Awhile back I’d decided that I wasn’t reading enough. I had done the 2017 Reading Challenge feature in Goodreads, and I overshot my goal of 12. It kind of made me think “gee, why don’t we set a really big target and see what happens?”

So I did.

I picked 50 books because that seemed likely a reasonably impressive number. I figured if each book I read averaged out to 300 pages, I’d need to read 50 pages a day, which seemed a manageable number (somehow forgetting l had a toddler and another baby on the way). This translated to about a book per week for the year, with a little bit of a cushion if I needed a break. As the calendar closed on December 2017, I geared up or a year’s worth of reading.

Criteria

There weren’t any hard and fast rules about what would and wouldn’t count. Novels, short story collections, non-fiction, pulp—all would have been acceptable. Graphic novels wouldn’t be, nor would coffee table books of just images. Magazines wouldn’t count (obviously, but I have a large stack of them in our apartment which becomes problematic). The only specific rule was that I had to start reading the new book on January 1—I wouldn’t be allowed to carry over from December 2017.

The covers of all 53 books I read in 2018. Click the image to go to the Goodreads list.

The Big Picture Takeaways: My observations and what I learned about my reading habits

I started with Invisible Men: Life in Baseball’s Negro Leagues by Donn Rogosin on Kindle. I’d had the book downloaded for a while, had even started reading the first chapter until I got sidetracked. I restarted it and away I went.

Reading 50 pages a day was easy at the start. I was having little trouble matching the pace I figured I would need. It didn’t feel like a chore. It felt kind of refreshing, honestly. I did the majority of my reading in the evening after my daughter went to bed and before I feel asleep.

That 50 page need became a problem somewhere around March. We had some traumatic life stuff happen that month, and making time to read was challenging. From then on, the number of pages I’d read in a day probably averaged out to about 50 pages, which is good, but that was usually buoyed by bigger reading sessions or ‘easier’ material which allowed me to race through a read.

Reading to Reach a Number

By September I was really starting to burn out on reading which is a little odd—it’s one of the more passive things you can do: move your eyes over the page. But it felt like I wasn’t absorbing a lot of what I was reading. The books were generally very good and interesting (I’d only had a couple that were difficult to get through) but after a time it felt like I was reading books to hit a number. Get to 38. Then 39. 40. While I was still committed to reading the 50 books, I can’t recall in detail a lot of what I actually read. The nuances of what I was reading were lost on me as I attempted to run down pages. And while there were a number of books that I read that I marked to re-read later, the fact that I had to do so is disappointing.

I know that I wasn’t expecting an academic level of depth in my reading, especially while maintaining an active home life, but I’ve realized that the lack of depth meant I likely missed the bigger picture of some of the books. That said, I’m happy I’ve kept track of what I would like to re-read, that may be a project for the rest of 2019.

(Mostly) Voices Of One Kind

September was also the month where I began to realize how truly monochromatic my author selection had been. White men dominated my list in 2018, no matter what the subject or genre. Even after having that realization in September, my choices didn’t really change. This wasn’t a deliberate action. I was aware of this fact throughout the rest of the year. But it does speak to a certain bias that I was unaware of previously in what I was choosing to read, one that I am looking to correct in 2019.
Of the 53 books I finished, ten were from women authors, and by my count, they were all white. In fact, just about every single book I read was by a white author (I’ll get to my specific reflection later). Being able to reflect on all of this  has been an interesting wake up call.

You’ll Always Find More Books To Read

The fun surprise this year was the reminder that the world is still incredibly full of books. My Want To Read list tripled over the year. There wasn’t a week that went by where I didn’t add at least three books to my list. Most of the time I’d get at least another book to read out of the one I was currently reading. Twitter was a surprisingly good resource, despite the fact I needed an 8 week break from it over the course of the summer. The other great part was that people were more than happy to share their suggestions. And there wasn’t a bad suggestion that I got. I can’t say that I read a truly bad book the whole year.

My Circle of People Has Solid Taste

Whether it was a suggestion from Nathan Elson to check out Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (backed up by my wife), Into the Silence by my friend Peter or A History of Canada in Ten Maps recommended by Jeremy Fokkens, the small circle of people I have around me have what I consider to be pretty solid taste in books. And those were just some of the ones I actually managed to read. (As an aside, if you have a book you’d like to share, let me know.)

Consumption Over Creation

Honestly, the biggest downside was that because I was spending an enormous amount of time reading, I found that I was sacrificing the time that I might have spent creating. The caveat there is the ‘might.’ I found that I didn’t have the mental capacity to play both sides of it with the limited time I had during the day. That’s not to say that I didn’t have ideas. I started carrying a small notebook to keep track of the ideas that I knew I’d want to follow up on later.

The other side of the consumption coin was in how I was going to actually obtain all of the books I wanted to read. Adding 50+ books to the very small amount of available space we have in our apartment was going to result in my death at the hands of my wife, not to mention the actual cost of purchasing that many books. Doing a bit of shopping at Fair’s Fair here in Calgary was one way of mitigating that, as was the used and discount section at Pages in Kensington. The best solution was the Calgary Public Library, where I picked up a total of 13 books over the year. And with the New Central Library having opened its doors this past November, I can see me making a LOT more use of it.

