I love reading, and a year ago, I embarked on a challenge to read one book a week for a full year. At that time, I wrote this introductory paragraph:
The challenge: to read a book a week for a year. Honestly, I have been undecided about it (which bodes poorly), however considering I can lock in 18 books, give or take, through book clubs, it seemed cowardly not to go for it. At least to see how long I can go.
Now, depending on how you count them, I have finished 51 (or 49) books. This is short of my goal of 52 book, but still impressive. There were times that the challenge was easy and times that it was extremely exhausting. On reflection, I doubt I would do it again; the expectation of a book a week is just too much to be relaxing and enjoyable. However, I do think a reasonable ongoing goal for me is at least 2 books a month. More important to me going foward is to simply be able to be more selective about what I read.
A few observations from the past year:
- I started to choose reading over watching TV (at least until I became addicted to The Good Wife in April and Parks and Recreation in October).
- I read some books that I have been neglecting/avoiding.
- I purposely chose shorter books over longer ones, which on one hand meant I picked books I might not otherwise have read, but also meant I defered books that were on my “must read” list.
- I read book 1 of four separate trilogies but not books 2/3. Three in particular I wanted to complete, but didn’t because they were long books to read (see point 3). These were The Three-body problem, Leviathan Wakes, and Ancilliary Justice, and I expect I’ll go back and finish them. I also didn’t finish the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, but that’s because the first book was just plain bad. I gleefully re-read books whenever I had a good excuse, again just to be able to finish a book quickly and stay on schedule.
- I neglected heavy-reading science books (although I did manage to fit in 3 of them). This was the most significant negative impact of the reading challenge, because I really love science reading. I’ve got some backlog to make up for now.
- I chain-read, meaning I didn’t take any time off in between books. I generally take a break between books because I like to let things just sink in, and in some cases I simply need a few days to recover if the book was particulary powerful. Guy Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky was especially hard to just move on from.
- Writing a blog post about each book just upped the ante in terms of level of difficulty, but ultimate this turned out to be a good thing. Although I procrastinated a lot, writing gave me the chance to reflect on each book and helped make up for the lack of a break between each one.
- I believe I read much faster now than when I started. Interestingly, people who read less frequently and/or who read slower had a difficult time believing that I read books quickly versus speed-read by skipping words or sentences.
The complete year-long book list:
11-Nov-15 book 1 – Ancillary Justice
18-Nov-15 book 2 – The Flicker Men
25-Nov-15 book 3 – Something Wicked This Way Comes
2-Dec-15 book 4 – How to Teach Physics To Your Dog
9-Dec-15 book 5 – The Three Body Problem
16-Dec-15 book 6 – The Sisters Brothers
23-Dec-15 book 7 – Leviathan Wakes
30-Dec-15 book 8 – A Street Cat Named Bob
6-Jan-16 book 9 – Pride and Prejudice
13-Jan-16 book 10 – What the Body Remembers
20-Jan-16 book 11 – To Kill a Mockingbird
27-Jan-16 book 12 – Go Set A Watchman
3-Feb-16 book 13 – The Dispossessed
10-Feb-16 book 14 – Transgression
17-Feb-16 book 15 – Thing Explainer
24-Feb-16 book 16 – The Emperor of All Maladies; A Biography of Cancer
2-Mar-16 book 17 – The Paris Wife
9-Mar-16 book 18 – The Big Short
16-Mar-16 book 19 – Big Little Lies
23-Mar-16 book 20 – Practical Demonkeeping
30-Mar-16 book 21 – The Martian
6-Apr-16 book 22 – Linchpin
13-Apr-16 book 23 – The Dinosaur Feather
20-Apr-16 book 24 – The Illegal
27-Apr-16 book 25 – Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice
4-May-16 book 26 – Children of Earth and Sky
11-May-16 book 27 – The Robber Bride
18-May-16 book 28 – Sharp Objects
25-May-16 book 29 – Generation Loss
1-Jun-16 book 30 – Death Finds a Way
8-Jun-16 book 31 – A Captain’s Duty
15-Jun-16 book 32 – They Left Us Everything
22-Jun-16 book 33 – Ready Player One
29-Jun-16 book 34 – The Seveneves
6-Jul-16 book 35 – Lamb
13-Jul-16 book 36 – looking for alaska
20-Jul-16 book 37 – f**k it Do What You Love
27-Jul-16 book 38 – Montana 1948
3-Aug-16 book 39 – Mr. Mercedes
10-Aug-16 book 40 – The Art of War
17-Aug-16 book 41 – Station Eleven
24-Aug-16 book 42 – why does E=mc2? (and why should we care?)
31-Aug-16 book 43 – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
7-Sep-16 book 44 – How to Age
14-Sep-16 book 45 – Frankenstein
21-Sep-16 book 46 – An Illustrated book of Bad Arguments
28-Sep-16 book 47/48/49 – Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy
19-Oct-16 book 50 – Beasts of No Nation
26-Oct-16 book 51 – Cold Case Vancouver
2-Nov-16 book 52 – N/A