Personally, I am trying to read 15 books this year and mix in more non-fiction books.
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I never set any book reading goals with respect to number of books to read. My goal is always to enjoy reading the books as much as possible. Number of books read is of no consequence to me.
I’ve fallen off with reading much of this year (life has been so hectic), so I’d like to make a manageable goal of finishing a book every other month next year. Even if it’s just a novella, it would be nice to get back into it.
I plan on reading several.
This is the first year where I’ve decided not to have any reading goals. It isn’t work, it’s pleasure. I don’t have video game goals, or cloud watching goals, so why book goals? This year, I will read when I feel like reading!
I stopped setting book completion target goals when I realized I was choosing shorter books to hit my target. I then switched to a page-count goal for the next year, but that didn’t survive January. (Too much paperwork.)
In the genres I read most (progression fantasy and LitRPG), some of the books are massive web serials, like one “book” this year was ~18K pages. I’m still only about ¾ done since I took a break to read a few shorter series.
Now, my only real goal is to read every day (4 years+ and it’s effortless, now) and to try to read at least one non-fiction book/month. (Fell behind on that one this year; life got busy/stressful, so I’ve been reading exclusively “popcorn fiction” for the last 4 months.)
Also, I read a lot (100-300 pages/day, typically), so one non-fiction/month I don’t count as a reading target; it’s just about diversifying my reading and doing some self betterment/education/professional development.
I like the idea of the goal being to read every day, even if it is a bit. I might try that this year!
Hopefully less than this year. I’m reading too many (100+) and that’s reflecting in my reduced time on actual work (self-employed).
100+ is very impressive! It sounds like you essentially finish a book every 3-4 days to get those numbers. How you keep that up consistently? I feel like I can do that for a month or two and then tend to need a break before picking up more.
I mostly read fantasy and sci-fi, which tend to have multiple books in a series. If they are easy-to-read and short (300-400 pages per book), it becomes easy to consume. Also, I read for escapism, so I don’t read too closely.
Out of interest, what do you mean ‘you don’t read too closely’?
When I was younger, I’d read slowly, trying to visualize the setting, keep track of character preferences, look up words I don’t know, etc. I’d remember a book well enough to talk about it even a year or so after.
These days, I just skim over descriptions and read as fast as I could while still getting the main plot. I get attached to characters only if the book is really good and savor them during rereads.
Ah thanks for clarifying. Would you not say that reading it slower would be the more enjoyable method? If you’re after escapism, wouldn’t it be better to engage yourself fully in the plot? At least for me, I find escapism works best when I’m fully immersed in the story’s world and characters. What you’ve described sounds more akin to someone skimming a research paper.
True, perhaps a case of doing too much of anything over a long period ;)
Well I hope you’re able to slow down the pace a bit (assuming that’s what you want)!
Gave myself a target of 70 books this year and I’m at 68 now and will finish a book in a day or so. But I did notice I was looking at how many pages were in a book and how long that was going to take to read and put bigger books on the back burner. So next year I’ll halve it and be more inclusive of the bigger tomes.
I usually stick to shorter books due to my attention span, but that’s a good approach to tackle bigger tomes. What kind of genre do you like?
I must admit I’m struggling to read for anything longer than an hour at a time so I think I like the idea of reading larger books but in practice it might not pan out.
