Look: I understand the desire, if you read at all, to read as much as superhumanly possible. And I want to continue explicating this side of the debate… however; there’s not really any more to the argument, is there. At least, what is there is so obvious as to not require any further waste of words. Best to jump head-first to the rebuttal.

Look: It’s not gonna happen. You’re not going to catch up, ever. If you have that attitude, you’re never going to be satisfied, and you’re never going to catch up, considering the quantity of books published every year. Even if, say, only 0.0125% of the books are of sufficient quality to be considered.

The catalyst for writing about this now is because I read a comment on social media (always a fraught proposition, to read social media, or be there at all), of someone saying they wouldn’t bother reading The Lord of the Rings again, as they’d read it three times as a child. Child, please: as much as you may have gotten out of those books as a youth, I promise that you will get so much more, now that you’re older and (is it too much to hope?) presumably wiser, that they will practically be new books; new experiences entirely. Instead of identifying with Frodo, say, you might find yourself identifying more with Aragorn, or Boromir, or Treebeard.

How many books can you read in a year, say, that you actually get something out of? That is to say, how many books affected you; how many do you still think about randomly, and how many have you forgotten entirely? How many did you actually enjoy? One might argue that the aggregate amount of books builds to a more complete something-or-other, but wouldn’t you rather maximize the quality and appropriateness of the books you read, whatever types of books that appeal to you? There are enough books in the world to be extremely picky about what you choose to read. Even if what you choose to read are books that bring you joy; quality reading doesn’t necessarily have to mean quality in the literary sense. Joy is a profound and important quality in itself.

Is it a consumerist inclination that leads people to want to read everything they possibly can? …ultimately I think it very much is. The need to consume for consumption’s sake.

No one ever thinks, I’ve had pizza once, onwards to something new! I can check off pizza’s box, so I know that I never need to eat it again. I ate it once, and however good it might have been, I don’t want to waste my time on meals I’ve already experienced. (I was just chatting with a coworker the other night who couldn’t say enough about how good the pizza was on the East Coast–New York, New Jersey–compared to pizza anywhere else.)

Similarly: I loved listening to The Beatles! I think the White Album is their best. I’m not going to listen to it again though because I already listened to it three times as a child, my gosh, and I don’t want to waste my time listening to music I’ve already heard, because there’s so much more music to experience.

Absurd.

Food, to follow my first example, also has the benefit of being directly tied to your body’s health (and consequently also of course your mind). There are certain nutrients most easily found in certain foods that mean you have to continue consuming the same types of food regularly; an apple a day, etc. Access to enough of a variety of food is necessarily limited, unless extensive travel is possible, and even then, your options will eventually run dry.

I am sorely tempted to follow this food analogy, and compare food to literary genres, with the main point being that, say, pizza is a sub-genre in itself, and every home made pizza will be a unique work, in however minor a manner. Only chain restaurants churn out the same old experience every time. But hey, I'll happily eat Pizza Hut once in a while.

Before I forget about the nutrient analogy: the implication is of course that books provide all sorts of beneficial nutrition for the mind and the soul (and consequently the body as well). If you've found books that soothed your soul, that sparked inspiration, that made you think about the world... revisit those books. For your own goddam health. Why the fuck not.

The past two years I set a goal of reading 100 books, and I surpassed that number both times. I’ve set that as a goal this year again… but so far in January I still have not finished a single book. I have read, but my reading has consisted of revisiting selections of old favorites, casually making my way through some new books, and not stressing out about it at all. I mostly read via audio because I have the option to wear headphones at work, and over the past two years one of the big reasons I’ve been able to get through so many books is due to the fact that I can speed them up. I generally listen at 1.5x speed. This month, when I’ve listened to selections of audiobooks, I have kept it at a flat 1 normal speaking speed.

I think my reading goal for this year should have less to do with quantity and much more to do with quality. I do want to catch up on a lot of books I’ve been meaning to read. A big reason I haven’t gotten around to them yet is because they are just obscure enough that there aren’t audio versions, at least that I can find. I want to get through the rest of Anthony Powell’s epic series A Dance To The Music Of Time (something like seven books to go?). A few Michael Moorcock, like Gloriana. I finally want to read Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. I want to read a lot more books by James Branch Cabell. Cabell does have a lot of books; last year I did get through all of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, which consists of just over 40 books. I don’t think Cabell has quite that many (that I particularly want to read) but his prose is a lot slower-going than Pratchett’s. It is at least as clever, though. Cabell is severely overlooked/underrated/flat-out forgotten these days, which is a shame. Most of his work is public domain, having been published prior to 1930.

I may rethink my reading goal this year and set it at 50. So, about a book every week. I already need to catch up. Another issue with reading physical books–be they paper or e–is that these days it seems harder to sustain my focus sight-reading; it just takes more energy. And I surely cannot multitask like I can with an audiobook.

To conclude! For god’s sake, re-read books you enjoy without guilt! Do not feel like you have to consume as much as possible before you die. Who cares if you ever read any Jane Austen (she’s great, but not essential to live a full life). You can set aside that Dostoyevsky that everybody’s inexplicably talking about (again, great stuff, might change your life, but so might a thousand other books you choose instead). On the other side, don’t feel like you have to keep up with the latest best sellers and Booker prize-winners.

You can absolutely re-read Wind In The Willows for the fiftieth time, despite it seemingly being a children’s story. WITW is bomb, as the kids say these days; it is fire; no lie, dead-ass, straight up, son. (I just got this newly illustrated edition for my birthday.)

In my day it was the bomb; whenever did we lose that definite article…

One final thought: I wonder if, as I grow older, I will, happily and with intent, read fewer and fewer books, but more deeply. This would be in total opposition to the desire to read everything; for that person, as you get older, you would find yourself wanting to read faster and faster, more and more. That sounds way too stressful and you would get less and less out of them, with less and less time to have them make any sort of difference to your life, right? If I die in the midst of reading The Hobbit for the thousandth time, I will consider that, in foresight, to be the best thing.