Resolutions
Happy new year!
One of my resolutions — surprise surprise — has to do with reading. I finished 57 books in 2019. At the same time, I actively avoided tomes such as Gnomon or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell because I knew committing the time to those books would mean walking away with a lower overall number.
So this year, instead of counting books, I’m counting pages. I’m aiming for 20,200 (so 2020 with an extra zero), which makes longer books more enticing because I read faster the deeper I get in a book. This comes out to 55 pages per day… which may not be entirely realistic… or maybe it is. Who knows? I guess I’ll have a better sense after the first month.
And now… back to my book.
What are your resolutions?
5 comments
That’s a really cool way of measuring your reading! You’re right that otherwise the longer books can get overlooked.
It’s interesting how setting goals affects people differently. I have done reading challenges through Goodreads the past few years where I’ve set goals to read a certain number of books, and it’s never impacted my choice of books to read. Maybe because I’m just not that competitive and don’t really care whether I meet my goal? I don’t know.
I don’t make resolutions anymore. I stopped a couple of years after having my twin sons because I got tired of setting goals I never achieved. To me, resolutions feel like setting myself up for failure.
No, no, no, no, no! I can’t imagine setting a page target. How do you count it – paperback, hardback, e-book etc? It doesn’t compute. Also, a small but dense book can be much harder to read (ie require more attention) than a long, trashy one. I was surprised when Goodreads informed me that one of the easiest and quickest books I read last year was also the longest.
But if it works for you, good luck! I’ve set a Goodreads target, but have kept it much lower than my number this year, because I want it to be realistic! At least we’re both reading more than we expected, and most importantly, enjoying it.
I don’t set targets, because reading isn’t an assignment. It’s fun. Fun does not require a goal to be met.
However, regardless of whether or not I choose to participate in their nonsense, Goodreads kindly keeps track of how many books I log. I read A LOT of romance novels this year, putting my annual total at something like 77 or so. It also does not count any of those books I try to read and give up on, so that’s nice too.
Keeping track of pages read sounds like a huge amount of work. Good luck to you!
Wow! Go, you!
I don’t really have a resolution. Maybe just to keep up with the things I do that work for me.