This quantitative study investigates two objectives: to identify what motivates university students to engage in reading beyond academic tasks, and to examine how these reading habits influence their learning interest. The participants were 23 English Department students at University of Muhammadiyah Aceh, selected through purposive sampling. Data were gathered using a Likert-scale questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics for the first research question and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation for the second. The results show that students are driven to read by intrinsic factors such as enjoyment, curiosity, and personal development. In addition the results show that students are mainly motivated to read because they enjoy it, are curious, and want to learn more. Also, the findings indicate a strong positive connection between how often students read and how interested they are in learning (r = 0. 797, p < 0. 05). This means that students who read regularly and with a clear purpose are more excited about learning. The data suggests that building good reading habits can help increase students' learning interest, academic engagement and overall learning motivation.