You won’t see me signing up for 50 Books or any other reading challenges this year – or any other year either. This is why: since it’s still early in the year I was able to take a reasonably accurate count (which is to say, I looked over my Kindle books and said “Oh, yeah, I just read that one” and remembered reading something or other on paper last week too. By my count I’ve read at least ten books so far this year, plus a short story and a fashion magazine. We traveled back on January 1, so since I tend to remember where I read a book I can be reasonably sure I’m not including anything from last year. (On the other hand, I can’t remember what I read on the plane except the aforementioned magazine, and there’s probably something else I’m forgetting, which is why I said “at least” ten. The true number is most probably higher.) None of them is a reread, unless you count Allan Quatermain which I have not previously read in print but which I did listen to as an audiobook. I do take longer over some things, complex fiction or nonfiction – Lord of the Rings (bound as one volume) took me a week and Guns, Germs and Steel took two (Jared Diamond does really believe in pounding home a point.) Still, given that we’re only halfway through January, 120 or 150 or more books for the year seems likely. Or maybe not, if I spend more time reading things that take more attention. I don’t really care.
For me, a reading challenge would be something like doing a breathing challenge, or a bathing challenge: I read at any time when I’m not soing something that prohibits it, like working or sleeping – though that does include time reading blogs or online discussions as well as books. I’m going to do it every day anyway, so all a challenge would do is to add unnecessary bookkeeping. Don’t need it.
I’m not putting down reading challenges; books are so much at the core of my life that I think anything that gets people to read more is a good thing. I think they may serve an additional function, especially for women: so many women have trouble convincing themselves to spend time on something that is enjoyable or only for themselves. Reading to complete a challenge that’s a New Year’s resolution may lend it a feeling of virtue that allows them to take that time. Also, for busy people it’s so easy to get wound up in daily tasks; it may help to have some a formal structure to remind you of what’s really important to you. And of course there are people who just enjoy tracking what they read nad knowing the numbers.
There are also the other sort of reading challenges, the ones that are intended not to make you read more but to widen your horizons by making you read outside your comfort zone – the Great Books lists, or the challenge to read books by writers of color. I would feel like I’m making excuses for not doing those challenges, except that I refuse to make excuses for my reading, at all. Reading is such an escape for me that I am not willing to regiment it. I do look at those lists, though, for recommendations. I get and read the ones I think I’ll enjoy, or the ones that seem like important things to have as part of the structure of my brain. The discussion and reviews spawned by those challenges are also really helpful for figuring out what I need or want to read.
I guess this is just an area in which I feel no need for structure. I don’t even have reading goals. I do have knitting goals (and the problem is I want a bunch of stuff with deadlines to be done Right Now so I can knit other stuff). I can imagine doing a knitting challenge, but I tend to want to avoid those too on the theory that they add more stress to something that ought to be fun. I may just need to spend a bit less time online and a bit more time focused on knitting – of course, while reading.
I feel the same way about knit-alongs.