How to get the most out of the Bible with just one reading?

I grew up Catholic but lost my faith in teenage years. Regardless, the Bible has been very influential until this day and it has some pretty neat stories. I now want to read the Bible seriously. I have never read the whole text and I have no idea how to. But I believe that reading it *sequentially* from cover to cover is *not* the standard approach although this is generally how I approach other books. I realize that Bible reading guidelines may differ depending on the interests of the reader. I want to 1) get the *general idea of the stories* in the Bible and 2) to *understand the internal (perhaps literary?) references in the text*. I understand that the Bible has a lot of internal references which I might not pick up on my first reading. Regardless, **I am looking for guidelines on how to read the Bible so I can achieve the above 2 goals with *just one reading***. By the way, "Do not read the whole text, rather focus on [...]" is also an answer I am willing to consider.