We’re halfway through the year! It’s like I blinked and it was suddenly June. This year has been…a lot and that’s fine. There has been good and bad, but we’re still here and that counts for something.
I can’t remember if I shared this already, but my reading goal for the year was to read 25 books. Why 25? Because 50 sounded like too much. As aspirational and as much as I want to be able to read 50 or more books in a year, I needed to be realistic about it too. I’m doing a lot of reading for research purposes and so I’m including those books in my 25 as well. If I go over 25, great, and if I don’t that’s fine. The goal is really loose and not something I put too much pressure on myself about. The point of the goal was just to hold myself accountable for learning and growing and to motivate myself to read. I love reading and have for many years. Keeping up with non-school related reading has always been a challenge, understandably so. While my coursework reading has simply been replaced with research reading, being at home more does give me more space for reading and I’ve definitely taken advantage of it.
I’m halfway to my goal which is exciting. As I mentioned, this does include some school reading and some things that maybe traditionally some might not consider reading, but I believe a book is a book. In other words, I’ve read a few really great graphic novels that are on the list. If I’ve learned anything this year from consuming various book related content it is that you should determine what is a book and how you want to ‘count’ it if you’re keeping track. So this is me telling you to do what you want.
I’ve been keeping a good mix of fiction and non-fiction which was something I wanted to be very intentional about. I didn’t plan out my reading list because I believe in serendipity so I just read based largely on what I feel and what deadlines are looming over my head. It’s more fun that way and I don’t have to do something or read something that I don’t want to. Life is too short for books that aren’t good. So if you’re reading something and you don’t like it, move on.
For people who care about tracking things, tracking books read and other ancillary statistics is a whole thing. Lately I’ve just taken to using Book Buddy and then writing them down in the various journals that I have going. Why is it thought that I as a person who loves apps doesn’t use Goodreads? Well, I don’t really need it. I don’t really care to know what other people have read and if I do, they’ve probably talked about it somewhere on the internet so I can just find it there. Also, Goodreads is UGLY. I’m considering using StoryGraph, a much better looking book tracker, but it’s not something I’m worried about.
In an additional post I’ll share my thoughts on some of the individual books that I’ve read so far and will in the future add them to my ‘What I’m Doing Now’ posts.
I’d love to know what books you’re reading! You can always comment on this post or just send me a message anywhere.
Read on!
