When the end-of-the-year book lists started to roll out in early and mid-December, I was baffled. Do these people not read for the last three weeks of the year?
Maybe some people actually enjoy the time spent around family and friends during the holidays, and don’t try to shut out everything with a book. Or maybe they don’t finish their last book of the year an hour before the ball drops. I don’t mean to judge; I just feel like I’m weeks late to this game when it’s only January 3.
I read a lot of books in 2019 relative to years past. I started keeping track in 2018, the first full year I wasn’t in school, and read 20. This year, I read 47. (Not bad, considering one of them was The Count of Monte Fucking Cristo. What a journey we shared, Edmond.)
Of course, it’s not about the number. I’m proud that I was more committed to reading this year, but I was also unemployed for five months. The first few months were by choice, but then I realized the media industry is not all that friendly! It seems they fire more than they hire. Though, considering I’ve been out of work so long, maybe my number should be higher than 47. What else have I been doing for five months?! I couldn’t tell you another productive thing I have accomplished.
Though I harbor a small bit of stupid, arrogant pride (and a more significant chunk of shame), most of what I feel is genuine pride and accomplishment. Not over the number (47 isn’t really that many – have you seen how many books some of those critics and bloggers go through?!), but because I forced myself, month after month, to build this habit. Slowly, painfully, it has become easier to focus, engage, and actually find pleasure in reading again.
When I was a kid, I used to tear through books; my mom could never borrow enough from the library to hold me for the week. I would wake up on Saturday morning, curl up on the futon in our game room, and read an entire book (one with chapters and 100+ pages!) from cover to cover in one sitting. Then, like most kids, school happened and depression kicked in and by college I was unable to do anything except stare blankly at the TV.
It has been a long road finding my way back to reading for pleasure. And the thing is, it’s not always pleasurable. Sometimes all I want to do is lie on the floor and gaze at the ceiling in silence for 12 hours. Sometimes I do. But I know reading is one of my passions. I know finding connection and wonder in stories invigorates and inspires me. Even if I’m too numb to feel it that day, I have to continue with the practice.
So, I force myself to read. I set goals for myself. It may sound like I’m sucking the fun and whimsy out of reading, but I’m doing this to help reading feel natural again, so I can fall back in love with it.
A few years ago, I couldn’t (and didn’t really want to) focus on a book. I mean, I wanted to, deep inside, but depression only allowed me to sleep and daydream. By making reading a habit and forcing myself to practice it, almost like a sport, I’ve gotten better. I can sit down and read for hours now. Comfortably. Happily.
Whenever my parents call and ask what I’m doing and I say “reading,” they grow very silent and judgmental, then ask how many jobs I’ve applied to that day. (A fair question, but when it’s 9 p.m. and you’ve spent the past eight hours job-hunting, your brain is basically mush.)
For them, and probably many others, reading is a leisure activity. It can be, of course, but it’s also a discipline. And as a writer/editor who maybe wants to go into the lit industry one day, reading is important. If I was going to put a number on my leisure time, I’d look at how many TV series I binge-watched, how many cookies or brownies or late-night Dutch babies I baked for myself, how many mornings I slept in past 10 a.m. (It was a lot.)
No, reading isn’t as direly important as having a job and earning money. But putting that practice into place was one of the best things I did for myself in 2019. I have a longer attention span and much improved focus. And I learned a ton of cool and interesting things!!
Honestly, my goal was one book a week – 52 books – but work took over during the spring. I got behind and considered quitting when I hadn’t even read 10 books in five months, but I came back. I looked at all the books on my shelf that have been in my TBR pile for years and started picking up one at a time. Classics I owned but had never read, early 2010s hits I took from my parents’ house, and of course some new releases I found at bookstores while driving across the country.
47. My goal for 2020 is 60. (I’ve also started a Goodreads account if you care to know what I’m reading in real time.) I’m in a far better reading groove now than I was a year ago, but I’m also hoping I’ll be employed soon and won’t spend another five months doing nothing except reading, so… we’ll see.
- Atonement by Ian McEwan
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee
- Tom Clancy’s True Faith and Allegiance by Mark Greaney
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
- Island by Aldous Huxley
- The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
- Get Your Sh*t Together by Sarah Knight
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
- How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
- Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut,
- The Art of Vanishing: A Memoir of Wanderlust by Laura Smith
- The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson
- Yes Please by Amy Poehler
- Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin
- The Trouble With Being Born by E.M. Cioran
- Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
- Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
- Old School by Tobias Wolff
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
- Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
- A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir
- Presentimiento: A Life in Dreams by Harrison Candelaria Fletcher
- Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
- Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
- Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered by Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
- The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West
- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
- We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
- Calypso by David Sedaris