Learning to Love the Library Again

I was asked early in elementary school what I wanted to be when I grew up. With no hesitation, I replied “the driver of the book mobile.” Yeah, that was a thing once. It still is. I found myself learning to love the library once more. I’ve gotten a better understanding of the role the library plays in the bigger picture of a city. You can’t walk into a location expecting just to see books anymore. They’re hubs for communities and centres of gathering and learning. Walk into the New Central Library and tell me you’re not impressed with what a 21st century library is like. We took our daughter for the first time the other day and she absolutely loved it. She didn’t have a lot of interest in the books but in all of the other things they have for kids to see and do. It’s brilliant. And it was a great reminder of how important libraries are to our society.

Great Reads

This wouldn’t be much of a recap if I didn’t make some effort to note some of the highlights from everything I read. In no particular order:

Most Terrifying Book I’ve Ever Read

The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg. Ever have your belief in something so shaken that it scared the hell out of you? How about finding out that the people in charge of the worst weapons humanity’s ever created have very little idea about what it is they could have unleashed? Or how close we probably are at any given moment to annihilating all life on this planet? Not a fun read, but an important one.

The Why-Didn’t-I-Read-This-Sooner book goes to…

Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London. I never read these growing up and I can’t tell you why. Very much enjoyed both and wish I’d picked them up sooner. As part of the AmazonClassics series on Kindle, they didn’t cost a dime either.

The Most Interesting Book About Canada I’ve Read in A Long Time

A History of Canada in Ten Maps by Adam Shoalts. A great read recommended by my friend Jeremy, this is a book I wish we’d had to read in high school. It provides a lot more context around how we’ve come to view this country of ours and the people that settled it.

Good Books for Business

Brutally Honest by Emily Ruth Cohen and Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard. Brutally Honest is a great starting place if you work in, or are thinking about starting, a creative business. ESPECIALLY if you’re not business minded. There are a lot of really good points on how to structure your business to increase your chances of success.

Yvon Chouinard is the founder of Patagonia, and his philosophy on business and the Patagonia brand are communicated in a really pure way in this book. Want to understand how a brand can change the world for its people? Start here. I’ve been a Patagonia convert ever since.

Climbing and Mountaineering Books NOT by Jon Krakauer

Into the Silence by Wade Davis and The Push by Tommy Caldwell. Loved both for different reasons. Davis does a deep dive on the history of the Mallory expeditions to Everest following World War I and the mindset of the men who made those trips. You know the result, but while reading it, you can’t help but want to see them succeed following all the shit they’d been through in the War.

Caldwell’s book is a much more intimate look into the life of a world-class climber, at least from his perspective. Awash with vulnerability and honesty, I had a really hard time putting it down. While The Dawn Wall is a great film that tells the same story, the book does go into a much more detail on specific events, like how shattered he was following his experience in Kyrgyzstan.

The Longest Read that Scared Me and Gave Me Hope at the Same Time

This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein. I want to re-read this and highlight all the businesses that could be started to begin walking back man made climate change. Yes, she has a bias, but she doesn’t hide it, nor do I think she’s wrong to do so. Climate change is going to drastically change how we live our lives, and our society just doesn’t seem to care. It should be more of a wake up call to people, and she addresses why it isn’t (spoiler: follow the money). Given all that’s happening in Alberta now and in the past few years, it should have gotten more of a look from the public than I believe it did. That said, there is hope. There are people out there that have committed to changing their lives and are raising their voices to affect change.

What’s up next for 2019

Looking back over my list, there were some pretty easy trends to spot as far as my interests went. Climbing, Baseball and Star Wars were three big areas throughout my year of reading. While I love all of those, it’s important in my mind to broaden that base.

More diversity, more voices, a richer understanding

This year, I’m reading books from a wider demographic base. That means more women authors, more books from people of colour, different viewpoints than my own from people who’ve had much different experiences in their lives than I’ve had in my own. If I want to get a better understanding of the people of this world, I need to pay attention to the diversity this world has to offer.

Slow down, learn something

Like I said, it felt like I was trying to just hit a number. That means that reading had taken on a near-mechanical level of activity. Going through the motions, if you will. This year, it’s time to slow down and try to understand the details in the writing. This might mean reading a book or two more than once while trying to wring as much out of them as possible. Not quite to that academic level, but certainly a lot deeper than last year. I’m not setting a number-of-books-to-read goal this year, I’m going to be a lot more flexible with it.

Creation > Consumption

Learn when to put the book down and go do something creative. That book of ideas I kept? I’ll be getting into that quite a bit. I’d like to write more, both blog posts and creatively, so maybe stay tuned. I’ve had the idea of doing something in a serial version, like what Andy Weir did with The Martian before being made into a book. I’ve a couple ideas that could work well in that sort of format that would also allow me to stretch and learn more about the writing process.

Maybe design a book cover or four. Who knows. The idea is to enjoy the process and not focus on the end result quite as much. This year, creatively, is going to be one of growth and learning. Of doing, instead of consuming. I look forward to sharing it with you.

Cheers,
Kevin M.
– January 2019

Cover image Credit: Glen Noble, Unsplah