We are four days into October and I am still recovering from September. I’m watching television again and listening to music while I drive. Everyone who has read a really good book knows the lonesome feeling of finishing a good book. The first week of October, I’m left with a kind of book hangover after my 30 books in 30 days challenge. This year, I struggled to keep up. I was trying to read longer, more complicated books, with fewer graphic novels and YA fiction than years before. Between work commitments and the longer books, I completed the challenge by the skin of my teeth.
People sometimes ask me why I bother with such an insane challenge. For people who read fewer than 15 books a year, I suppose my frantic reading does seem insane and impossible. The first year I attempted 30 books in 30 days, it was out of boredom. After that, I continued the challenge to round out my yearly number of books read. Before the challenge, according to my Goodreads account, I was 19 books behind on my 80-book goal for 2018. I am now 4 books ahead. (Ideally, I’d like to read 100 books per year, but I have to be realistic.) Without the challenge, I simply don’t remember to read enough. It is so much easier to just… not read. I use the challenge as a way to remind myself how much I love reading, to reinstate a good habit. It is not just about the numbers.
During the challenge, I read a lot of books that I wouldn’t normally read. Generally, my challenge books tend to be under 400 pages. Often, books that I want to read are unavailable at my local library. I can’t afford to buy all the books that I want to read. So, I’ll grab books that look interesting at the library. I end up with an assortment of strange books: celebrity bios, novels I’ve never heard of, memoirs, medical mysteries, and books that were mildly popular a few years ago. I read the equivalent of book junk food, right next to “real” literature. It’s all about balance.
I get too serious with my reading most of the year. I pay too close attention to what other people—reviewers, peers, social media—say I should be reading instead of what I just want to read for the heck of it. Even if a book is terrible, there is usuallysomething I can gain from reading it. If I really don’t like a book, I can just close it. It is ok to not finish reading a book. My reading challenge maybe isn’t for everyone, but I enjoy doing it. There are worse ways to spend my September evenings.
For a full list of books read during the challenge, see my Goodreads account, or my Instagram.