Reading Goals

Wow ... and I thought my goal of 150 books in a year was ambitious! But yesterday I read a Slate article by Jeff Ryan. His 2012 goal was 366 books - and he achieved it. Sort of. That total did include (according to one estimate I saw) 122 full-length comics/graphic novels, as well as an unspecified number of audio books.

And I take issue with the audio books in particular. Not the format itself, per se, just the inclusion of them as books read. Different people have different learning styles, and some people may absorb more from the audio version of a book than from struggling through the print form. Personally, I'm not the best listener to begin with, and I find audio books painfully slow when I could get through well over 600 words a minute on my own. But most of all, by definition, "reading" is looking at (or feeling, if you're blind) and interpreting printed characters. Hearing an audio version of a books is listening - NOT reading. The characters are already decoded and, to an extent (by vocal tone), also interpreted for you. I won't say it's a wrong way to consume a book ... but I am adamant that it is not reading.

Graphic novels/comics is a bit greyer area for me. To be honest, my own grand total of 158 books last year included a dozen or so children's books ... and two full-length comics: an Archie novella and a Dennis the Menace collection. (Naturally I didn't include any short comic books; neither would I ever include any magazines although I can easily spend multiple hours on some.) At least graphic books are still books and you are still reading. They're certainly not high literature, but there's nothing wrong with a little fluff and pure enjoyment in your reading diet either. I guess it comes down to an issue of guilt, actually; I feel I should have spent at least a minimal amount of time on a book for it to really "count" or be significant and worthy of inclusion in such a list. Unfortunately on Goodreads there is no way of adding a book to your record but not including it in the reading challenge total. My own solution for this year is to set a substantially lower goal - somewhere between 75 and 100 books - and to just know within myself that, if I do exceed it, there were likely some shorter volumes padding the numbers but I at least read a minimal number of "real" books - ones 100 pages plus at the very least.

And I would surmise that, excluding the comics and audio books, that's probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of what Jeff Ryan actually read last year too. After all, like most people he does have a life with a job and family he can't neglect. The biggest asset I see in the whole reading goal setting process isn't the end number anyway. It's the fact that you are prioritising reading, saying you want to make it a significant part of your life and committing to do it on a regular basis. Ryan gave up listening to music and playing video games, as well as severely limiting his movie/TV viewing. It's all about choices, and he deliberately chose to make reading an important activity. Whether he read 100 or 300 books by year's end is almost irrelevant. The choice to read more is what matters, and it's a choice most people could benefit from making as well.