![]() My favorite summer memories from past years involve dragging a fat hardcover down to the beach, dozing off between chapters on my towel: books like Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies. ![]() I love big, sprawling novels and wish I’d made time to read more of them in 2019. ![]() But when I found myself stuck in a 700-page tome for three weeks, the next few books I picked off the nightstand pile had significantly fewer pages. I also never thought I’d select a shorter book simply because it would take less time to read. The pressure to finish books sucked some of the day-to-day joy out of my reading life. I bolted through short story anthologies cover to cover, most of which I ordinarily would’ve thumbed through, reading only the stories with openings that piqued my interest. So I wound up finishing several books I felt lukewarm about from the very first chapters. And the thought of that sent my Type A brain into a tailspin. I didn’t want to fall behind-like I said, Goodreads will tell you when you do. Why waste time on a book I don’t love, trudging through to reach an ending that won’t satisfy? But reading a book a week made it harder to justify abandonment. In the past, I’ve always felt at peace with abandoning a book before finishing it. But morning reading? I’m all for it, and for the tone it sets for the rest of my day.Īs the year progressed, I read several books I wasn’t wild about. I’ve never been able to read before bed because I fall asleep mid-page. Instead of lighting up my phone screen the moment I woke up in the morning, I’d open a book instead, reading on the couch with my first cup of coffee. I liked my new reading pace, making haste with books. To track my progress, I used the Goodreads Reading Challenge, which informs you when you’re ahead of schedule, on track, or behind on your reading goal. I started out strong, finishing four books in January, then five in February. Plus, I liked the way it felt in principle: If I stayed on track, not only would I get a clean slate at the start of the work week, I’d get a second clean slate in cracking open a new book. Surely I could handle 12 more titles than I’d read the year before. I was intrigued by the 52 books in 52 weeks reading challenge I’d seen on Nicole Zhu’s blog. I wanted to catch up with my own compulsive bookstore purchases and watch that pile on my nightstand shrink even more rapidly. Moving into 2019, I resolved to raise my reading goal. I set my first annual reading goal at 40 books, finishing the final page of book number 40 before the ball dropped that New Year’s Eve. ![]() The outer accountability of habit tracking has helped me form healthier routines and utilize my time more wisely. For a while, I even tracked the minutes I wasted on social media (I don’t recommend this-it’s too depressing). I’d jumped on the habit-tracking train before: daily words written, weekly miles run. So, in an effort to maintain positive habits after graduation, I decided to track my reading. My writing professors touted the importance of students reading thousands of books before taking a stab at penning their own. I’ve loved books since I was a kid, but I didn’t identify as a voracious reader until grad school.
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