On setting low goals and reading my way through the year: how I read 56 books in 2022
I read poetry and classics and spooky stories. I read books I couldn’t put down and books I immediately handed off to Riley who then read them too. I read books I found on my bookshelf that I wondered why I had kept them and once finished, I passed on, and others I’ll hold on to forever. I found books on the sidewalk and books in free libraries and I read books from the library and waited extra long for the ones from Sam Irby’s Instagram stories and those ones were always worth it. I read books that made me cry on the train and books that made me laugh out loud. Books that I could barely finish and some that I finished from starting last year. Books about religion and about writing and about culture and so many about language.
Some books felt like minutes, some took weeks, some I never wanted to end, some I will quickly pick up and read again. Those are the best kind.
I always tell my 13-year-old that the only book goal anyone should ever have is: one book. Because if you read one book per year that is a great year. But I also set my watch fitness goal for 5 calories so it congratulates me when I stand up and put my socks on in the morning. It’s not that I don’t want to be challenged, it’s that all I ever do is SO MUCH and I don’t need anyone or anything telling me that anything I did wasn’t enough. I want to keep reading because I love it and refuse to ruin it by self-imposed pressure to read more. Using this no pressure, low goal method, I read 47 books in 2021 and 56 books in 2022. Attainable goals is fun, but exceeding goals is way better.
How did I read 56 books in a year?
By reading more, I’ve becoming a better reader. Reading is a skill and it’s not like you learned how to read in school as a little kid and that’s it. You need to relearn how to read over and over. If you haven’t been a big reader since you were in 6th grade, you will need to relearn how to. This will take time. I started with audio books and books with short chapters to relearn how to read better and to work on my attention span. The books I read now, I would’ve struggled with two years ago, and would’ve been impossible for me to pick up five years ago. I got there because reading, like anything, is a practice. I’ve noticed that my attention span for everything is much better because I’m getting stronger as a reader, too, which is a great bonus.
I prioritized reading. Because I’ve come to love reading, I’ve prioritized it. Like people do with running or playing pickleball. I don’t watch tv during the week, we are screen free as a family on Sundays, and I commute on the subway twice a day and keep my phone in my pocket the whole time (unless I’m writing in a google doc, but that’s another post). Because I’d rather be reading.
Keeping a list is self-motivating. This year and last, I kept a google doc on my phone of the books I read, but this year, I added the date I finished the books. Seeing the dates was super helpful in March when I went through a slow reading month and was fun in other months when I was close to hitting four books for the month or even more, I’d sometimes use the list to push myself to read a little more. Riley kept a list too and loved being able to look back at the books she read. She rated them as she went, as well. My rating is very simple: if I finished it, I liked it. Because if I don’t like it, I ditch it.
You can’t read everything. I don’t have patience for books longer than 350 pages. I mostly like essays. I only really like novels if they were written prior to 1980. I love short chapters, probably because of my commute. I’m never going to be a person who reads through everything on the NYT bestsellers list. I love finding books in the trash. Living in the city and walking a lot, I find lots of books in free libraries or in boxes next to people’s actual trash. My best find of the year was a James Baldwin book in a Costco vodka box on the sidewalk on trash day.
The books I read in 2022 (and the date I finished each one)
But You Seemed So Happy, Kimberly Harrington (3 Jan 22)
This Will All Be Over Soon, Cecily Strong (9 Jan 22)
On Christian Liberty, Martin Luther (15 Jan 22)
The Places That Scare You, Pema Chodron (17 Jan 22)
The Plot, Jean Haneff Korelitz (29 Jan 22)
Franny and Zooey, J. D. Salinger (31 Jan 22)
I Came All This Way to Meet You, Jami Attenberg (16 Feb 22)
Dial A For Aunties, Jesse Q. Sutanto (19 Feb 22)
Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner (28 Feb 22)
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee (15 March 22)
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (24 April 22)
Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader, Vivian Gornick (10 May 22)
Steering the Craft, Ursula K. Le Guin (10 May 22)
The Word Pretty, Elisa Gabbert (13 May 22)
Raise High the Roof Beam Young Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction, J. D. Salinger (19 May 22)
Body Work, Melissa Febos (24 May 22)
Writers & Lovers, Lily King (31 May 22)
Genuine Fraud, E. Lockhart (4 June 22)
Black Joy, Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts (12 June 22)
When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East, Quan Barry (17 June 22)
The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Z. Muller (1 July 22)
1984, George Orwell (14 July 22)
Write for Your Life, Anna Quindlen (16 July 22)
How to be Perfect, Michael Schur (23 July 22)
Between Two Kingdoms, Suleika Jaouad (30 July 22)
Subtract (The Untapped Science of Less), Leidy Klotz (5 August 22)
Scrum: Jeff Sutherland (19 August 22)
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (25 August 22)
All of This, Rebecca Woolf (28 Aug 22)
A Man Without A Country, Kurt Vonnegut (29 Aug 22)
I Hope This Finds You Well: Poems, Kate Baer (30 Aug 22)
All of Us, Raymond Carver (9 Sept 22)
Shake Loose My Skin, Sonia Sanchez (12 Sept 22)
Little Rabbit, Alyssa Songsiridej (19 Sept 22)
Intimations, Zadie Smith (24 Sept 22)
The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron (25 Sept 22)
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (28 Sept 22)
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli (2 Oct 22)
One Step Too Far, Lisa Gardner (5 Oct 22)
How We Live Is How We Die, Pema Chodron (15 Oct 22)
The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (16 Oct 22)
Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (20 Oct 22)
Olga Dies Dreaming, Xochitl Gonzalez (25 Oct 22)
Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America, anthology edited by Margarita Longoria (27 Oct 22)
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (9 Nov 22)
Letters to a Young Writer, Colum McCann (13 Nov 22)
Dolores Claiborne, Stephen King (18 Nov 22)
I Never Thought of it That Way, Monica Guzman (21 Nov 22)
Do Nothing, Celeste Headlee (30 Nov 22)
The Crane Wife, CJ Hauser (7 Dec 22)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut (10 Dec 22)
Down and Out In Paris and in London, George Orwell (15 Dec 22) (part of my Didion project)
Tranquility by Tuesday, Laura Vanderkam (22 Dec 22)
Start Where You Are, Pema Chodron (23 Dec 22)
Speedboat, Renata Adler (28 Dec 22) (part of my Didion Project)
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (28 Dec 22)
