How Many Books Should I Read?

One of my personal goals for the next few months is to read more books. I used to read a lot more than I do now. When I was commuting to work via public transport I’d read. Back when I was living in Milan I’d spend hours every week bouncing from one side of the city to the other and its many suburbs via tram, train, metro and bus. Reading has always been one of the things I enjoy, but, as I mentioned, I haven’t been reading actual books as much of late. I’m not quite sure when this change happened, but over time the backlog of books that I wanted to read has been steadily growing, while my actual reading of those books has stalled.

But this leaves the open question: How many books should I read?

What’s a reasonable target?

Obviously by “book” I’m talking about an average length novel. Something like “War and Peace” would count for at least 4, while anything under a couple of hundred pages probably doesn’t really count. I’d count both fiction and non-fiction, but I don’t think counting cookbooks is fair or other “manuals”. Same goes for guidebooks.

I’ve got a pile of books that I’d like to work through and there’s never really a shortage of reading material anyway.

One a month?

One a week?

More?

Less?

What’s a sane number to aim for?

One a week would translate into 52 in the full year. It’s definitely a number I could have achieved in the past, but I’m not so sure I’d be able to right now.

One a month equates to only 12 in the entire year, which seems a little puny. Sure it might be more than I’ve read recently, but if you’re setting goals they should be “real” and not so low that they’re too easy to achieve. You can’t feel like you’ve actually accomplished something if it’s not an actual achievement of some kind.

I’d love to know what other people think and, importantly, why.

I’ll be trying to track my progress via Goodreads which might help keeping me honest!