Reading in a Different Way Rather Than Reading More

For a long time, I haven’t had a reading challenge. Reading has always been just a joy of mine—something I do when the world gets too noisy or life too burdensome, and I need to travel and live for a time in lives that are not my own.

Two years ago, I decided for the first time to set a minimum amount of books I intended to read in a year. Twenty-four: two every month. This figure may seem fairly modest to many of you, since it indicates it would take me, on average, two weeks to read a book.

It does: I am a slow reader. I frequently halt and take the time to read even small novels. I can’t metabolize fast: words have to get all the way into my brain and hop from one link to another before reaching a location where memory is secure enough for them to be assimilated.

Why I Started a Reading Challenge

The main reason why I started a reading challenge was to go out of a reading slump. During the final months of my PhD in 2022, I took little time to read (we often say we have little time, but in the end it’s really about how much time we take). I was reading around ten books per year, which was definitely not enough. So I decided to double that and set the challenge at twenty-four.

Having a reading challenge helped me maintain a focus on reading. On lazy nights, when I sometimes thought of just sinking into the sofa and watching Netflix, it pushed me to read a few chapters instead. Reading became again a daily habit, as I had a number of books I wanted to complete each month.

This past year, my reading challenge was twenty-five books. I didn’t want it to feel too much like a job, so I simply added one to the previous year’s goal. I am now two chapters away from finishing the twenty-fifth book of the year, which will mark my challenge as complete.

On Comparisons and End of the Year Rush

As with everything, the reading challenge came with some cons. While scrolling through Bookstagram or articles here on Medium, I sometimes felt like I was too slow. I was looking at people reading around eighty books a year (which means about six or seven books per month), while I was sometimes falling asleep after ten pages.

It’s true that personal struggles are issues with yourself and yourself alone, yet comparison with others is frequently inescapable. And the comparison with the internet was frustrating. It took some time to let that go, accept my own pace, and only focus on how much I can and want to read every year.

I also noticed that around October, I began to feel a little pressure. There were still books left to complete the challenge, and I didn’t want to fall behind. This meant I would often go for shorter or ‘easier’ books, where ‘easier’ is a subjective definition. For instance, fiction comes more naturally to me than non-fiction, and so I would choose books. Even inside fiction, I would occasionally find myself thinking about what I could read faster: I wouldn’t have begun The Brothers Karamazov or Don Quixote in December.

This emotion is part of what I term the ‘end-of-year reading rush.'. At times, I had to actively fight it to avoid turning reading into gobbling words rather than enjoying them.

Next Year: Differently over More

With the prospect of a new year coming up, I think the kind of challenge I need now is more about reading patterns than reading quantities.

I would keep my reading challenge at twenty-four books, or perhaps bring it down to twenty-two, and focus more on a ‘qualitative’ aspect over a quantitative one. In other words, I want to read differently rather than just read more. Stepping a little outside my comfort zone, even if it takes time.

Some Time for Non-Fiction

I want to read more non-fiction. I will set a goal of reading at least three non-fiction books, with one of them being a science communication book—something I’ve been getting more and more interested in lately. A good starting point could be Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker or A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

I would also love to finally read Letters to Theo by Vincent van Gogh, a collection of more than 800 letters that Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo. For this, I’ve also bought a ‘collateral’ book, collecting Van Gogh’s paintings. I want to read the letters and follow Van Gogh’s life from his own perspective while also looking at what he was painting at the same time.

Other non-fiction books I’d like to read are Discourse on the Method by René Descartes, Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, and Roberto Saviano’s There Are No Taxis at Sea, which discusses the current immigration tragedy unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea.

New Horizons in Fiction

I feed on fiction the same way I feed on food, so I know I couldn’t go a whole year without reading it.

Next year, I want to explore new genres and authors I’m not very familiar with. Last year, I finally read The Hobbit, and I’m now considering embarking on The Lord of the Rings after spending fifteen years thinking it was not for me. If not that, I still want to read at least one other fantasy book: it’s a genre I’ve recently rediscovered and want to explore more. Similarly, after recently discovering British author P. D. James, I’d like to read more crime fiction and perhaps finally give some space on my shelves to Agatha Christie (I’ve only read two of her books so far).

I’d also like to read Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors, an author I’ve seen featured almost everywhere online and in bookshops but haven’t read yet. And last but not least, I want to read at least one classic I haven’t read before. Or I might take up Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë again: I didn’t enjoy it much the first time I read it, but I was probably too young for it.

Some Time for Poetry

I am a prose person. It’s my natural method of writing and reading. Only more recently, and thanks in part to Medium featuring so many great poems, have I become more interested in poetry. I’ve picked up several poetry volumes, such as early pieces by Cesare Pavese and Salvatore Quasimodo.

Next year, I hope to read at least one poetry book. I could finally read that World War I English poetry book that’s been collecting dust on my shelf. However, I most naturally read poetry in Italian (my home language); therefore, I would most likely start with anything by Giuseppe Ungaretti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, or Alda Merini, just to mention a few.

Getting Back to Italian Literature

Living overseas, I typically wind up purchasing just a few books in Italian, and I’m growing a little out of touch with the Italian literary world. This feels disconnecting, as it’s a language I still hold a strong emotional connection with, apart from being an innate part of who I am.

One of my reading resolutions for next year is to read Italian authors I have never read before. I’d love to explore works by Elsa Morante, Oriana Fallaci, or Goliarda Sapienza—female Italian writers from the 20th century. I’d also want to investigate fresh, current voices, keeping an eye on national or regional literary awards or non-mainstream publishing firms that regularly include debut writers.

Most importantly, however, I don’t want to have everything planned: I already have enough checklists in my life. I want to maintain room for surprises. If there’s that one book I suddenly need to read, there should be a place for it.

Happy reading, folks. Make the most of your year, and discover new, wonderful worlds via the pages you haven’t read yet.