I keep seeing posts about “reading goals” for the new year, here and there around the internet. I saw one post on a writing site about setting goals, making yourself read _x_ number of books, etc etc.
I am very puzzled. If I were to set a goal, it would be a limit. Like “I will read no more than ____ novels this year”, or “I will not waste more than ____ hours a day sucked into a book that no lives depend on my reading”. [See how I cleverly leave those blanks, so you don’t know exactly how bad the damage is?]
Now I suppose I could be like Darwin and have really lofty goals for reading great works of literature. Except that a lot of times, when I start some famous book, I discover that it is really bad. I mean it. Boring. Annoying. Proof that the author had serious psychological problems. And I just don’t need that in my day. There are enough classics that I do enjoy, that I have a hard time convincing myself I’d be better off if I also read the ones I didn’t. If I wanted to make myself do something edifying, I’d clean my desk or something.
(That said — I’ve discovered the great utility in keeping a couple Insomnia Books lying around the living room. Good stuff that.)
So that’ll be my goal for this year. Not to read any more books than strictly necessary. Where “necessary” means “the amount of books required to keep me sane and prevent any childrens’ heads from being chewed off because I am going absolutely mad with boredom and no TV is not the solution would you please give me back my Economist right now I said right now I mean it RIGHT NOW.”
Also maybe not to yell at people too much. That would be good reading goal too.