He encourages people to be active readers

With more and more books, but no more time in the day or year, what's a poor bibliophile to do?

Steve Leveen thinks he has the answer. In his new book, ''The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life: How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life From Your Books," Leveen proposes a strategy for falling, and staying, in ''book love." He has been touring the country and giving short talks to advocate his strategy.

''I have a missionary zeal for this," said Leveen, 50, during an interview just before a talk at the Boston Public Library. Millions of Americans can read perfectly well but are not on fire about books. There's a misconception that people who read a lot absent themselves from life. I say the contrary is true: People who read actively and vigorously lead larger lives, engage more with life."

It would seem to be an unusual mission for the CEO of a $70 million company. In 1987, Leveen and his wife, Lori, cofounded Levenger, the mail-order retailer of ''tools for serious readers." They were living in Belmont, not having much fun in their high-tech careers. ''We always wanted to start a business together," Leveen said, so they decided to try mail-order. They began with a single product -- a halogen reading lamp -- and placed a tiny ad in The New Yorker. To their amazement, they got 400 calls and Levenger (the name combines Leveen's and his wife's last name, Granger) was on its way.

Today the company, based in Delray Beach, Fla., sells lighting, desk organizers, stationery, furniture, briefcases, and clocks, by mail (and Internet) and through retail stores, including one in Boston. It's also a publisher, with 13 books including ''The Little Guide."

But even with business success, Leveen says that something was missing. ''I wanted to repair my ill-read life," he said. ''Despite college and graduate school [he has a doctorate in sociology] and being a merchant to serious readers, I wasn't a serious reader myself." He decided to seek a strategy: ''I interviewed scores of readers, including journalists, librarians, reviewers, booksellers, editors, and writers and asked them how they read." Then he read Mortimer Adler's classic ''How to Read a Book," and other books like it, and eventually came up with his own approach.

Following that strategy in the past dozen years, he said, has transformed his life: ''I feel as though my life went from black-and-white to Technicolor."

The Leveen program is not complicated. Some of the elements:

Decide what you're deeply interested in, and assemble a list of the best books -- what Leveen calls ''the library of candidates" -- on that subject, and then acquire the books.

''I ask people to make a list of five things they're interested in," he said, ''and then ask them if they know the best books on that subject. They say, well, no. These are smart people, yet why don't they select their reading that way? There's such an overabundance of books that people throw up their hands. But I advocate taking an active role, becoming an athlete of reading instead of a spectator."

Leveen says he has two sections in his library: the library of candidates and the living library, or books he has finished and enjoyed.

Don't feel obligated to finish a book.

''This is a tremendous barrier to people," he said. ''They think there's something wrong with them" if they don't want to finish a book. ''I say if you want to feel guilty, feel guilty about not giving up on three books in a summer. That just means you have sampled more books. If it doesn't float your boat in the first 50 pages, give it the heave-ho."

Listen to audiobooks.

''There's a prejudice against audiobooks as not being real reading, and that is as wrong as it can be," Leveen said. ''Audiobooks are a wonderful experience that is unique to our age. They're just an adaptation of storytelling, which has been around for thousands of years. In some cases, an audiobook is a better literary experience than a printed book."

Join or start a book discussion group.

Leveen says 90 percent of book group participants are women, so he started one for men, which meets every two months. It can be a way of encountering new books, recommended by others, that one might not normally try, and makes reading more of a social experience. ''Reading well is a contact sport," he said.

There's no daunting recommended reading in Leveen's ''Little Guide." He isn't Professor Gradgrind, telling you you're not educated unless you've read the books on his list. He admits he hasn't read Homer's ''Iliad" or ''Odyssey," but they and Plutarch's ''Lives" are on his candidate shelf.

''In my world," he said, ''it's not what books, or how many books, you have read that matters." The goal is ''the condition of being entranced with a book. If someone asks you, 'Are you reading anything great right now?' and you answer, 'Yes, it's this wonderful book, and you should get a copy,' then you're in book-love. The well-read life is about how much you can be in that state."

David Mehegan can be reached at mehegan@globe.com.