The library hold system nobody explains, and how to actually use it

For years I put myself on the waitlist for one popular book at a time and then waited months, watching my position tick down one at a time, wondering why other people seemed to get books faster than me.

The trick librarians use themselves: hold ten to fifteen books at once, mostly things you're mildly curious about rather than desperately want, and let the queue sort itself out. Popular new releases might take four months. A well-reviewed book from two years ago that nobody's thinking about right now might arrive in four days. You are never without something to read, and you stop feeling the wait on any single title because six other holds are also in motion.

The second trick is pausing holds you're not ready for instead of canceling them. Most library systems let you freeze your place in line for weeks at a time, so a hold you requested during a reading slump doesn't expire and force you to start over at the back of the queue once you're reading again.

I went from finishing about twelve books a year to over fifty using nothing but this — no faster reading, no extra hours, just never running out of momentum between books.