Why the number matters more than it looks
720 sounds like plenty until you subtract the books you'll abandon, re-read, or pick badly. The scarcity isn't time on the clock — it's quality attention. If you only have a few hundred reads left, the cost of finishing a mediocre book isn't the hours; it's the great book that slot could have held. Mortality math is the most honest filter for your reading list.
How to read more in the time you have left
Two levers move this number: pace and selectivity. Pace is mechanical — 20 minutes a day, swapping one scroll session for a chapter, audiobooks on the commute — and small increases compound across decades. Selectivity is sharper: quit bad books without guilt, re-read the few that changed you, and choose for leverage rather than completeness. Reading isn't a race to a bigger pile; it's the highest-return way to borrow decades of someone else's thinking in a weekend. Not sure of your pace? Take the reading speed test, then see how long any book takes.
Use it as a forcing function
Run your real numbers below. When you see your lifetime total, the question stops being "should I read more?" and becomes "is this book worth one of my remaining slots?" That single reframe quietly upgrades every choice that follows.
Frequently asked
How many books does the average person read in a lifetime? At ~12 books a year over ~60 adult reading years, roughly 720 — though heavy readers reach several thousand.
How can I read more books per year? Read a fixed amount daily, abandon books that aren't earning their place, and use audiobooks for otherwise-dead time.
An average reader (12 books/year) with ~60 years of reading ahead has roughly 720 books left in their lifetime. Find your number below.
Your books-per-year figure depends on your pace: compare it with the average reading speed, and log every book you finish with a free reading log template.