English textbook is one of the literatures used in teaching and learning process. English textbooks play an important role in learning language through material served in the textbooks. However, sometimes students still struggle in understanding English textbooks. The aim of this research is to find out the students’ perception on the factors that influence the students to read English textbooks and to find out the difficulties encountered by the students in understanding English textbooks. This research was conducted at English Language Education Department (ELED) of a private university in Yogyakarta. The qualitative approach was applied as a research design of this research. The research data were collected through the interview. The participants of this research were three students batch 2016 who have exposed some inputs from reading textbooks. The results of this research show that the factors influencing ELED students to read are the obligation of the students, command from the lecturer, the students’ needs, and the easy vocabulary. In addition, this research also reveals four difficulties encountered by the ELED students in undersatanding English textbooks. The difficulties found are low frequency words, time management, personal concern, low motivation, and types of reading texts.