Ah, the eternal question: How many books should I read in a year? This post has been stewing in my mind for longer than I’ve had this blog, which is almost four years now (!). I have no set answer to this question that has plagued me for a long time, certainly since I started writing about and working with books on a professional and public level: How many books do you read each year? How many books should you read each year? I’m going to spoil my post for you: I have no one-size fits all answer for this, and the one you might be thinking–as much as possible—is not necessarily the answer I am advocating. Instead, I’m going to look at this question from a personal standpoint, and we will try to find an answer to this nagging question.
How Many Books Should I Read? A Personal History
I look at my reading life Before and After College. When I was a kid, I read every spare minute. I would wake up extra early on purpose and fit some reading time in before my mom told us it was time to get ready for school. I’d juggle books walking from the library up the street. Things didn’t really quiet down through high school, either. I remember copying and pasting the texts of classic books I found for free online into Word documents, then printing them out so I could read during my classes. I walked through the halls with Beowulf squarely in front of my face. I read every spare minute I could.
Reading Years 2011, 2012, and 2013: Emerging from the English Major sweatshop
In college, I majored in English. I did a concentration in 18th and 19th century British literature, which meant tackling huge tomes by Dickens, Eliot, Stoker, and others. By the time I graduated in May 2011, I was completely burned out. I loved majoring in English, and it was worth every late-night skimming session. My intentions were to do an MFA program in Creative Nonfiction or a PhD in English somewhere. But the economy had tanked, and I spent most of 2011 trying to find full-time work. At the same time, I was trying to remember how to read for pleasure. That first year out of college, I read just seven books. Most of my selections were at random, just things I pulled off the library shelf that looked interesting. I didn’t have any intention that year behind how many books I read. I just did it.
The next year, 2012, I started to take reading a little more seriously. I finished six books that year. I had also moved away from home to another county where I knew nobody beyond my coworkers at the company where I worked. I went to the library more often to find some kind of companionship, and I found that in books and bookstores, too. I started a note on my iPhone to keep track of what I read. At that time, reading wasn’t so big a part of my life yet, so I wasn’t really nerding out on Goodreads yet. Still, I read more than last year with my “12 in 2012” challenge and set a “13 in 2013” challenge for the year ahead—and won it.
By 2013, I had switched jobs and was now commuting to Philadelphia twice every weekday. The train provided another opportunity to fit more reading time in, and since I longed to do something more bookish than admin work, I found escapism in books. I also became more devoted to writing fiction, but by the end of the year, I felt like I had hit a wall creatively. I decided that I needed to read more, to expand my knowledge of the best writing.
After all, the best education you can get if you’re a writer is to read, read, read… widely and with hunger. (This is still, of course, the very best advice of all for writers who want to improve their writing, develop a voice, and be clued into what is being published. There’s no substitution: reading is the best education a writer can ever have.)
As 2013 drew to a close, I felt the best way to work through that creative block was to spend the next year reading as much as I can. I heard about the holy grail reading target of 52 books in a year, or a book a week. I would make that my goal for 2014. And that’s when everything changed.
Reading Year 2014: The 52 challenge in a year of bookish change
The year of 2014 was when everything changed for me. I had never been great at New Year’s resolutions, but I was totally committed to the 52 books goal. If only I could read that many books in a year, I thought, I would be well read. So I threw myself into it. And over the course of the year, some other adjacent choices that transformed my life. I became more disabled by bipolar disorder than I had been before, and the bleak, squeezing depression cut down on my enthusiasm for anything. Yet what I was drawn to was books, an interest that had never failed me and that had recently blossomed into a new professional opportunity to review books for Kirkus Reviews.
Even though I had set my goal for 52 books, I fell behind some weeks, but I found my motivation again after finishing some all-star amazing books, like The Goldfinch. Bolstered by my guiding passion for reading, I took a chance and applied to library science graduate school. I got in, left my full-time job, and started working as an intern at the University of Pennsylvania’s Van Pelt Library. Then, tragically, my cat died from a heart attack, and that pushed me into an even bleaker depression, causing me to quit my internship and work from home as a freelance writer and editor. And I started this blog as a school project that quickly grew into something more. Still, despite the depression, books endured. I finished the 52 book challenge on New Year’s Eve and felt a rush of accomplishment. After taking a young adult services elective that fall that required you to read 41 books in a semester, I was feeling ready to take on a bigger challenge in 2015: 150 books.
Reading Years 2015 and 2016: Existential Reading Crisis
After the rush of finishing my goal of 52 books, I started to feel a reading slump emerging in early 2015. It lasted for much of 2016, too. While it was a total dream to start a new career that was very much rooted in books and reading, it also kind of crushed my enthusiasm for what I saw—and still see—as my passion. I got burned out quite quickly. It’s one thing to read books, but to write about them constantly—in some cases, writing about books I hadn’t read—beat the fun out of the experience.
By the end of 2015, I’d had it. I needed a break. I took 2016 off from the Goodreads reading challenge. Completely. This year was one of transformation for me. Over the course of the year, “GRC free,” I read 50 books and started to explore in new genres.
