{"id":309,"date":"2020-12-21T23:15:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T23:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lilith.cc\/~victor\/dagboek\/?p=309"},"modified":"2020-12-21T23:21:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T23:21:52","slug":"the-50-book-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lilith.cc\/~victor\/dagboek\/index.php\/2020\/12\/21\/the-50-book-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"The 50 book challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2019, I read 27 books. But I wanted to read more. I wanted to find a way to motivate myself to pick up a book in the evening, rather than spend time on my phone, or the internet, or playing a computer game, or doing who knows what. I love reading books. But it’s an activity that requires that little extra bit of energy and attention, and sometimes you need to get yourself started. From that, the 50 book challenge<\/em> was born. Could I double my reading and read 50 books in 2020?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is yes. It’s now the 21st of December, and I have read 63 books. (To be entirely honest, I need to read 35 more pages before I’ll have finished number 63, but I don’t think that will be a problem. And I’m going to count any books read after that as my head start for 2021!) That’s a massive increase over last year, and I’m very happy with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My reading was much more diverse too. In 2019, I read 26 books of philosophy and 1 book of fiction. (Jules Verne. When I was feeling ill.) This year, 31 books — half of the list — were books of philosophy, while the rest were books of fiction, poetry, plays, history, psychology, all that good stuff. I’m really glad to have refound my passion for fiction; it’s one of my oldest loves!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m putting the entire list below. But first, what about 2021? Should I do a 50 book challenge again? Here’s one reason against it. While the challenge really worked to motivate me — seeing the number of books climb steadily towards the goal was very satisfying — there’s also an obvious negative side to it: you’re less likely to pick up a massive tome. I know it’s weird, but I really found myself choosing shorter books over longer ones. And while that was fine — and while I did end up reading, say, the pretty thick Black Leopard, Red Wolf<\/em> — it’s a good reason to shake things up a bit for next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve though about doing a page number challenge: read 12.000 pages. Something like that. But that starts to sound like accountancy. So instead, I’m going to do something much more freeform. I’m going to set myself a bunch of more or less clearly defined goals. I don’t need to meet all of them. But it would be nice to meet some of them. And at the end of the year, I’d like to have a reading list I can be proud of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n