Thoughts after 10 years...
…of keeping track of my reading. My Goodreads profile covers what books I have read since January, 2006. So I've now been keeping track for 10 years. In that time I read 499 books. (Neurotics will wonder how I could have settled for that, rather than getting to 500.) For several of those years I ended each year with a brief report/summary of my reading for that year. (These are posted under my "Writing," but I'm not sure if those are "visible" in the way the "blog" is, so I'm switching to this.)
Keeping track of one's reading introduces odd incentives to the process of choosing books to read. Some of these are positive. For example, by looking back each year I realized early-on that I was not reading many books by women or minorities, so I tried to adjust to that. But it also creates an incentive to read shorter books (so that your total number of books can increase). And, in general, it makes you more aware, through the "bookshelf" function, of what types-topics of books you read. All these factors can create a sort of paralysis when choosing the NEXT book to read. You begin to feel like your choice of books creates a story about you. But then you become subject to writer's block--not knowing where you want to go from here. While it should really be true that it doesn't matter, somehow keeping track of all this suggests that it does matter. And you then want to "get it right."
I have a somewhat similar experience in listening to music. I generally only listen to music in the basement, where I specifically go to listen to music. I don't do this often, and the times I do this are rather precious. I have a lot of cd's, so there is a lot to choose from. In that case I don't feel like I am telling any story about myself, certainly no public story about myself. But the need to choose can seem paralyzing. When I run I occasionally listen to my i-pod. Then it is a relief to set it on random play--I know I like all the music, and I'm glad not to have to choose. Perhaps this is one attraction of music-streaming services--you can count on liking the music without having to choose it. (But I have other reasons for disliking music-streaming--mainly that artists are vastly underpaid.)
So, back to books: What to read next? I suppose all serious readers deal with this to some extent. But to the question of what do I WANT to read next, Goodreads does add the question who do I want to BE as a reader. And that complicates things.
I'd be interested in your thoughts about this.
Happy New Year of reading!
Keeping track of one's reading introduces odd incentives to the process of choosing books to read. Some of these are positive. For example, by looking back each year I realized early-on that I was not reading many books by women or minorities, so I tried to adjust to that. But it also creates an incentive to read shorter books (so that your total number of books can increase). And, in general, it makes you more aware, through the "bookshelf" function, of what types-topics of books you read. All these factors can create a sort of paralysis when choosing the NEXT book to read. You begin to feel like your choice of books creates a story about you. But then you become subject to writer's block--not knowing where you want to go from here. While it should really be true that it doesn't matter, somehow keeping track of all this suggests that it does matter. And you then want to "get it right."
I have a somewhat similar experience in listening to music. I generally only listen to music in the basement, where I specifically go to listen to music. I don't do this often, and the times I do this are rather precious. I have a lot of cd's, so there is a lot to choose from. In that case I don't feel like I am telling any story about myself, certainly no public story about myself. But the need to choose can seem paralyzing. When I run I occasionally listen to my i-pod. Then it is a relief to set it on random play--I know I like all the music, and I'm glad not to have to choose. Perhaps this is one attraction of music-streaming services--you can count on liking the music without having to choose it. (But I have other reasons for disliking music-streaming--mainly that artists are vastly underpaid.)
So, back to books: What to read next? I suppose all serious readers deal with this to some extent. But to the question of what do I WANT to read next, Goodreads does add the question who do I want to BE as a reader. And that complicates things.
I'd be interested in your thoughts about this.
Happy New Year of reading!
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