosmos is an absolutely thrilling book about space exploration, the composition of other planets, our efforts to find out more about the universe we live in, and the possibilities for future space-missions to unlock even more wonder and beauty and awe.
Such an incredible book!
“It's lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for 'realistic' goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.”
This book shifted something inside of me when I first read it, and I’ve never looked back.
Here was a guy, a successful blogger-turned-entrepreneur who refused to submit to society’s plan for his life, and decided to follow his own instead.
It sounds wild to say, but I never fully understood that you could do that before reading this book. Life-changing. Full stop.
“Our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by not paying attention?”
This is a fantastic nonfiction book about memory and how to improve it, and it follows an attempt by the author to improve his memory by undergoing “elite memory training” and afterwards entering the world memory championships.
This might sound dumb, or like I'm exaggerating or something, but I was literally pumping my fist as he tells the story of his final showdown in the memory championships at the end of the book. It’s far more exciting than it sounds.
It’s not only an incredible book, it's also extraordinarily helpful, and it taught me that, in the end, all we really have at the end of our lives is our memories. So, we may as well go out and make them as memorable as possible!
“I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”
This is one of the most famous existentialist novels ever written, and it explores the theme of the "absurd" character of existence.
Things happen for reasons we can't figure out or get a hold on, our lives drift on, mostly without our ever being able to draw a convincing narrative arc, and then we come to the moment of our inevitable death, not really having understood anything that has happened to us.
Bleak, sure. But Camus is definitely NOT a pessimist, this story is brilliant (in a sentence, it's about a man who has just lost his mother, who murders an Arab man for no reason on the beach in Algeria), and it's well worth reading.
Forward this to a friend you think would love these books!
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 160,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and 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:
Content Creators: Book a 1:1 call and I’ll help you hit $5K/month with a plan tailored to your business.
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