The 2022 Reading Challenge

Earlier this year I set myself the challenge of reading 30 books this year and I have read 24 books out of 30 so far. In the grand scheme of things reading challenges don't mean more. They mean you managed to start or at least finish a certain number of books within a given period of time.

I like the reading challenge because it encourages me to read more than I might otherwise but I am slightly frustrated that it doesn't show the number of pages we have read in total, across various media. If we counted articles, podcasts and more then the count would be higher.

I also dislike that it encourages me to read shorter books, that I think I will finish sooner, rather than other books, that would take longer, and thus skew the number of read books, but boost the number of read pages. There is no challenge for "read pages" yet.

I have to read 29 books in a single year to reach my personal best. I think I will. I listen to books rather than podcasts when I walk and I listen when I cook.

I am two books behind schedule. This has been the case for almost the entire year. I should have read 26 books, rather than 24.

I need to read one book a week to reach my goal. That's a comfortable goal, especially if I find books that take less than seven hours to read. One of the most unexpected books this year was Harmonica, Harps and Heavy Breathers. If my curiousity about harmonicas had not been woken during a walk I would not have picked up this book and I would not have spent a certain amount of time reading it almost every night for weeks.

My reading is not regular. I will probably read a few pages every night before going to sleep but sometimes I read at other times of the day. Whilst it annoys me that the Kindle App logs days in a row, rather than reading time I like that it encourages you to read every single day. It isn't demanding. Reading one or two pages is enough. On that note I will leave this post for now and continue reading.