I love reading. It gives me a pleasure that I have ceased to find in any other activity. I can't pinpoint whether it is a cause or an effect of having too much time at my hand, enjoying my own company, being terrible at social interactions, and being able to appreciate/find deeper meanings in other art forms.
Being a fan of cricket, the pointless number 'one hundred' comes with a desirous magical ring to it. About a couple of years back, I asked a friend if it would be impossible to read a hundred books in a year. The response was, "It is possible if you don't do anything else." With a decent reading speed, I thought it mustn't be so (key trait here: Asking for an opinion and then not heeding to it). I thought it would be possible to read a couple of books in a week and a target of hundred books won't be impossible.
So, I set the target for a hundred books in 2015. I was told that it was an unrealistic target but what's impossible to one who has forever been a believer of fairy-tales? I was also asked why one'd quantify something one enjoys. To be honest, I wasn't too keen on 'achieving' the target. I thought that it would be a great guiding tool to push me to read more.
While I kept enjoying my books, I also had an eye on the holy target. I set off pretty well and was only about a couple of books behind the target by the end of April. It was going quite well. But unknowingly, I was trying too hard to keep up with the target.
I started listening to an audiobook in gym. It wasn't something I did towards achieving the reading goal but I was glad to note that it counted. I don't think that I am going to change this. The repetition of the gym's playlist or the hard work involved in choosing one for myself (not that a tremendous disinterest in all music past 2000 is too helpful) is easily overcome by the novelty of an audiobook. Sure, I miss out on some bits and it's not as involving as reading a book but it's definitely better than listening to songs.
Between gym and office, I read a few pages of a chapter of the Malazan Book of the Fallen (MBOTF). Though MBOTF is a super epic high fantasy, the structure of the book (multiple PoVs ranging across times and locations/sometimes across dreams) made it difficult for me to focus. Though a part of me wants to blame MBOTF for slowing me down (10 books, 9000+ pages), it's a book series after all and in hindsight, without an annual reading target, I would have read it at a leisurely speed.
After office hours, I caught up the remaining part of the MBOTF chapter. Then, to comfort myself into sleeping, and to keep up with the reading target, I picked up an easier book before bed. I was going through three books on any given day.
In the second half of the year, after having resisted for a couple of years, I gifted myself a kindle paperwhite. I have fallen in love with it and would recommend it to anybody who reads for more than a couple of hours each day and will die if not for the feel/scent of real paper. Before my kindle purchase, I used to read on an iPad at night while my eyes watered and I had to squint them. I didn't care much but was often lambasted by the family for going to this extent (in my defense, I was just reading!).
As the year end approached, I realized that something was going horribly wrong with me. My reading habit was not a habit anymore and it had taken the form of an addiction (addict: a person who cannot stop doing or using something). If I was alone in the car, I was listening to an audiobook. I was reading even while watching TV. Given that my choice of books is mostly fantasy & sci-fi, it wasn't helping much in social interactions either. (related: I remember reading Tolkien's interview in which he was asked if his readers read newspapers or are they ones who like to live in a false world.) I was longing to get a book even while I was in the middle of an enjoyable movie. I was told by family and friends that I will reach higher levels of craziness if I continue to read like this.
In December, I complained to a friend that I am bored of books - not because they were bad books. I was actually nauseated with the act of holding a book/kindle, reading the words and making sense of them. It was not a feeling that I was akin to.
All in all, it was just another unplanned plunge in the ocean by our superhero leading to asphyxiation. It was utterly stupid to target a hundred. I'd discourage anybody to set up an unusually high number of books as a reading target and then take it up seriously. Not all books are great to read and there are many trashy ones coming your way if you read only to overcome a target.
Books are meant to enjoy. Devouring them with such ferocity that one stands the risk of getting visuals of being attacked by books is not cool. While being well-read may be cool, reading books of just one type tends to make one highly uni-dimensional. Not to forget that it is something to be done alone (unless you out to someone), and that itself suppresses one's social side.
So this year, I have resolved to ease up on reading. Also, I have decided to write a review of each finished book so that I know the book better and stay sensible longer. While I am not flexible enough to read everything that's thrown at me (embarrassing admission: I skip pages in the hunt of something eventful happening), I want to read more of history and regional language books. Here's to reading better in 2016.
