I’m around 25ish books a year, give or take. I’m pretty similar every night, 20-30 mins before bed, and then the dog gets me up early on Saturday and Sunday and I usually get an hour+ in each morning, maybe a little more time in the afternoons. On vacations I’ll usually get through 2 books, so that’ll juice my numbers.
I’ll probably be below 25 books this year, but one of them will be The Powerbroker, which, hoo boy is that long.
Can’t wait to retire.
can’t say for sure how much time I spend each day or week reading for fun, but I have noticed over time though is that I’m getting through ~25-30 pages a day of whatever book I’m currently on (Tree of Smoke right now). so I’m definitely not going fast by any stretch but I’ve come to appreciate taking my time with “fun” reading vs the speed reading I do for work stuff.
I hit 60 last year and will be close again this year.
I just know there are so many books I want to read and I’m getting old.
Whenever i see this thread title i think, “duh, twoplustwo, uh i mean unstuck uhhhhhh politics”
“Reading” this on Audible atm.
Listen to The Impending Crisis by David M. Potter, Don E. Fehrenbacher on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd/B06XJRJKDM?source_code=ASSOR150021921000R
It won the 1978 Pulitzer and is regarded as one of the most nuanced and detailed accounts of the lead up to the civil war and all the political maneuvering in Congress, much of it related to admission of new states as slave or free. The author was a prof at Yale (died before release) and has a lifetime of deep learning about the relevant issues. It’s interesting how he discusses disputes over slavery as a practical locus for broader disputes over culture, religion, sectionalism, economics, etc.
Reading it as part of my ongoing 10 year effort to understand Trumpism.
In the last few years, most of my reading has come from audiobooks on twice daily dog walks. So, probably 40-80min with consistency, though I do rotate in podcasts. I just wish I retained more from audiobooks as it’s very easy for my mind to be wandering while walking around.
Had a look and I recently finished my 16th book of the year, only the 2nd actual physical book.
I typically read before I sleep–a nap or bedtime. Or at a cafe. Maybe 30 minutes tops per session. Can’t do audio books. My brain just doesn’t process them the same way, and I enjoy actually reading.
Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton.
New Zealander Catton is the youngest-ever winner of the Man Booker Prize, winning it at 28 for her second novel The Luminaries. This is her third novel.
Set in New Zealand, it is centered around a left-wing activist guerilla gardening collective. When a landslide cuts off access to a property in remote New Zealand, the collective see an opportunity - but so too does billionaire Robert Lemoine, a sort of Peter Thiel/Elon Musk figure. Hijinks ensue.
The book is very interested in the psychology of its characters and engages in a stack of Jane Austen-esque omniscient narrator digressions about their states of mind, histories, foibles, motivations and so on. The Macbeth connection of the title clues the reader in that we might be looking at a tragedy here - with some dark comedy along the way - and Catton said in an interview that she wanted to write the book like any of the characters could be Macbeth. The characters are all varying degrees of unlikable and Catton is careful not to endorse any particular political view. She appears to have succeeded in this, because here is a quote from the Guardian review:
It’s hard not to feel a bit disappointed that such a beautifully built novel just tells us the same old, same old: billionaires bad! Leftwing radicals good, if sometimes misguided and hapless!.. Catton is not wrong; she is certainly showing us the world we know. But our culture is already rife with calls for moral simplicity. Isn’t it the duty of the literary novel to go deeper?
The Atlantic had a somewhat different review. Here is their headline and sub-head:
A Biting Satire About the Idealistic Left
Eleanor Catton’s new novel, Birnam Wood, pokes at the pieties of those who want to change the world.
So there you have it.
