At Present Pace ...

Greetings from Iowa, where I’m presently typing this from my parents’ basement, tucked into the reclined seat at one end of the room’s sectional couch. The house is still. It’s a little after 2:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve, meaning it won’t actually feel like Christmas Eve till I go to bed and wake in the morning.

I’m still coming down from the caffeinated drive from Chicago several hours ago, a portion of which I spent marching myself to the end of a book lent to me by a friend: All Systems Red, the first volume in the Murderbot Diaries novella series (more thoughts to be found on Goodreads and Storygraph ). With that book done and the year soon to wrap, it feels like a good time to do a little inventory.

In total, I’ve finished fifteen books this year. I know people who would find this number pathetic, and I know people who would find it laudable. To me, it just is what it is. I’m a slow, deliberate reader, and between work, friends, chores, exercise, films, TV, magazines, and the daily news, there’s only so much time I can devote to sitting and focusing on longer texts.

But still, it’s hard to take the number 15, put it next to the number left to read on my shelf (122), and not despair a bit. If that rate holds, assuming optimistically that all reading from here on out is devoted to titles on my shelf, I’ve got just over eight years of this project to go. It’s like I’m still in the first month of a longer doctoral program.

But it’s always a mistake to look at the map early in the hike, right? Better to leave it in the pack and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, enjoying the scenic overlooks and landmarks as they come.

Maybe new circumstances or new strategies will allow me to get through thirty books next year. Or maybe less fortunate circumstances will prevent me from getting through more than ten. I have no plans to gamify the project by giving myself a reading goal. That would just be something else to be anxious about, and would make the endeavor feel like homework.

No, instead I’ll just keep reading, and maybe (maybe!) I’ll look for a few ways to make more time for it.