Does it Matter How Many Books You read in a Year?
Perhaps now is the time to start prioritising quality over quantity
Having a list of books you want to read, or even a number of books as a target to read in a year, can help us stay on track and help form a reading habit — sometimes. But this pressure to read a certain amount of books in a given amount of time can turn reading into a chore rather than an enjoyable hobby.
If you’re on Goodreads and use the reading challenge, you’ll know how it will say you are ‘behind schedule’ if you’re not reading enough books per month to meet your yearly challenge. It can be depressing to log on, only to get a telling off. But above all, it can make you feel like you’re not reading enough. It can make you feel inadequate and want to give up reading altogether.
We live in a world which always prioritises more over less, in any capacity. But this focus on reading solely in terms of how much we can get through may obscure the value and enjoyment we should get from reading in the first place. When I was younger, I used to whizz through books and get a real thrill from it. Nowadays, as my reading is more of a snail pace, I’m trying to see the value in quality instead of quantity.