I read some absolutely smashing great books (here are my Best Books of 2016), was introduced to some new authors, knocked a few longstanding TBR picks, and generally felt a little looser about what books I was choosing. Crucially, I began reading more books published in that same year, which as you’ll soon see, was so important for me to get to my ideal number of books to read in a year.
Reading Year 2017 and Beyond: Finding Peace with 52
In 2017, I finished 52 books (not including manuscripts I’ve edited for work). Having read at least 52 books for the last three years, I kind of view that now as my minimum threshold each year. And for once, I can say that 52 books has been a completely satisfying and workable number in my reading, writing, and blogging life, as well as professional development. So what changed this year? How has 52 books been “enough” when so many years I’ve thought 200 or even 100 books is best and 52 a failure, a regression? Let’s tease this out.
What made 52 the best number? For one, being plugged into the reading year
Perhaps what made the most difference was feeling more plugged into what is being published today than I ever have as a reader. More than half of the books that I read in 2017 were published the very same year. There’s a reason for it. I’m obsessed with end-of-the-year and best-books lists, and I’ve always wanted to write one of my own (check out my lists of the best books of 2017 and best books of 2016). At the end of 2015, I felt like I needed to read more of what was being published going forward. I became more serious about becoming an author, and I knew you needed to read to keep up on with what’s hitting the bookshelves every Tuesday. But even though I read more new releases in 2016, I still felt like I could do better the next year, this year. It was really important to me that I could have read enough new books that my best of 2017 list wasn’t selective. In 2016, I felt limited in my ability to compose a best of list. After all, what does it really mean to pick my top 10 books if I’ve only read 15 published that year?
For 2017, I resolved to focus a lot of my efforts on reading contemporary titles published this year. I wanted to be able to write the best list I could, and that meant being up to date with what is being published now. And indeed, when I’ve perused the best of the year lists, I find that I am at least familiar with the majority of the titles and authors picked and have read a fair number of let’s say the 30 best books (with variation across lists for what are the top-top books). That’s made me feel more connected to book world, like I’m a part of the conversation in a way that I hadn’t really felt before when I was isolated based on reading the backlist. I love devouring a prolific author’s entire collection and being introduced to new fandoms of older series and cult favorite.s. But when I read more of the Books That Everyone Was Talking About, I felt like I could contribute to discussions about what’s happening in literature today.My colleagues at Book Riot or fellow librarians, plus book social media on Litsy and Instagram, were often reading the same things at once. It felt like I was more in tune with the book community. Plus, since I’m starting my MFA program at VCFA soon, it’s even more important to me to read what’s being published (and bought) today.
For me, it became less about how many books to read and more about what I read that mattered.
The only answer you need to “How many books should I read in a year?”
Which leads me to the only affirmative answer I can give to this question. Read until you’ve read enough for you, and then read beyond that number, if you can manage it. Read until you are satisfied, but realize that you never will read enough. It isn’t about the number as much as the meaning.
I also think 52 is the right number for me because it really gives you time to savor a book rather than race through it. Sometimes you might finish a book a week, and sometimes you might savor a longer book over a few weeks, and sometimes you get behind and a weekend readathon gets you caught back up again.
And last, let’s talk about “Should”
Here’s the caveat for this entire article, this entire discussion. This “should” that we feel—how many books should I read in a year?—is an invisible block that separates you from deep reading. I’ve said before that there are plenty of reasons not to do the Goodreads reading challenge, and it’s good to remember that there are plenty of other great ways to push yourself as a reader with alternatives to the Goodreads reading challenge.
Reading is about more than a number. These obligatory feelings we have come from social and personal pressure, but when you take them away and just read for the hell of it—for the love of it—I guarantee you will find a deeper experience with reading. 2016, the year I took off the Goodreads challenge, was when I first stopped reading for a number and started reading for myself, felt scary at first. But then I grew to like reading more freely, without having to answer to an arbitrary number. Without making my goal, I still read 50 books, so close to my average that I didn’t even miss 52. So remember that so much of a numerical challenge is intangible, just a guideline and a guideline you don’t need. Read for your heart, your soul, your mind, and read because you crave it, need it like blood and oxygen. Read for the number that matters most: one, solo, yourself.
Find out how many books you should read with these 5 guided questions
- Would you rather spend time reading as much as you possibly can—or read books that you’ve always wanted to read and go deep into your TBR?
- Do you enjoy the social aspect of a public reading challenge, and are there other ways to get that fix?
- If you had to decide a reading challenge of your own that went beyond numbers, what would it look like?
- Are there any readathons you look forward to participating in to jump-start your reading out of slumps or lulls?
- Write down six non-numerical reading bucket list goals (like reading an entire series, or reading a book in another language, or finishing that massive historical epic that’s been on your list forever). Pick six months ahead and assign one goal for each month. Now brainstorm: how could you come up with 12 goals and fill a year with mini challenges?
