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Against Counting the Books You Read (www.theatlantic.com)

submitted 10 months ago by Blaze@lemm.ee to c/fiction@literature.cafe

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[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping track of what you've read but that often seems (to me) to lead to things like 'reading challenges' etc.

I remember back on the corporate alien site on r/books some OP proudly relating how many books they'd read this year and the whole thread became this game of one upmanship of who'd read the most books, who could read the fastest, targets for the upcoming year etc etc. Not one comment mentioned if they'd actually enjoyed any of these books.

When the fuck did reading become a competitive sport? Honestly, my single aim when reading is to enjoy the books I read. If a book takes me 2 days to read or 2 weeks I don't give a shit. If that means I read less books that year then so what?

So, yeah, record them by all means, review them on a BookWyrm instance by all means but beyond that, just enjoy the book with no pressure.

[–] Eq0@literature.cafe 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I’m a competitive person by nature and I have to force myself to not keep track of how much I read. It’s silly, I like reading, I see no added benefits to reading “more”, I’d rather read more interesting things, even if slower. But if I keep too much track of my Goodreads account, I start competing with myself from last year and… it makes no sense! But little numbers growing is such a primal push.

[–] Mickey@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

The article just feels all weird. I’m not sure why there is such a strong push for/against keeping track of the books you read. It’s just a statistic like any other. Some enjoy it and others don’t, but it feels like each group is trying to convince the other they’re wrong for no real reason.

I personally keep track of books on Goodreads and write reviews for every one. I forget things and writing my thoughts down works for me, and it’s kinda neat to see the books I’ve read that year.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I finish like two books a year so that says a fair bit about me, in that my habit is giving out to myself for not reading more.

[–] bogdugg@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I think a goal can be okay as a rough benchmark for how much you would like to be reading generally. It's when the goal works to the detriment of your own enjoyment that it's an issue. I don't bother counting because I'm reading at a pace that works for me currently.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah I don't know that I enjoy many books at all, it's usually that I want to have read them not that I want to read them

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I read a lot of books. Literally nobody cares.

Many of them - perhaps even more than half of them are the sort of light reading that once upon a time would have been dismissed by more serious readers as pulp fiction. Somehow, reading literally anything these days makes me some super intellectual.

Whatever. I just like stories. Some of them are acclaimed as great reads. Some of them have been self published on the Kindle store and I feel like one of the only people who read it. No matter, I like them all!

I like people recording their books on sites like bookwyrm and Goodreads. If we both read and liked Series-A and Series-B, and you read/liked Series-C, which I hadn't heard of, I'll give it a try.