How can I promote content by number of hits (reads)?
The near defacto solution for this is the Radioactivity module:


  This module provides a field type which can be used as a hotness
  metric or a regular view counter for entities and for much much more.
  In essense, entities receiving attention (views or actions defined by
  Rules) are heated while inactive ones slowly cool down.


As opposed to straight pageviews, this uses an algorithm to take activity-over-time into account.  With straight statistics / counts, an old page with low activity per day can perpetually stay at the top of lists because it slowly accumulates statistics.

Radioactivity takes time into account, so that your newer pages can appear at the top when appropriate, and then roll off at the appropriate time.  It relies on Rules, but integrates nicely with Views, for building the lists of things (either pages or blocks).