My Year of Reading
When I was young I never liked to read. For middle school book reports I would go to the library and get the Coles Notes (i.e. summary) version of a book to spare me the pain of reading. When we had quiet time to read for leisure I would flip through the Choose Your Own Adventure book series so I could choose the most fatal path to end the story early.
My relationship with reading changed a lot in 2015 when I set a goal of reading 36 books (or 3 books per month) by the end of the year. I knew there were a lot of utilitarian reasons to read regularly so I thought setting a stretch goal would help my build the habit.
To make the process of meeting this goal as fun as possible I read whatever book piqued my curiosity and didn’t set hard rules on what types of book counted (e.g. I read Where the Wild Things Are which is a children’s book and clocked in at a whopping 37 pages, but it has wisdom and simplicity in the story that I love).
I ended the year having read 33 books (or 9,571 pages) and, although I fell a couple books short of my goal, I uncovered a new appreciation for reading that I never had before.
What I love most about reading is that it allows you to see the world through someone else’s eyes.
Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings put me in the shoes of a young black girl in Stamps, Arkansas struggling with the powerful forces of racism, sexual abuse and adolescence.
“It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense.”
Unstoppable implanted me inside the mind of Nick Vujicic — a man born with no arms and no legs yet able to cultivate mental toughness, faith and purpose to not be limited by his physical differences.
“Many people think I can’t live a normal life because I don’t have arms or legs. I could choose to believe that and give up trying. I could stay at home and wait for others to take care of me. Instead, I choose to believe that I can do anything, and I always try to do things my own way. I choose to be happy. I am happy because I am always thankful.”
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind enlightened me the perspective of a historian who believed that humans’ dominance as a species has been due to our unique ability to cooperate and use our imaginations in powerful ways.
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.”
My year of reading has taught me how much fun and challenging reading can really be. Having direct access to another person’s worldview, imagination and thought process is incredibly special and I am excited to bury myself in more books in the years ahead.
Thank you for reading and please share any book recommendations in the comments section.