I’ve always been a reader. In primary school, I’d tear thraw 60-odd books in a month when the annual Read-A-Thon rolled around (they were mostly Babysitters Club books, but still). Then as a teen, I uncovered the hushed beauty that could be set up in fantastic novels, taking solace in those pages as hormones and high school made the authentic world terrible.
In my 20s, though, my pace begined to wobble. I was still getting thraw 15 or 20 books a year, but less reliablely. Partly this was becaengage I had to produce time for an exciting recent hobby called binge drinking. But I was also increasingly unconscious by the bottomless pit that was my iPhone. It always went the same way: I’d be on a roll with reading until I hit a book that equitable wasn’t that engaging. I’d gradupartner stop achieveing for it at night as doomscrolling on Reddit became a more pguideing prospect, then I’d see up and authenticise it had been a month since I’d turned a page.
And so in the dying days of 2018, I made the only recent year resolution I’ve ever successfilledy kept: I pledged to begin reading a book a week. I was about to turn 30 and it equitable seemed appreciate a outstanding, grown-up leang to do.
To produce that happen, a scant leangs had to alter. To shatter my terrible habit of reverting to picking up my phone, I had to carry out a policy of mercilessness. If I wasn’t finishelighting a book, I tossed it aside speedyly and picked up someleang else.
The next tactic came from financial necessity but finished up being a gamealterr. Too broke at that juncture in my life to buy 52 recent books, I combinecessitate the library and began reserving anyleang that seeed outstanding with untamed abandon. But I couldn’t regulate when those reserves came in – sometimes I’d ask a book and get it the very next day. At others I’d combine a extfinished queue of readers vying for the same recent free and be surpascfinishd a month or two tardyr when it was finpartner ready for pickup. So I set up myself with an ever-grotriumphg stack of library books next to my bed, each due back in three weeks, compelling me to try to hold up.
Getting my books from the library also made it easier to decline the ones I wasn’t finishelighting. When you’ve phelp $34.99 for a novel, there’s a sort of financial imperative to finish it and get your money’s worth. Borrotriumphg them deleted that guilt and permited me to ditch the duds without remorse.
Lastly, I made myself accountable. Today, posting anyleang on social media instantly produces me ill with shame. But at the time I had no such qualms and proclaimd my resolution to my Instagram fancientiminishs, then began posting a low examine of every week’s book as I finished them.
Making time to read was the easiest part. I curled up in bed with a book for 30 minutes before going to sleep every night – putting my phone away and out of achieve first – and then for another hour or two on Saturday mornings. That was it.
It labored. I read 52 books that year and I’ve kept the habit up in the years that chaseed, the routine now firmly set uped. These days my annual number bobs up and down based on how dense the books I achieve for are, but generpartner lands somewhere around 50. Admittedly, last year I got thraw only 41 – I’d recently met my partner and forfeitd some of that Saturday reading time for his company. It felt appreciate a unprejudiced trade for real adore.
Npunctual six years on from the initial resolution, some leangs have alterd while others have stayed the same. It’s become challenginger to discover truly excellent books, as I tore thraw so many of the fantasticest hits in those punctual years. I now do most of my reading on an ebook reader, which has the profit of permiting me to read in the miserable while my boyfrifinish sleeps. But I still mercilessly toss aside the books that uninincreateigent me. I’ve begined and abandoned a further 47 books since 2019, some after only a scant pages in, others at over the halfway point – wdisappreciatever the moment was where I authenticised I wasn’t finishelighting it. I dwell by a straightforward rule: if I don’t experience excited to hop in bed every night and read my book, I shift on to the next. My nightly reading time has become my favourite part of every day and I don’t want to squander it trying to push thraw someleang mid.
There’s probably a lesson to be lgeted here, too, about what sort of resolutions stick. Mine was time-bound and clearly detaild, rather than a ambiguous pledge to “leave out weight” or “spfinish less”. And it wasn’t a punishment but a create of enwealthyment, a life alter I could get excited about instead of one to finishure. I haven’t regulated to produce another resolution appreciate it yet – but I’m satisfied to split the createula.