I had mixed feelings about this book. The fact that most readers won’t like any of the characters makes it hard to get invested and it has some pacing issues; the middle third drags on a bit. I chose this for my book club, which is me and nine women, six of whom were able to make the meeting. Nobody much liked it and one proclaimed it the worst thing she had read in book club. There was debate over who was the most disagreeable character; I really did not like the founder/leader of the collective (who is the closest thing the book has to a protagonist) but a couple of the others chose the know-it-all mansplainer character, who I thought had some good fucking points at times, frankly, and so what if he sometimes put them a bit forcefully? What? Why are you looking at me like that?
I wouldn’t recommend this to most people but i would recommend it to Unstuckers, as I enjoyed its portrait of various activist psychological archetypes and internecine conflict in a left-wing organization. It’s fun kind of recognising some Unstuckers in there.
I read 31 in 2022 and 27 in 2023. Will probably end 2024 around 30 books. This doesn’t count any books where I started skimming halfway through (I don’t usually do this but sometimes there’s a couple). It also doesn’t count the occasional “airplane book” (a Bosch novel or something like that).
I read maybe 30-40 minutes at night, and then a few hours on the weekends. Sometimes on holidays I’ll read a lot.
The total is a mix of novels, some biographies, lots of history (some popular history, some more serious), a couple science books, some philosophy.
Why don’t Bosch novels count. They are 400 pages and a good read.
I wasn’t cracking on them, they probably should count. Sometimes when I’m traveling I forget to write down what I read. Oddly it became a tradition to not count “plane books”
It reminds me of when I smoked a cigarette in Belgium a few years back, I didn’t count it, and it didn’t break my 20 year no smoking streak
Reading Paper Towns by John Green. It is a YA book but so far it is very good. It is possible I’m projecting some of my affection for JG from following him on the YouTube, but it has been a page turner.
John Green is good. I enjoyed the book version of The Fault in our Stars.
25% through The Children of Men and so far this book is boring as hell. Not at all like the movie. Much more somber and reflective and kind of cynical.
Do any of you read multiple books at once? I’ve read that it’s a fairly common ordeal for a lot of folks but it just isn’t for me. Amongst other things, I lose finer details of the characters which is a big no no as it’s tough enough to follow along with multiple characters - especially in SK books.
I somehow got into both reading the Stand and the Regulators at the same time and deciding which one to stick with is both necessary but kind of deflating as i realize that I will probably have to start the other book over again.
I’m capable of reading a book and listening to an audiobook at the same time, but that’s it. Both SK, as I’m currently captivated by him.
Hip indicated that he reads like 4 books at a time, which kinda blows my mind. I can walk the dogs and listen to a story I’ve already read + read a new book, but that’s it.
This is a total aside but your comment reminds me, I got a tattoo of the Stand first edition cover after my mom died in July. Good v evil, health v cancer, life v death. Blah
I juggle like 8 nonfiction books based on my mood. (Read like one fiction book a year.) Sometimes I forget I’m reading a book if I haven’t picked it up in a while. Been mostly doing audible for the last year and pulled up Kindle on my phone a few days ago and realized there were a couple of books I liked that I’m not done reading. I usually move between 2-3 books on Audible.
I can certainly see reading multiple non fiction books at a time as you’re kind of reading for the information and not the experience. But that kind of alludes the problem I was having. For me, the flow of the story as well as the finer character connections definitely goes out the window to some degree. I can easily read multiple books and grasp the main story, but I guess that isn’t really the reason why I am reading the book in the first place.
I guess my rant is that I am going to stick with one book at a time.
When I read fiction, particularly as a teenager, I was mainly a one book guy. I would often just read
fiction books in a day, rarely longer than a week, often by just ploughing through.
I usually have 3
Right now it’s blue mars by Robinson. Book 3 of a sci fi series and it’s pretty long 700 pages of small type in paperback.
I read about 50 pages and put it down for a bit.
Reading Klara and the sun by Ishiguro. This is my Main book.
Reading far and wide (or something) by Neil Peart. Mostly blog posts turned into a coffee table book
No crossover so I don’t get lost
No way would I read two books by the same author or even same genre. That would be too confusing
For you I would read the stand and come back to the other book.