Let’s Stop Caring About How Many Books We Read Per Year

Slow down. It’s not a competition.

For the past two years, I’ve set myself the challenge of reading 40 books per year.

Last year I failed, and this year Goodreads tells me I need to read 23 in the next month to meet my goal.

Yeah — not going to happen.

But I’ve stopped caring, and I wish everyone else would too.

Because surrounded by social media challenges, blog posts detailing how to consume 100 books a year, and the new self-help mantra of “read more”, we’ve forgotten one very important thing:

Reading isn’t a numbers game.

Perhaps, if we all agreed to prioritize quality over quantity, we’d be better readers (and happier ones too).

That’s what I want to unpack here, but not before starting at the root of the problem:

Why we’re feeling pressured to read more than ever before

Books are steadily becoming ‘content’.

Let’s be straight: the fact people are reading more than ever before (or so they’d have us believe) is not a bad thing.