Being a fan of cricket, the pointless number 'one hundred' comes with a desirous magical ring to it. About a couple of years back, I asked a friend if it would be impossible to read a hundred books in a year. The response was, "It is possible if you don't do anything else." With a decent reading speed, I thought it mustn't be so (key trait here: Asking for an opinion and then not heeding to it). I thought it would be possible to read a couple of books in a week and a target of hundred books won't be impossible.
So, I set the target for a hundred books in 2015. I was told that it was an unrealistic target but what's impossible to one who has forever been a believer of fairy-tales? I was also asked why one'd quantify something one enjoys. To be honest, I wasn't too keen on 'achieving' the target. I thought that it would be a great guiding tool to push me to read more.
While I kept enjoying my books, I also had an eye on the holy target. I set off pretty well and was only about a couple of books behind the target by the end of April. It was going quite well. But unknowingly, I was trying too hard to keep up with the target.
I started listening to an audiobook in gym. It wasn't something I did towards achieving the reading goal but I was glad to note that it counted. I don't think that I am going to change this. The repetition of the gym's playlist or the hard work involved in choosing one for myself (not that a tremendous disinterest in all music past 2000 is too helpful) is easily overcome by the novelty of an audiobook. Sure, I miss out on some bits and it's not as involving as reading a book but it's definitely better than listening to songs.
Between gym and office, I read a few pages of a chapter of the Malazan Book of the Fallen (MBOTF). Though MBOTF is a super epic high fantasy, the structure of the book (multiple PoVs ranging across times and locations/sometimes across dreams) made it difficult for me to focus. Though a part of me wants to blame MBOTF for slowing me down (10 books, 9000+ pages), it's a book series after all and in hindsight, without an annual reading target, I would have read it at a leisurely speed.
After office hours, I caught up the remaining part of the MBOTF chapter. Then, to comfort myself into sleeping, and to keep up with the reading target, I picked up an easier book before bed. I was going through three books on any given day.
In the second half of the year, after having resisted for a couple of years, I gifted myself a kindle paperwhite. I have fallen in love with it and would recommend it to anybody who reads for more than a couple of hours each day and will die if not for the feel/scent of real paper. Before my kindle purchase, I used to read on an iPad at night while my eyes watered and I had to squint them. I didn't care much but was often lambasted by the family for going to this extent (in my defense, I was just reading!).
As the year end approached, I realized that something was going horribly wrong with me. My reading habit was not a habit anymore and it had taken the form of an addiction (addict: a person who cannot stop doing or using something). If I was alone in the car, I was listening to an audiobook. I was reading even while watching TV. Given that my choice of books is mostly fantasy & sci-fi, it wasn't helping much in social interactions either. (related: I remember reading Tolkien's interview in which he was asked if his readers read newspapers or are they ones who like to live in a false world.) I was longing to get a book even while I was in the middle of an enjoyable movie. I was told by family and friends that I will reach higher levels of craziness if I continue to read like this.
In December, I complained to a friend that I am bored of books - not because they were bad books. I was actually nauseated with the act of holding a book/kindle, reading the words and making sense of them. It was not a feeling that I was akin to.
All in all, it was just another unplanned plunge in the ocean by our superhero leading to asphyxiation. It was utterly stupid to target a hundred. I'd discourage anybody to set up an unusually high number of books as a reading target and then take it up seriously. Not all books are great to read and there are many trashy ones coming your way if you read only to overcome a target.
Books are meant to enjoy. Devouring them with such ferocity that one stands the risk of getting visuals of being attacked by books is not cool. While being well-read may be cool, reading books of just one type tends to make one highly uni-dimensional. Not to forget that it is something to be done alone (unless you out to someone), and that itself suppresses one's social side.
So this year, I have resolved to ease up on reading. Also, I have decided to write a review of each finished book so that I know the book better and stay sensible longer. While I am not flexible enough to read everything that's thrown at me (embarrassing admission: I skip pages in the hunt of something eventful happening), I want to read more of history and regional language books. Here's to reading better in 2016.
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